Stakeholders on all sides have asked the Federal Communications Commission for more time to digest and comment on the agency‘s request for input on the impact of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act's $65 billion investment in broadband on the Universal Service Fund advanced telecom subsidy program.

Currently the deadline for comments is January 18-31 for reply comments, but the parties argue the issues are too complex and the stakes too high not to provide more time to stakeholders. “Evaluating how this longstanding fund and the newly-minted IIJA can work together to accomplish the FCC’s mandate to connect all Americans will require time,“ the stakeholders said.

Those stakeholders, ranging from NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, ACA Connects and USTelecom to Common Cause, Public Knowledge and the Benton Foundation, joined Wednesday to petition the FCC for 30 more days for comment —until February 17 — and until March 17 for reply comments.

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“While not granting this extension will significantly curtail the Public Interest and Industry Stakeholders’ ability to fully participate in this proceeding, granting an extension at this early stage will have little impact on the proceeding and will not prejudice any other party to proceeding,“ they told the FCC.

They opined that the large number of active proceedings has made it “incredibly difficult” for stakeholders to “fully participate.”

They also pointed out that the notice of inquiry (NOI) was issued just 10 days before Christmas with a mid-January due date. “Holiday travel, staff vacations, and end-of-the-year obligations create significant hurdles to evaluate the complexity of the Infrastructure Act’s impact on the USF,” they said, adding that public interest groups have limited resources and tend to be understaffed over the holidays.

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The FCC does not routinely grant extensions of its comment deadline, but does so on a case-by-case basis for good cause, which the petitioners are convinced they have, including so the FCC can develop a better record on which to base a decision. The FCC also has pushed deadlines in recognition of holiday issues. ■

For more than two decades, Andrew Schwartzman ran Media Access Project, a nonprofit that battled media ownership deregulation in the courts (including the U.S. Supreme Court) and dealt with issues before the FCC and Congress. Since July 1, 2019, he has been senior counselor at the Benton Foundation Institute for Broadband & Society, as well as maintaining a consulting practice. Throughout, he has fought tirelessly for his and his clients’ view of the media’s public-interest obligation. He spoke with Multichannel News senior content producer, Washington, John Eggerton. 

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What is your role at the Benton Foundation Institute? Along with Gigi Sohn and Jon Sallet, I serve as Benton’s eyes and ears in the D.C. policy process. I also represent Benton in FCC rulemakings and litigation. Following the day-to-day evolution of the policymaking process is more labor-intensive today. My mission includes sharing my five decades of experience on legal and policy advocacy as a mentor to other public-interest advocates.

You participated in the lower court oral argument on media-ownership rules, which recently got a Supreme Court hearing. Isn’t focusing on broadcasters fighting the last war? I think broadcast-ownership limits remain very timely. These rules ensure a diversity of voices and perspectives at the local level. The industry quite rightly says that over-the-air TV and radio continue to be the most important source of news and information, especially at the local level. CNN and FNC [Fox News Channel] don’t help people decide for whom to vote for on the City Council, and they don’t provide high-school football scores or local weather. Social media have become a means of redistributing news generated by others and TV and radio websites are among the major sources of forwarded links about local issues.  

How does having to do oral arguments remotely change the dynamics? The Supreme Court’s temporary use of telephonic oral arguments significantly changes the dynamic.  … In the COVID-era telephonic system, each justice is called on according to seniority and gets a few minutes to ask questions, one on one. Not only do the advocates have less opportunity to determine the direction of their presentation, but they lose the benefit of seeing the facial expressions and body language of the justices. This makes a very big difference.

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Should the government start regulating big tech? Why or why not? I have supported the idea of creating a new specialized agency to regulate competition in the tech industry. The question of what to do when a few companies control a major sector of the economy is hardly a new one, but traditional antitrust concepts and remedies are not fine-tuned for digital technologies. We need to explore the best way to preserve free speech values in a system that is dominated by a few large companies.  

What would you like a Biden FCC to concentrate on once it gets a majority? The immediate challenge is dealing with the impact of COVID. Thus, extending broadband access support for lower-income communities must be its first priority. Like many other industry sectors, I expect large broadcast groups to claim the pandemic somehow justifies lifting ownership limits.  While I share the concern of finding ways to promote local journalism, I believe that allowing additional local concentration would hurt, not help. Promoting a healthy and diverse local media environment is a long-term issue. We can start by inviting new entrants through expanding opportunities for people of color and women to enter the business. 

The FCC has asked for comment on how effective it has been at closing the digital divide. The FCC has consistently concluded in its annual report on broadband availability that the divide is closing, though conceding there is still work to do.

The Benton Institute for Broadband and Society suggests there is still a lot of work to be done. Citing "pages and pages" of news stories since the start of the pandemic as evidence that too many remain without broadband service, Benton executive editor Kevin Taglang made the following statement to accompany a link to all those stories which included from Multichannel News).

Related: FCC Says Digital Divide Continues to Close

"As borne out in press reports since mid-March 2020, the Commission’s efforts to close the digital divide have been unsuccessful," said Taglang. "As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has pushed more Americans to work, study, see their doctors, and stay connected to friends and loved ones through broadband connections, it serves to underscore the importance of closing the divide and ensuring that people throughout the country have access to digital opportunity.

