CCG Consulting

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a public workshop for December 10 at 3:00 EST to describe the process for challenging the FCC cellular data maps. The primary purpose is to discuss how local governments can submit bulk challenges to the FCC cellular data map. In September, the FCC announced a new $9 billion 5G Fund for Rural America that will be used to bring cell towers to rural areas with poor coverage.

A change of administration brings a change to the Federal Communications Commission as the majority swings from Democratic to Republican. I’ve always maintained a regulatory wish list, and the following are my hopes for what we’ll see out of the new FCC. These aren’t predictions—just my own list of hopes. 

To the dismay of other internet service providers, the three Fixed Wireless Access cellular carriers continued to perform well in the third quarter of 2024, and collectively picked up 913,000 net customers in the quarter, just 20,000 fewer than in the second quarter. The big cable companies continue to lose customers. However, both Comcast and Charter reported that they would have had small customer gains for the quarter except for losses due to the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). We’re liable to hear more about the impact of ACP with the year-end customer numbers. 

Any time there is a change of administration at the White House the Federal Communications Commission gets a new Chairman and a new agenda—and we now know the new Chairman will be current Commissioner Brandon Carr. With a new Chairman comes new policies, but also a turn against some of the policies of the previous FCC. There are a few things that obviously get reversed. First is net neutrality, which is poorly named and is really an effort to put some regulatory oversight on broadband. It seems likely that Commissioner Carr will reverse Chairman Rosenworcel’s decision on discrimination.

As a country we have a very short memory when it comes to broadband. Anybody in their late 40s or older clearly remembers twenty-five years ago when the predominant form of broadband was dial-up and we were seeing the first DSL and cable modem trials in the market. But I think most people have forgotten about the state of broadband just ten years ago. We’ve made extraordinary strides with broadband speeds in just ten years. Cable companies now routinely offer gigabit speeds and millions of new fiber passings are being built every year.

There has been a lot of speculation since the election that the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program is going to get revamped. This raises the interesting question if it’s too late for a new administration to make major changes to the BEAD program. There is also the question of the process needed to change the BEAD rules. The BEAD rules were created by Congress, and it seems that Congress would have to act to change the rules. There are several ways the administration could give more funding for satellite.

We’re about to see the fourth change of the party in the White House in this century, and that means a fourth time that telecommunications regulations will flip-flop in what I’ve called the regulatory yoyo. Regulatory policies have always changed to some extent when the party in power changes, but in this century, the degree of change from administration to administration is more intense than what we saw in the past. Much of the regulatory yoyo comes from attempts to regulate broadband.

Charter CFO Jessica Fisher recently announced that Charter will spend substantially less on pursuing Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants than the company spent on Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) [funny wording for how a company wins federal money]. This is big news because a natural assumption in some state broadband offices is that Charter would likely be a big player in the BEAD grant process.

On August 22, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threatened significant fines for eleven internet service providers (ISPs) that failed to participate in the FCC broadband data collection and mapping process. These ISPs have been issued several warnings from the FCC to begin complying with the broadband mapping rules.

I’ve been peppered with questions about the impact of the change of administration on the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program. I don’t have any better crystal ball than anybody else. But it’s not hard to speculate on the kinds of changes that might come. Some possible paths for BEAD: