BDAC Hung Up on Several Issues, Says State Member

BALTIMORE -- Many broadband deployment questions went unanswered at last week’s meeting of the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee because members couldn’t reach consensus, said state commissioners’ lone BDAC member Karen Charles Peterson. On a Tuesday panel at the NARUC annual meeting (see 1711140028), the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable commissioner repeatedly urged attendees to file comments in FCC docket 17-83 responding to Thursday’s meeting (see 1711090054). The BDAC debates on infrastructure seem to focus on urban areas, but it’s important not to forget that many rural areas don’t have any broadband, said Colorado Public Utilities Commissioner Wendy Moser.

Local governments have many concerns about BDAC, including objections to proposals to shorten shot clocks, remove opportunities for public input and limit compensation to local governments for cost of processing applications, said Mitsuko Herrera, cable communications administrator for Montgomery County, Maryland. Parity seems to be lacking on shot clocks, with the federal government getting much more time than state and local governments, she said. It would be fine to limit local fees to market rates, but requiring zero or very little compensation is problematic, Herrera said. Also, there’s been no discussion of giving governments access to private infrastructure for free or allowing different levels of government fees in different-sized jurisdictions, she said. It’s “disingenuous” to suggest that pre-empting Baltimore will lead to deployment in rural Maryland, she added.

“I hear everything you just said and agree with everything you just said,” Peterson replied. The BDAC had “long discussions” about many of those issues and “one of the main reasons we didn’t have as many vote items at Thursday’s meeting is because we didn’t come to agreement on those issues,” she said. File comments before the next meeting scheduled Jan. 23-24, Peterson urged.

Don’t refer to electric companies as a barrier to telecom deployment, said Allen Bell, another BDAC member and a manager at Georgia Power. Wireless deployments raise challenging issues, he said: “What we’re trying to do is fit the wireless issues into the wireline rules, and they don’t work very well.” Another BDAC member, Comcast Vice President-Regulatory Policy David Don, said he advocated a tech-neutral view. Comcast already is deploying fiber and is against creating “winners and losers through the regulatory process,” he said. “We are interested in seeing a streamlined approach, but we want to make it happen across all sectors.”

"This is a rollout that's kind of coming from the top down” and state regulators “will be cleaning up,” said Moser. She predicted state agencies will receive many complaints from customers, regulated utilities and telecom providers. “The buck will probably stop at the state commissions.”

Don’t forget rural areas with no broadband, said Moser. Conversation seems focused on urban areas, she said. In rural areas, “the focus is on getting broadband and service to people who have nothing, not how do we decorate the light pole so that it looks good.” State utility regulators must balance telecom and electric needs when looking at pole sharing, Moser said. Adding more equipment to electric infrastructure might increase risk to the grid, she said.