Wicker Giving 'Serious Look' at RDOF Phase I Acceleration Ahead of Hearing

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., is eyeing legislation as a potential way to speed the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction, among other actions to improve connectivity amid COVID-19. The committee plans a Wednesday hearing to examine the "state of broadband" during the epidemic and related legislative proposals. Other senators also filed broadband-centric bills Thursday.

“We’re going to give a very serious look” at accelerating the RDOF Phase I timeline before its current Oct. 22 start, Wicker told us. “It’s a heavy lift” to start RDOF Phase I early given “publication and notice requirements,” but “we’d love to try.” Wicker said he’s exploring ways to address the issue given NARUC President Brandon Presley (D) and two other Mississippi public service commissioners wrote him about it last week (see 2004290064).

“I started making inquiries last week" with the FCC and others "as to whether this would even be practicable,” Wicker said. “In a federal independent agency” like the FCC, “doing something between now and October seems to them like lightning speed.” He cautioned there remain many unknowns. “I don’t know who would object, I don’t know who might file litigation,” Wicker said. “We certainly don’t want that.” Some stakeholders want RDOF Phase I to be delayed, but there’s a consensus that no change is likely (see 2004280055).

Senate Commerce’s hearing will focus on “legislative proposals focused on addressing the digital divide during the COVID-19 outbreak,” the committee said. It will look at FCC work to expand connectivity during the pandemic and “the impact” of broadband funding included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. The law included $100 million in added funding for the Rural Utilities Service ReConnect rural broadband funding program and $25 million for RUS’ distance learning, telemedicine and broadband program (see 2003250046). Four will testify: Competitive Carriers Association CEO Steven Berry, NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield, Public Knowledge Senior Adviser Gene Kimmelman and USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter. The hearing begins at 10 a.m. in G50 Dirksen.

Presley urged President Donald Trump Thursday to speed release of RDOF funding. “The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the deep digital divide that exists across rural America because so many of our citizens lack access to broadband internet service,” Presley wrote. The approved funding “is doing the American people absolutely no good because the FCC plans to wait until October to begin the process of disbursing the money ... for apparently no good reason.” The FCC didn’t comment.

Presley told us he wrote under his elected state title, but NARUC “could possibly weigh in on this soon." He had collected about 3,250 signatures on a related petition to Trump and Wicker by Thursday morning. Presley tweeted he worked with PSC Republican Chairman Dane Maxwell to “make the appropriate contacts.” Republicans and Democrats “can work together and make things happen for Mississippi,” Presley said.

The hearing should include a witness from a Mississippi rural electric cooperative that handles broadband, Presley tweeted Thursday. He plans to write Wicker about the omission. “It would be a shame to allow some of the very telecom organizations, whose policy positions got us into the digital divide, to be the only ones at the table and only their voices be heard,” Presley said. “Mississippi has very smart co-op managers engaged in broadband who could add to the conversation and bring a truly rural perspective.”

Other Priorities

Wicker told us he’s open to including further broadband funding in future legislation, which Trump and congressional Democrats have repeatedly pushed since CARES Act enactment (see 2004300058). “There is a lot to be said for infrastructure being included in the next phase” of COVID-19 funding, “if there is a next phase,” Wicker said. “If there’s infrastructure included, that should include broadband.” The “expenditure” needed to improve broadband connectivity “Is much more modest and you have something to show for it” in terms of “jobs created and as an asset,” he said.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., filed the National Broadband Plan for the Future Act Thursday to require the FCC to update the National Broadband Plan by July 1, 2021. The bill would require the FCC to assess U.S. progress in increasing broadband access since the original broadband plan’s authorization 10 years ago and examine how COVID-19 has affected remote learning, telework and telehealth capabilities. The pandemic “has shown us that our work is far from done to ensure universal connectivity,” Markey said. “Now more than ever, we see" the necessity of "robust and affordable broadband." Congress should "update the National Broadband Plan so we can continue to invest in our nation’s future by bringing the power and promise of broadband to us all," Markey said.

West Virginia’s senators -- Republican Shelley Moore Capito and Democrat Joe Manchin -- filed a companion version of the Eliminating Barriers to Rural Development Grant Eligibility (E-Bridge) Act (HR-6491) to ease access to Economic Development Administration grants for broadband projects. The bill, first filed in April (see 2004150052), would remove regulatory barriers to EDA grants for broadband deployments in a way that would allow localities to partner with the private sector and give communities more flexibility.

Three Senate Democrats -- Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Ron Wyden of Oregon -- pressed Comcast Thursday to make its public Wi-Fi networks available to students who don’t have home broadband access during the COVID-19 emergency. Widespread shifts to remote learning during the pandemic are burdensome for students “in rural and low-income areas” of the U.S. “who lack reliable internet access at home,” the Democrats wrote CEO Brain Roberts. “With anchor institutions that traditionally provide internet access” to these students “now closed for the duration of the pandemic, many of America’s children are unable to complete their lessons and will likely fall behind their classmates” who have broadband.

Comcast “has taken multiple unprecedented steps to make broadband more accessible during this crisis,” a spokesperson emailed. “We’ve offered free internet for 60 days for new low-income customers eligible for our Internet Essentials program. We opened our 1.5 million business and outdoor [Wi-Fi] hotspots for anyone to use for free across the country for the first time, and are keeping them open until June 30. We have committed not to disconnect service or to charge late fees to our customers who are unable to pay due to the pandemic.”