5G Fund, Streamlined Space Rules Top FCC's Sept. 21 Meeting Agenda

The FCC will consider an item at its Sept. 21 meeting that would move the agency closer to launching a 5G Fund, which has been pending since 2020, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Wednesday. Also planned for the September agenda is what Rosenworcel calls a “transparency initiative” for space-related applications and an action aimed at clamping down on “malicious” robocalls.

Commissioners approved a $9 billion 5G Fund in October 2020, under former Chairman Ajit Pai, over partial dissents by Rosenworcel and Commissioner Geoffrey Starks (see 2010270034). “We’re building this auction without grounding it in any real-world data,” with the FCC “still slow-rolling efforts to fix our maps,” Rosenworcel said then.

“The need for high-speed mobile services has never been more critical, yet there are some areas of our country that continue to lack access to any mobile broadband service at all,” Rosenworcel said Wednesday. The fund “was created to ensure the deployment of next-generation, high-speed mobile service in areas of the country where, absent subsidies, it will continue to be lacking,” she said: “The Commission will vote to explore a series of questions on how best to harness new, granular, and improved mobile coverage data from our Broadband Data Collection to better target 5G Fund support to those areas of the country where support is most needed and where the funds could be spent most efficiently.”

The Congressional Research Service noted in a recent report that members of Congress questioned “whether 5G Fund amounts allocated by the FCC will be sufficient to meet rural mobile service coverage needs.” Others “raised questions concerning the FCC’s management of USF funds -- a fund that collects and redistributes fees from service providers to fulfill universal service goals,” CRS said: “Others have proposed new programs to expand fixed and wireless service in rural areas.”

The space transparency initiative is intended to help applicants understand the application process, which can be complex for new entrants, a space industry executive familiar with the proposal told us. He said the initiative could include seminars. Rosenworcel said the initiative will be part of proposed streamlined satellite rules that also would expedite processing applications.

The FCC is also bent on “making life harder for malicious robocallers,” Rosenworcel said. “Widely available VoIP software can allow bad actors to make spoofed robocalls with minimal technical experience and cost,” she said: “The FCC will vote on rules to modernize direct access to numbers by providers of VoIP services. The changes would safeguard our finite numbering resources while seeking to curb robocalls and reduce the opportunity for regulatory arbitrage.” The rules would also “establish guidelines to protect national security,” she said.

Commissioners will also vote on an order to update numerous FCC rules for full-power and Class A TV stations to reflect the changeover from analog to digital and the broadcast incentive auction repacking, said Rosenworcel. The update was teed-up by an NPRM approved unanimously in September 2022 (see 2209290017). Commissioner Nathan Simington then called proposals to update references to analog TV stations in the agency’s rules “vital” but “not the most glamorous.”

In comments filed in April, NAB raised concerns about some proposed changes to the methods for calculating stations’ geographic coordinates and radiated power. Updating and streamlining rules shouldn’t “create substantive harm to broadcasters or their viewers through ministerial updates that are inconsistent with current recommended practices and may have unintended consequences,” NAB said.

The current rules “have not been comprehensively reviewed in decades” and don’t “reflect the current operating environment,” Rosenworcel said Wednesday.