Last week we learned more about how the process will probably work. A new telecom act would likely be spearheaded by the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology. Last week Rep. Marsha Blackburn, head of that committee, told the press that she favored giving the new FCC a shot at fixing the things under its purview before the House would tackle a new Act. The FCC doesn’t have the authority to make many of the needed changes in telecom regulation, but it does have considerable power. Anyway, this probably means a new act is at least a year away.
Here are some of the things that I think the FCC and Congress need to address to modernize telecom:
Need for More Spectrum. It’s becoming clear that a lot of big ISPs are thinking of deploying 5Gn and various other millimeter wave technologies. The FCC needs to continue to open up more spectrum for broadband. There is still a lot of spectrum has been reserved for government use and there needs to be more attempts to share frequency when possible. There also needs to be a fresh look taken at how frequency is used. Historically many bands of frequency had narrow channels aimed at accommodating voice traffic or a single channel of television. From an engineering perspective we can get a lot more out of spectrum if we can make wider channels in the spectrum bands that are already in use.
Tackling Cybersecurity. 2016 was a year when security breaches led the industry news weekly. There is no easy fix for security issues, but there are big steps that can be taken. For example, we are flooding the world with IoT devices that are easily hacked and which can now be used to launch coordinated denial of service attacks. With Congressional backing the FCC could create standards to make IoT devices more secure. The government will never make us free from hacking, but there are a lot of sensible standards and fixes needed for IoT devices.
Expanding Access to Fast Broadband. As somebody who works regularly in rural America I know that lack of broadband there is now one of the biggest problems identified by rural households. We need to find ways to get good broadband to more places, and we have to do this smartly by building infrastructure that will last for decades. We’ve already seen how not to do this with the CAF II program that is being used to expand DSL and LTE wireless – two technologies that are already inadequate today.
Unless we see that fiber is built everywhere this is going to be an ongoing major issue. For example, if we fix broadband for those that have none but ignore the bigger swathe of the country that has only marginally acceptable broadband today, we will be back in a decade looking at how to fix broadband in those places.
We also need rules that unleashes anybody willing to spend money on fiber. I see numerous rural counties and towns that are ready to spring for bond issues to get fiber. We need rules that allow anybody willing to invest in fiber be able to do so – be that local governments, electric cooperatives, rural telcos or anybody else.
Infrastructure Issues. There are still a lot of infrastructure roadblocks to deploying fiber. We have never done a good job of fulfilling the mandate from the 1996 Act to provide access to poles and conduit. And we are now looking at deploying a fiber-fed wireless network that is going to mean bringing both fiber and power to buildings, rooftops, poles and other infrastructure. We need to find a way to get this done without also trampling over the legitimate concerns of local jurisdictions. For example, the FCC can’t just demand that cities allow free and quick fiber construction if that means digging up newly paved streets or overburdening poles – we need to find rules that work. And we need to do a much better job of this than we have done so far.
Programming. It’s now clear that online video content is competitive alternative to traditional cable TV. We need rules that unleash cable companies and anybody else to sell programming that people really want to buy. That means stepping away from the current rigid cable rules that mandate the giant channel lineups. Companies need to be free to create programming bundles that people want to buy. This might mean allowing a la carte programming. And there must be rules that require content providers to sell to everybody in an unbiased manner.
I don’t know how many of these big issues the current FCC is going to be willing to tackle. It seems like a lot of their agenda for the first six months will be to undo things ordered by the previous FCC. While I understand the desire to mold the FCC to the political persuasion of whatever party is in power, most of the issues on my list above are not partisan. They are just things that we all need to solve if we are to have a telecom infrastructure that serves us all well.