S&P Global

Time is not on the side of Gigi Sohn, the White House's embattled pick for the open seat on the Federal Communications Commission. Tapped in October of 2021 to help carry out the Biden administration's broadband policy agenda, Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] has faced two Senate hearings that examined her social media activity and her recusals from key FCC business items.

Nathan Simington is the newest commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission, but just one year into his role, the former National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) official is bringing his all to the table. The Republican commissioner recently spoke about his reaction to the FCC and NTIA's newly announced Spectrum Coordination Initiative, as well as his views on inter-agency collaboration and social media regulation.

A new report from Kagan, the media research unit of S&P Global, shows that broadband subscriber growth has "cooled significantly in the third quarter" of 2021, stalling in growth for the first time in three years. The decline can be attributed to "a difficult comparison with the booming gains of 2020," the report says. Cable providers Comcast and Charter Communications both had fewer internet net adds in the third quarter of 2021 compared to 2020. For the third quarter, Comcast reported 300,000 net adds in broadband customers.

President Joe Biden is ready to fill some key vacancies at the Federal Communications Commission. The White House has nominated current Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel for permanent chair of the agency and Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] to sit as the third Democratic commissioner on the FCC. The nominations are not a surprise in the telecom world according to Blair Levin of New Street Research. Senate confirmations for the picks are still needed.

Since January, the Federal Communications Commission has been deadlocked in a 2-2 partisan split, and the White House has yet to nominate a new commissioner to complete the agency's typical five-person lineup. With Congress about to emerge from its August recess, President Joe Biden has four months before the end of the calendar year to make a pick.

Of the $65 billion that the infrastructure bill allocates for broadband projects, $14.20 billion is set aside for the establishment of the Affordable Connectivity Fund. The fund is an extension and reworking of the existing $3.2 billion Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) Program, a subsidy program established during the pandemic to help low-income households and Americans laid off during the pandemic stay connected to the internet. While the EBB was seen as temporary, the new fund is seen as more indefinite.

The Federal Communications Commission could look very different next year, even if President Donald Trump is reelected. If President Trump wins a second term, industry observers believe the agency will push ahead with the administration's desire to reform a prized legal shield for content moderation on online platforms and remain focused on expanding rural broadband policies.