Opinion: FCC proves it doesn’t get the innovation economy
Silicon Valley has long suspected — after the Federal Communications Commission’s assaults on net neutrality and online privacy — that the FCC doesn’t get the needs of an innovation economy. The FCC’s Sept. 28 order should erase all doubts — particularly for the millions of low-income families stranded on the wrong side of the digital divide.
In September, the FCC capped fees that telecommunications companies pay to cities to lease public street light poles. AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint mount “small cell” devices on those poles to bolster their wireless networks, accelerating data transmission and enabling next-generation 5G functionality.
Here’s the problem: Big Telecom has no legal obligation to serve less profitable, low-income communities. This leaves schools and cities scrambling to find public resources to enable students to simply complete their homework online. By undermining efforts of local communities to fairly negotiate fees with the industry, the FCC diverted resources that cities need for more equitable broadband access.
In effect, Big Telecom got a $2 billion subsidy, paid for by local taxpayers — and the poor.
In last week‘s New York Times (“Why San Jose kids do their homework in parking lots”), I criticized the FCC for undermining local efforts to improve digital equity.
That didn’t sit well with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee who previously represented Big Telecom clients. In response, Carr launched a Trumpesque Twitter tirade — eliciting puzzled ridicule in the media — to attack San Jose and its “failed broadband policies.” Rather than debating the merits of the issues, Carr continued his attacks in an oped in last Thursday’s Mercury News, to condemn my “record of broadband failure.”
The same week, San Jose received a national award for its broadband and digital inclusion initiatives. Apparently, not everyone agrees with Commissioner Carr.
While Carr’s falsehoods don’t deserve credence, they do deserve scrutiny. For example, Carr claimed San Jose failed to permit any small cell installations and blocked industry investment in small cell infrastructure.
To the contrary, San Jose pioneered efforts to implement small cell-bearing “smart poles” three years ago. More recently, San Jose struck agreements for the installation of 4,000 small cells, the largest deployment of any city in the nation. These agreements balance our desire for innovation with the imperative for more San Joseans to benefit from that innovation. They create a fund to sustain digital inclusion initiatives, such as our partnership with the East Side Union High School District to expand digital access for their students and families.
Next, Carr parroted industry lobbyists asserting that imposing lease fee caps in cities would provide more money for Big Telecom to invest more in cost-challenged rural areas. All evidence points to the contrary. It should not surprise anyone that companies share windfalls with shareholders, not with new customers in unprofitable markets.
The industry said as much on a recent earnings call when they revealed that they would cut network expansion investments despite the FCC’s decision, and other major telecom companies announced similar reductions last week. In other words, the FCC’s ruling neither accelerates 5G deployment nor incentivizes industry investment in expanding networks.
Finally, Carr claimed that that the FCC’s decision has widespread support from “local leaders,” despite vocal criticism from the National League of Cities and U.S. Conference of Mayors. Nearly two dozen cities — such as Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Portland — joined San Jose to sue the FCC to restore the rights of local communities to negotiate our own deals.
In the absence of federal leadership on an innovation agenda, cities like San Jose will continue to lead, in partnership with other innovative cities. If the FCC cannot craft policies that balance the public interest with technological progress, we will.
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo was a member of the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Commission until resigning in 2017.
Originally published at www.mercurynews.com on November 20, 2018.
