FCC Expected To Miss Deadline on Broadband Plan
The FCC has warned Congress that the National Broadband Plan won’t be ready in time, commission and Capitol Hill officials confirmed. The plan is supposed to be submitted to Congress Feb. 17, according to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The plan has been the focus of a huge push at the agency and is the major agenda item of Chairman Julius Genachowski. Officials said the regulator is having difficulty wrapping up the huge job by the due date. Genachowski has formally asked for more time from Congress.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The FCC and Genachowski wouldn’t face any actual penalties if the agency fails to submit the plan by the congressionally mandated deadline.
"There’s no recourse,” said one former FCC official. “What’s somebody going to do? Nothing happens. The FCC is just late. It’s embarrassing, but it’s not beyond embarrassing.” A second former FCC official said he’s not surprised the commission is having trouble completing the report. “There’s no legal repercussions. It’s a relationship issue,” the person said. “It’s not too surprising. It’s such a massive undertaking. It seems like they're still looking for information.”
Public Knowledge Legal Director Harold Feld said he isn’t surprised more time may be needed by the FCC “The fact is, this is a really difficult job that could not properly get underway until half the time was already expired, owing to how long it took them to get the leadership for the project in place, let alone get properly staffed,” he said. “There are a lot of moving parts here. And everyone who wanted to see a real plan of action agreed that we lacked critical real data for making a decision.” Feld said the commissioners will want to be fully briefed before the report goes out, which could take additional time. “It’s wise to let the deadline slip a little and get a much better result, rather than something rushed and where the commissioners feel they were excluded from the process,” he said. “At the same time, everyone realizes this can’t slip indefinitely. It’s one thing to ask for an extension of a week or even a month, but no one is going to say take all the time you need.”
"I am a bit surprised after all the emphasis on the deadline,” said President Randolph May of the Free State Foundation. “I don’t think it is a calamity if the deadline slips for a couple of weeks, although it would be a different story if it slipped more than that. It’s time to stop the information-gathering, which probably went on too long anyway, and just concentrate on writing a focused report with clear recommendations that are not unrealistically ambitious.” A the difficulty is that “the marketplace is changing and technologies are advancing even as they put pen to paper,” he said. “Of course, this dynamism just emphasizes that the plan should be grounded in regulatory modesty.”
The FCC broadband team will present a further update on the status of the National Broadband Plan, addressing the national purposes part of the plan, at the commission’s Jan. 20 meeting. The agency isn’t finished collecting comments on the plan. Comments are due Friday on the team’s 28th public notice, seeking feedback on “potential private sector and government funding vehicles for effective financing of broadband deployment projects in rural and high cost areas.” The commission has held 35 workshops and nine field hearings in preparation for writing the plan.
While not commenting on the plan’s delay, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said it must be more than a “plan for a plan,” in a Tuesday op-ed in The Hill’s technology blog. The top Republican on the Commerce Committee said the FCC needs to set goals for deployment and performance measures to track and assess progress. Hutchison said the report should discuss options for increasing spectrum availability, looking at spectrum use by commercial entities and the government. State and local governments also must be included in executing a National Broadband Plan strategy, she said. Hutchison is running for governor of Texas.
The “forthcoming report to Congress can be a catalyst for decisive action” to bring broadband to all Americans and close the technology gap between the U.S. and other countries, Hutchison said. “For that to happen, the report must itself be bold and comprehensive.”
Oversight of the plan, whenever it’s delivered, is on the top of the House Communications Subcommittee agenda, Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., said in The Hill’s technology blog. The subcommittee will be taking a close look at the broadband stimulus grant program and marking up legislation to revamp the universal service program that Boucher and Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., have drafted. Several members who contributed to the blog urged immediate planning to tally available spectrum and start planning for freeing it up, to meet growing demand for broadband services.
"If spectrum is the oxygen of the wireless world, then the wireless world is at risk of suffocation if the government does not act soon to address the United States’s looming spectrum shortage,” said Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Ensign, R-Nev. “Congress has a chance right now to work together in a bipartisan manner” to create spectrum plan, which should include market-based solutions, he said. “Historically, it has taken policymakers six to 13 years to free up spectrum for auctions, and that does not include how long it takes for spectrum holders to fully utilize those new holdings.”
The need for spectrum must be balanced against national security interests, said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, writing in the technology blog. NTIA and FCC need to rigorously eliminate inefficiencies in spectrum allocation but keep in mind that military, intelligence and homeland security agencies also face increased needs for more broadband, he said. When it comes to broadband and innovation, the U.S. has every reason to feel proud. But the nation can’t rest on its laurels, he said. “The future of our nation’s leadership in innovation and technology, and indeed in the global economy, lies in the balance. We cannot afford to waste time.”