"As these stories from around the country demonstrate, the FCC must find that continuing shortcomings in broadband deployment and affordability cause grievous harm to individuals as well as to the nation as a whole and that broadband is being not deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion," he said.

Back in April, the FCC said the digital divide is continuing to close and advanced telecommunications continues to be deployed to all Americans on a reasonable and timely basis.

That was according to the FCC's latest Sec. 706 report*, the annual Broadband Deployment Report report issued Friday (April 24). The commission vote to issue the report was 3-2, with the Democrats dissenting.

Traditionally, Democrats on the commission have argued that the report should not conclude that broadband is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely manner until all Americans have access. If the FCC concludes it is not reasonable and timely, it is empowered to regulate to make it so.

Under Pai, the conclusion has been that while not mission accomplished, the deployment has been reasonable and timely.

One caveat to the numbers is that both the FCC and Congress agree that the FCC needs to collect better data on deployment, which the commission is in the process of doing.

* Sec. 706b of the Telecommunications Act to annually “initiate a notice of inquiry concerning the availability of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans (including, in particular, elementary and secondary schools and classrooms)" to determine “whether advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion.” If it is not, the FCC “shall take immediate action to accelerate deployment of such capability by removing barriers to infrastructure investment and by promoting competition in the telecommunications market.” 

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society has named new board members. 

The two additions are Denise Linn Riedl and Leon A. Wilson. 

Riedl is the chief innovation officer of South Bend, Ind. Before that, she headed up ecosystem development at Chicago's City Tech Collaborative. As a Benton Institute Fellow she co-authored "The Next Generation Network Connectivity Handbook: A Guide for Community Leaders Seeking Affordable, Abundant Bandwidth," with National Broadband Plan author Blair Levin. 

"For decades Benton has been a force for the public interest in broadband access, media, and internet policy," said Riedl. "These issues are more important than ever and I look forward to being a part of this amazing team." 

Wilson is chief information officer for the Cleveland Foundation and oversees its Digital Excellence grants. Before that he was senior director of technology and data engagement for the Michigan Nonprofit Association. 

"I look forward to serving as a board member during this crucial time regarding the importance of broadband in both rural and urban communities," said Wilson. 

Benton is a nonprofit focused on digital inclusion, which means access, equity and diversity. 

The Benton Foundation has changed its name to the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, putting an exclamation point on its longstanding efforts to promote broadband deployment, adoption and inclusion. 

“All Americans should have access to competitive, High-Performance Broadband regardless of where they live or who they are. In the Digital Age, open, affordable, robust broadband is essential for enabling all of us to reach for—and achieve—the American Dream,” said executive director Adrianne Furniss in announcing the name change. “Our new name squarely reflects our accelerating efforts to advance policies that help ensure broadband opportunities for everyone.”  

The change also comes in advance to its planned release of a comprehensive action plan for closing the digital divide: "Broadband for America’s Future: A Vision for the 2020s." 

In other news, Benton announced that veteran communications attorney Andrew J. Schwartzman, currently senior counselor to Benton, will be joining the institute from Georgetown Law’s Communications and Technology Law Clinic while continuing to teach at Johns Hopkins.  

Schwartzman will focus on "maintaining 2015’s network neutrality rules and reforming and modernizing the Universal Service Fund Lifeline program," Benton said.

Public Knowledge, Mozilla, the Benton Foundation, INCOMPAS and others challenging the FCC's Restoring Internet Freedom order say that was not just bad policy but illegal.

Related: Pai Says Net Neutrality Doom and Gloom Predictions Were Baseless

That is coming in a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which is hearing their challenge to the network neutrality reg rollback--the deadline for initial briefs from non-government parties is Aug. 20. The brief has yet to be made public, but Public Knowledge outlined the highlights.

That group and the others have long argued the FCC was making bad policy decisions when the Republican majority last fall voted to repeal the rules against blocking, throttling and paid prioritization and the title II common carrier regime that underpinned them.

Related: Court Sets Net Neutrality Briefing Schedule

But they also say that decision, under chair Ajit Pai, "broke the law," which is why the court must reverse it and restore the regulations.

Their argument is that the FCC decided the agency lacked all jurisdiction over the internet, a radical move that defined the statute, they say. Also in the "illegal" category, they argue was what they said was the FCC's "cherrypicking" of investment evidence to justify their predetermined outcome of reversing the Title II classification.

The FCC majority said one reason for the reversal was that Title II had discouraged investment, including in broadband buildouts to rural and unserved areas. Public Knowledge et al. argue that the FCC ignored evidence to the contrary in conducting a cost-benefit analysis that only benefited their "ideological preference."

“If the current policy stands, consumers can expect higher bills and fewer online choices, with fewer expressive and creative outlets, they told the court. "Ultimately, the internet will look more and more like the overpriced cable TV bundles of decades past."

Ajit Pai told legislators last week in an FCC oversight hearing that such predictions were "chicken little" fear mongering that had not materialized. Some Senate Dems suggested that was because ISPs were laying low until the court case was settled before flexing their newfound blocking and throttling and degrading muscles.

ISPs say that is not going to happen, and that if any of it does and is anticompetitive, the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department can prevent that through investigations and lawsuits.