FCC Forecasting 'Possibly November' Broadband Maps Release: Raimondo

The FCC is “forecasting” it will have its revised broadband coverage data maps “possibly” in November, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said during a Wednesday Senate Appropriations Commerce Subcommittee hearing. Raimondo urged swift conference committee action to marry elements of the House-passed America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength Act (HR-4521) and Senate-passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S-1260). She also touted her role in drumming up international support for U.S.-backed ITU secretary-general candidate Doreen Bogdan-Martin.

Raimondo noted the FCC’s November map forecast during a colloquy with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on NTIA’s request for $1 billion in the Commerce Department’s FY 2023 budget proposal for additional funding for the tribal broadband connectivity program. Commerce believes $1 billion will likely be enough to ensure every state “gets enough money so that everyone” who applies for the tribal program gets covered, but that’s not a definitive forecast until the FCC releases its revised maps, Raimondo said. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told the House Communications Subcommittee in March she expected the maps to be ready this fall (see 2203310060). The FCC didn’t comment.

NTIA will meet or potentially beat its Monday deadline for releasing a notice of funding opportunity for the $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment program enacted as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Raimondo told Collins. The NOFO will ask every state to at least submit to NTIA a notice of intent to apply for BEAD money, after which Commerce will give the state a $5 million application grant, Raimondo later told Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. NTIA will also have hired additional staff by the end of this week so every state will have a point of contact for IIJA broadband applications, Raimondo said: “We know it’s a heavy lift and we’re prepared.”

“I really believe it’s time to take action” and reach a deal on an HR-4521/S-1260 compromise, Raimondo told Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. She noted many semiconductor manufacturers intend to expand their facilities this year and have received offers of “huge subsidies” from other countries. “They will have no choice but to build overseas” if Congress isn’t able to reach a deal on HR-4521 and S-1260, Raimondo said. Both measures include $52 billion in subsidies to encourage U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing (see 2201260062) but differ in other areas. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., will convene the conference committee’s first meeting Thursday (see 2205100065).

Raimondo later noted news reports that the Chinese government is actively lobbying against passage of an HR-4521/S-1260 deal. “China doesn’t want us to pass this bill,” she told Capito. “They know this bill will enable” the U.S. to “outcompete them,” including in chip manufacturing. “It just means we have to act now,” particularly because it’s “an issue of national security,” Raimondo said. Capito believes China’s main reason for opposing the measure is its semiconductor language.

Bogdan-Martin’s ITU candidacy is “incredibly important” to countering China and other countries that seek to bring more pro-authoritarian policies at international “technical standards-setting bodies,” Raimondo said. China in particular is “showing up more and more aggressively” in those entities. The U.S. government is “putting our all into helping her and supporting her,” she said. “I’ve been” in Estonia recently “trying to shore up support” for Bogdan-Martin’s candidacy there before ITU members’ September vote at the entity’s Plenipotentiary Conference.

“It's an election,” so there’s no guarantee Bogdan-Martin will win, Raimondo said. “The stakes are high” and “I hope we win.” Bogdan-Martin appears to be the front-runner (see 2205110039). The ITU race between Bogdan-Martin and Russian nominee Rashid Ismailov “should be a reminder to most of the world that we need an open internet, but obviously there are countries who have an interest in the authoritarian model as well,” said Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who raised the issue. He noted the contest comes “at a time when the world is witnessing” Russian President Vladimir Putin “essentially put Russia on lockdown when it comes to any freedom of the internet.”

House Communications Subcommittee Vice Chair Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and fellow Congressional Spectrum Caucus co-Chair Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., meanwhile, led a Wednesday letter with 18 other Commerce Committee members urging House Appropriations Committee leaders to include additional robust funding in FY 2023 funding bills for the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program to repay U.S. carriers for removing from their networks equipment made by Huawei, ZTE and other companies deemed a national security risk. Lawmakers began eyeing potential additional rip and replace funding earlier this year after the FCC estimated in February that participating companies’ reimbursement requests already totaled almost $5.6 billion, almost three times the $1.9 billion Congress allocated to the program via the FY 2021 appropriations and COVID-19 aid omnibus law (see 2203140061).

“This significant funding shortfall has introduced severe uncertainty for these small providers and undercuts internet service providers’ ability to execute their plans to rip and replace network equipment,” the House Commerce members wrote House Appropriations Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and ranking member Kay Granger, R-Texas. “This poses a very significant national security threat and without additional resources, the program cannot fulfill its mandate.” Pending the FCC’s “final review … of these requests, additional funding will be needed for the FCC to execute Congress’s goal of removing all untrusted network equipment in American telecommunications networks,” the lawmakers said. “We expect their work to be completed by” June 15, “at which point they will be able to identify what the unmet funding needs are for the program.”