A Federal Communications Commission member who is pushing a private provider-friendly digital empowerment agenda doubled down on his plan at a conference this week.
PAI: Regulatory barriers are a major impediment to free-market broadband growth.
Republican commissioner Ajit Pai talked about removing barriers to broadband growth at the CTIA Wireless Foundation’s Smart Cities Expo in Washington, D.C. While his plan could boost the internet’s free-market growth in an age of increased local government interest in building broadband networks, it might rankle states’ rights advocates: Pai said the FCC should use its statutory authority to preempt state and local telecommunications laws that cause a virtual roadblock.
Pai noted Wednesday that removing regulatory barriers is the main focus of his plan.
“No one level of government has a monopoly on regulatory inertia,” Pai said. “That’s why federal, state and local governments all need to adopt a broadband deployment agenda that will bring 21st-century digital opportunity to American communities. We can’t let unnecessary regulations be a bottleneck that slows our march toward 5G and smart cities.”
Pai mentioned a handful of issues: long permitting processes; unreasonable fees for access to local rights of way; costs that pole owners charge for preparing for equipment attachment; a need for “dig once” policies so all road projects include plans for installing conduit for fiber-optic cables; and a model to expedite broadband deployment on federal lands.
“We need forward-thinking policies that will incentivize providers large and small to deploy broadband networks,” he said.
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Pole attachments have been the source of heated battles between private providers in Louisville and Nashville, where existing telecom companies, led by AT&T, are fighting city ordinances created to help the rollout of Google Fiber. The incumbents have sued, arguing the new laws violate their private property rights.
Pai thinks Congress should expand the FCC’s authority over pole attachments.
“Right now, we don’t have jurisdiction over poles owned by government authorities … Congress could easily fix this gap,” he said.
Pai also said the FCC should create a Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee to develop model code for municipalities that want to encourage deployment.
That code would cover “local franchising, zoning, permitting and rights-of-ways regulations,” Pai said. “Its approach should be forward-looking and fair, balancing the legitimate interests of municipalities with the ever-growing demands of the American public for better, faster and cheaper broadband.”
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Also this week, Pai took a not-so-subtle dig at FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and the majority Democrats on the commission.
In a statement Thursday in response to the FCC’s request for public comments on its biennial review of telecom regulations, Pai wrote that the commission merely paid lip service to the review in 2014 and expects that to happen again this year. The review “is a simple and powerful tool for scrubbing outdated regulations from our books and promoting private sector innovation and investment,” he wrote.
“The Commission unfortunately has treated the law in much the same way that The Dude handled bowling taunts in The Big Lebowski: ‘Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man,’” Pai wrote.