US 'in Great Shape' in Global 5G Race, Early to Turn Eye to 6G: Carr

The U.S. is “in great shape” on 5G competition internationally, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told a Media Institute virtual event Thursday. He said the agency's approach over the past five or six years of freeing up spectrum and lowering infrastructure barriers has been a proven success. He waved off former Google Executive Chairman CEO Eric Schmidt's repeated warnings of the U.S. lagging behind other nations such as China as "the Chicken Little of 5G leadership." Google didn't comment. Carr said more should be done in spectrum availability and infrastructure reform, citing completion of the 2.5 GHz auction and authorizing very low power use in the 6 GHz band as goals. Asked about 6G planning, Carr said the U.S. could start contemplating issues like the terahertz spectrum it might require, but the U.S. has "got to tend to our knitting" with 5G foremost. Asked about the likelihood of a resumption of net neutrality rules, he said it's "largely baked in" that the agency will at least debate a return to Communications Act Title II rules, though he was dismissive. "It's such an old debate of the past," he said, saying regulatory focus shouldn't be on ISPs but on edge provider behavior. He said if rate regulation were taken off the table, it would be relatively easy to find consensus about net neutrality rules for blocking and throttling. He said there could be a route for Communications Decency Act Section 230 changes that puts an affirmative anti-discrimination requirement on platforms while remaining consistent with the First Amendment. He said the Supreme Court's rulings on the First Amendment, when put on a continuum, include an opening for regulating tech companies' actions as a speech conduit while not implicating the First Amendment. Asked whether the FCC's 2018 broadcast ownership quadrennial review is likely to get done in 2022, Carr said there "is some precedent" for rolling it over: "These may start to run together a little bit."