Eshoo, Wicker Outline Telecom Agendas, Hopes for Broader Rewrite
The Senate Communications Subcommittee will take a swing in the months ahead at a Communications Act overhaul, FCC oversight and making more spectrum available, Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said Tuesday at Comptel’s Washington summit. He emphasized the FCC’s responsibility “to encourage expansion of rural broadband” and cited a letter he wrote the agency last year to make sure rural consumers receive access to Mobility Fund II support.
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Lawmakers need to agree on bipartisan principles in embarking on a Communications Act overhaul, House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said in a separate discussion at the Comptel summit. “Otherwise it’s trying to get socks on an octopus,” Eshoo said, envisioning members bringing in “laundry lists” of issues that bog down the process. “That’s not really a healthy and professional way, I think, to move forward with a construct.”
“Our opinion is that the AWS-3 auction was not only successful, it was surprisingly successful,” Wicker said, expressing hope that the broadcast TV incentive auction can be successful, too. “I think we will look at the USF as a major part of any discussion of rewriting the '96 act,” Wicker said, saying it’s important for Mississippi due to life-saving, first responder and precision agriculture technologies. “There seems to be a question with the commission of whether they’ll go forward with Mobility Fund II and it is my hope that we will and that the committee can encourage a rural buildout to make available to rural families these technologies that I mentioned as well as others,” Wicker said.
Wicker pressed Comptel CEO Chip Pickering on Comptel’s legislative priorities. Comptel’s goals include overhaul of the FCC and USF, a “deployment agenda” focused on removing barriers to entry, encouraging sharing of poles and conduits, and developing best practices for cities and municipalities, Pickering told him. Pickering also pressed for retransmission consent overhaul. “We think that the pricing in the market is broken in video,” he said, saying legislation is necessary. One big question for Comptel is how to build networks in the last mile, Pickering said. “If something’s going to move out of the Senate, it’s going to have to be bipartisan,” Wicker said. Pickering said Comptel members will lobby Capitol Hill Wednesday.
Eshoo emphasized her desire to overhaul retrans rules in reviewing telecom law and an ongoing “partnership” with House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., on this front. Both she and Scalise introduced separate pieces of legislation last Congress tackling retrans. Consumers' “patience is really running out,” and the key now is building support, “especially in markets where members’ constituents have essentially been screwed -- that’s a good place to start,” she said.
Panelists agreed on the need for a Capitol Hill telecom overhaul, at a separate event Tuesday hosted by the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. Larry Downes, a project director for the center, called the light-touch approach codified in the 1996 Telecom Act “probably the most valuable policy innovation we’ve had in the last 100 years” and warned against Title II reclassification. Downes is to testify Wednesday before the House Communications Subcommittee on net neutrality and Title II. “The structure of the FCC reflects the structure of the act,” Downes said, suggesting that in an IP-based environment, it doesn't make sense to regulate through silos, “clearly a cause of at least inefficiency if not actual mistakes in policy.” Downes backed regulating “more holistically” in any rewrite. “The prioritization bugaboo is really a red herring,” Downes said. “It’s always been about Title II [and] going back to a much more regulated regime.”
Most disruptive in telecom “is the introduction of the Internet Protocol-based communications, which has broadened tremendously the basis on which firms compete,” said John Mayo, the center’s executive director. He predicted that lacking “legislative guidance,” there will remain “tumultuous” bouncing between regulation and judicial wrangling. Mayo also criticized the different regulatory silos and the way FCC bureaus follow those.
One crucial component is education for lawmakers and sharing stories rather than using industry jargon, Eshoo said. “Members either have to be re-inoculated,” potentially through a roundtable discussion process with stakeholders, Eshoo said, as she believes the lack of familiarity to be responsible for some partisan rifts in telecom. “I think stories need to be told to members. Too often people come in and speak the language that industry speaks to one another, which is another language,” she said, whereas stories “remain with people. You don’t go to bed and dream about interconnection. Unless it’s with a human being.”