NATOA Focuses on Broadband Infrastructure

Boosting broadband access and digital equity will be local government priorities in the year ahead, especially with federal infrastructure money expected to come to states, NATOA President Brian Roberts and General Counsel Nancy Werner said in an interview during the association’s annual conference. Our survey found general member support for meeting virtually.

Roberts expects the infrastructure bill will drive local telecom work. It would have many things important to municipalities, including broadband, digital equity and cybersecurity, he said. “Those will become our priorities.” Localities will have to engage more with states since much of the proposed funding is in the form of block grants to states, he said. The association won’t directly go into states, but it can help share information among members about best practices for state work, he said. NATOA can also seek to ensure federal guidelines are clear that states can’t add municipal restrictions to funds, Werner said. The group would prefer money go directly to local governments rather than via states, “but we will keep working on that and connecting local governments to their states for this funding” for infrastructure deployment and affordability and inclusion programs, she said: NATOA would still like to see local programs made directly eligible for the emergency broadband benefit.

Cable franchise and small cells will continue to be issues at the federal level, “because the impact they have on local authority makes it more challenging for local governments to deal with broadband issues,” the general counsel said. Buildout requirements in franchise agreements lead to better broadband, “so the strain on cable franchising” from the 2019 FCC order partly upheld by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “is going to become more and more apparent,” Werner said. Fee caps in the 2018 wireless infrastructure order mostly upheld by the 9th Circuit “have made it difficult for local governments who are trying to steer small-cell deployment to underserved areas” or fund digital equity programs, she said.

Having only four commissioners is a hurdle to getting the FCC to revisit those cable and wireless issues, said Werner, saying getting to five members and a permanent chair would help clarify commission priorities. The possibility of the commission shrinking to three members with two Republicans and one Democrat is concerning, she said. “That’s not the way the commission is designed to function.” Some have heard chatter that a former state regulator could be named (see 2109220049).

Small Cells

California could soon join more than 30 states with a small-cells bill that preempts local governments in an effort to streamline 5G deployment. Municipal groups are seeking a veto from Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), formerly San Francisco’s mayor (see 2109030016). The bill includes a preamble about digital equity but “does nothing to influence provider behavior in any way to have them expand into underserved, low-income neighborhoods or rural areas,” said Roberts, policy consultant for San Francisco: it undermines Newsom’s recent $6 billion broadband bill. San Francisco supports vetoing SB-556, emailed Edward McCaffrey, manager-state and federal affairs for San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D).

Localities aren’t giving up the battle against small-cells preemption even with so many states enacting bills and FCC rules upheld in the courts, said Roberts. State legislatures might want to revisit the policies if they don’t lead, as promised, to more access in low-income and rural parts of the state, he said. The FCC might respond for the same reason, said Werner. “We’ve seen a few states revisit the preemptions or barriers to municipal broadband projects in recent years, and I think we might see the same thing.”

"This is far from over," Best Best's Joe Van Eaton said about the 6th Circuit decision, on a panel Thursday. "A group of communities" will ask the Supreme Court in November to review parts of it, he said. And the FCC will have to revisit rejected rules, including the court ruling that the FCC should use an operator's marginal cost rather than fair market value for in-kind costs, he said. That could be an opportunity to make things more favorable to cities, he said.

It's a “big deal” that Maine passed on a bipartisan basis and the 1st Circuit upheld a law requiring cable broadband networks to extend to areas that meet certain population density and public, educational and government (PEG) channel information be available on online channel guides, said Bradley Law’s Mike Bradley. Localities in other states should look to Maine as a “case study,” he said.

COVID-19

NATOA decided in November on a web-based 2021 conference, even as some other conferences decided to go ahead with hybrid or fully in-person events (see 2103190004). NATOA Executive Director Tonya Rideout said next year’s Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 conference will be in-person in Denver (see 2109210073).

The decision to hold a second-straight online conference didn’t surprise Roberts due to continuing uncertainty about this pandemic and muni budgets, he said. It was “sobering” when San Francisco’s city administrator told staff in April 2020 not to expect to return to the office until at least July 2021, Roberts said. “Enough of us in local government got those kind of messages that we should expect the pandemic to be” long-lasting, he said.

“We thought even if the pandemic is not an issue for in-person, we were really concerned that our members just wouldn’t have a budget to be able to travel to a conference given the impacts of COVID,” Werner said. The delta variant extended economic impacts locally, said Roberts.

The pandemic accelerated IT work in San Francisco, including enabling remote working and setting up hubs to support distance learning, said Roberts. The wireless industry raised concerns last year about a slowdown in permitting processes, but localities “quickly figured out how they could continue to issue permits remotely,” said Werner.

NATOA past President Ken Fellman was “disappointed months ago when they said they weren’t going to do an in-person conference,” but after the delta variant surged the local government attorney felt “incredibly relieved.” Another past president, CTC Technology & Energy President Joanne Hovis, said her consulting firm isn’t “attending conferences in person at the moment, so the option to attend a virtual conference was a big benefit for me and my colleagues.” Going virtual turned out to be a “very sound decision,” said past President Jodie Miller, Northern Dakota County Cable Communications Commission executive director: Continuing local budget constraints might necessitate a hybrid option next year.

“We probably could have gotten away with an in-person meeting, with appropriate precautions,” but that was hard to predict when the call was made, emailed Rick Ellrod, Communications Policy and Regulation Division director for Fairfax County, Virginia. “I’m just as satisfied to play it safe this year, and look forward with some confidence to a live meeting next year.” An in-person event probably wasn’t viable, emailed ultraMontgomery Program Director Mitsuko Herrera in Montgomery County, Maryland. Local government “approval and funding for out of town travel is happening on a case-by-case basis,” and some tested positive after recent Maryland Association of Counties and broadband conferences, she said. Kitch's Mike Watza said he couldn't travel due to health issues but still missed much of the conference, since a problem with virtual is that even paid-for attendance gets "trumped by other immediate pressing matters."

NATOA “allowed all of us to avoid getting on planes and sitting in rooms during an up cycle in the Covid pandemic,” emailed Best Best's Gerard Lederer, who said he wouldn’t have attended in person due to family medical concerns. Coalition for Local Internet Choice Project Manager Catharine Rice was happy for the virtual event since many federal workers are allowed only essential travel and many governments cut travel budgets, she said. “The idea of meeting in any kind of hermetically sealed hotel building, during a time when the delta variant keeps pushing COVID numbers higher, and when it is pretty much impossible to police mask wearing or distancing, or insisting on proof of vaccination for participating, is not my idea of a smart way of being educated on communications issues.”