Walden Seeks State Partnership in Spreading Broadband Infrastructure

States and the federal government are partners in a “common cause” promoting good communications policy, House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Monday at a NARUC meeting. Walden urged states and local governments to look at cutting red tape holding back broadband deployment as Congress considers President Donald Trump’s proposed $1 trillion infrastructure package. Congressional aides from both parties said they hoped for bipartisan consensus on the infrastructure package but said a Telecom Act rewrite may still be a long way off.

“We recognize the valuable role of the states in telecommunications policy and see ourselves as a partner in common cause for the people we jointly serve,” Walden told state regulators. The Commerce Committee has a state connection in Walden's lead staffer Ray Baum, who was on the Oregon Public Utilities Commission from 2003 to 2011. States can help remove red tape in permitting processes holding up broadband, said Walden. “State and local governments should give a new look to their rules, especially in light of the immensely important role that fiber plays in our modern economy.”

The communications sector suffered from overregulation by the FCC, Walden said. To prevent further “regulatory creep,” Congress should set clear policy through its reauthorization of the agency, he said. The Commerce Committee Chairman praised FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s changes to FCC process as key to restoring public faith in government: “To make the public’s business more public is the right thing to do.”

Expanding broadband is a “very bipartisan issue,” House Commerce counsel Grace Koh said. Jamie Susskind, chief counsel for Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., agreed but said how to pay for it is a big concern for Republicans. Fischer would prefer a series of infrastructure measures rather than one large package, she said. Senate Democrats want to see more than tax policy changes to pay for infrastructure, said Shawn Bone, counsel for Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla. Senate Democrats proposed a blueprint for infrastructure funding including $20 billion for broadband (see 1701240067). Tax breaks and private-public partnerships alone put too much focus on the private sector, said Philip Murphy, legislative director for Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., new ranking member on the House Communications Subcommittee. Government should also fund projects that may not have a private partner, he said.

The aides disagreed where to focus broadband funds. Democratic aides said funding should cover underserved areas in addition to unserved areas. Republican aides said they wouldn't want to fund “overbuilding” in areas that already have broadband service. Murphy and Koh agreed collecting more broadband data would inform decisions on where to build.

Aides supported a Telecom Act rewrite but cautioned the legislation will take time. It probably won’t be this year, said Koh. A rewrite is “contingent” on resolving the net neutrality debate, said Murphy. It might be better to resolve that issue before moving onto a larger Telecom Act overhaul, said Susskind. Neither Democrats nor Republicans want blocking or throttling, the Fischer aide said: "Nobody wants anything less than an open internet." With more political shifts possible in the future, legislation on the subject would provide the greatest long-term stability, aides agreed.

It’s time to put the Telecom Act “out to pasture,” USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter said on a keynote panel about infrastructure. The 1996 statute spurred rapid technological change, but is now "so old that I wonder if it's misshaping that innovation,” Spalter said. It’s a “breathtaking proposition” that broadband will be included under Trump’s infrastructure package, but industry also is investing on its own and wants to see policy that supports that investment, he said. It’s not a “binary choice” between supporting consumers and industry investment, he said.

The NARUC Winter Meeting is having record attendance, with more than 1,650 registered, President Robert Powelson said.

NARUC Notebook

The FTC is ready to help the FCC rejigger broadband privacy rules, said Neil Chilson, attorney adviser to FTC Acting Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who dissented from the FCC broadband privacy order when he was a commissioner in the minority, is expected now as the FCC head to give the rules a second look. When the FCC was developing the rules, the FTC raised concerns about focusing on the entity holding the data rather than the content of the data, Chilson said on a Monday panel at a NARUC meeting. The FTC also said drafting different rules for ISPs and other internet companies was “not optimal,” a “polite phrase” for the FTC’s objection, Chilson said. The FCC adjusted its approach slightly in response to FTC and ISP feedback, but not enough to resolve all of Ohlhausen’s concerns, the aide said. USTelecom Senior Vice President-Law & Policy Jonathan Banks supported reconsidering the ISP privacy rules and returning to the privacy enforcement regime that was working before: "We’re interested in getting back to the world of 2015.” Public Knowledge Policy Fellow Dallas Harris disagreed, saying consumers felt they lost control of their data under the old approach. It doesn't send a good message to an already distrustful electorate for lawmakers to make removing privacy protections their first post-election priority, she said. The electorate doesn't like policymakers making choices for them, Chilson said.

The local number portability administrator transition remains on track for a May 2018 finish, said the LNPA transition oversight manager and an iconectiv official at NARUC Monday (see 1608090048). About 42 percent of users have started the onboarding process, said oversight manager Bill Reilly, director-advisory services at PwC. Getting 100 percent of users on board is critical to ensuring people can continue to port numbers between phone companies, said iconective General Manager-Number Portability Services Kathy Timko: "We're trying to make this as simple and as streamlined as possible."