Supporters of Federal Communications Commission nominee Gigi Sohn continue to push for her swift confirmation to the commission's fifth seat.

The latest is Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association, who joins former top Fox executive Preston Padden, Consumer Technology Association president Gary Shapiro and a trio of former top FCC officials this week in advocating for her.

Sohn is a former top advisor to then-Democratic FCC chairman Tom Wheeler and is the former head of Public Knowledge.

Also: Former FCC Bureau Chiefs Back Sohn for FCC

“I urge Congress to move forward with the nomination of Sohn as the fifth commissioner to the FCC,” Bloomfield said in an online op-ed. "Her confirmation is critical to ensuring all hands will be on deck as the FCC considers the future of universal service and builds upon its efforts to get and keep every American connected."

Bloomfield signaled Sohn is someone her association could work with on crucial issues such as closing the digital divide and the related issue of better mapping of broadband availability.

Also: Sohn Has Issues with Net Neutrality General Conduct Standard

“Throughout her career, whether as senior staff at the FCC or working with various organizations and in academia, Sohn has consistently demonstrated thoughtfulness and pragmatism in approaching difficult questions and a willingness to engage with stakeholders of all kinds to discuss and debate these issues,“ Bloomfield said.

President Joe Biden resubmitted Sohn“s nomination to the Senate this week. She already had a confirmation hearing, but the Senate Commerce Committee did not vote on her nomination and it needed to be submitted to the new session of Congress.

She must get a committee vote and full Senate approval before the FCC will have the 3-2 Democratic majority it will need to weigh into issues like net neutrality and broadcast regulation. ■

The major broadband associations have gotten to together to add heft to the bone they have to pick with the FCC over the way it has structured its new Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) subsidy process, one they warn could discourage participation and drain $1 billion from broadband buildouts to banks and other lending institutions. 

The FCC approved the auction last summer, but not the final rules for how it would be conducted. The FCC plans to vote on final rules for the $20.4 billion fund Jan. 30. 

That bone to pick came in a letter to the FCC commissioners this week from NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association, INCOMPAS, USTelecom, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, WTA – Advocates for Rural Broadband, and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association. 

The fund would go to deploy high-speed broadband over 10 years to areas currently unserved or underserved by fixed broadband service of at least 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds.  

Related: FCC Approves Broadband Subsidy Auction

The fund will allocate broadband subsidies through a two-phase reverse auction, with phase one offering $16 billion for areas that are wholly unserved with high-speed broadband, and phase two money going to partially served areas--"areas where some households have access to such service but others do not"--as identified by the FCC's new and more granular Digital Opportunity Data Collection. Phase two money would also be available to areas not receiving winning bids in phase one.  

Broadband providers are okay so far, but in a letter to the FCC this week, they said they have a problem with the requirement that those bidding for the subsidies "maintain letters of credit [LOC] for multiple years of service." The FCC is looking to safeguard the funds by protecting against defaults, which the associations say they understand.  

They have individually raised that concern, and are now doing it collectively. 

"In light of the existing authority that the Commission has to withhold funds from those who fail to meet their deployment commitments along with a range of other enforcement tools at its disposal, the Commission can achieve our shared goal of preserving and protecting the Fund without imposing the unreasonable, unsustainable, and ultimately unworkable multi-year LOC requirements currently in the draft order," they said. 

They warned that if the shadow of those LOCs remain unaltered by the future, "many" companies would be barred from bidding to build out rural broadband, which is an FCC priority, and those that do bid would not be able to bid on as many locations as they otherwise could because of the cost of the credit. "[T]he LOC requirements conservatively will result in over $1 billion in RDOF support (6-7 percent of the total Phase I funding) going to banks and other financial intermediaries rather than to building broadband in rural communities," they warned.  

They also said some banks are requiring cash collateral for LOCs, which cost is treated as debt, which then reduces their borrowing power. 

As the FCC considers how to repurpose C-Band spectrum, a sextet of rural broadband associations and others is telling it to stick to an auction, whose proceeds could help close the rural digital divide. 

NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Rural Wireless Association, The League of Rural Voters, National Organization of Black County Officials and Michigan Broadband Cooperative joined in a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. along withe chairs of the relevant FCC oversight committees--Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Commitee and Frank Palone (D-N.J.) chairman of the House Energy & Commerce Committee.

The FCC is considering a number of options for opening up spectrum in the band, including one by satellite service providers (the C-Band Alliance) to use private market deals rather than an auction, which it argues could free up the spectrum more quickly and efficiently.

The commission in July voted unanimously to find ways to open up the C-band spectrum (3.7-4.2 Ghz) for terrestrial wireless use, either all of the 500 MHz or some portion of it, and through either an incentive or capacity auction, a market mechanism where incumbents voluntarily strike deals to reduce their footprint, or some other means.

"The Rural Representatives urge law and policy makers to consider how proceeds from a C-Band auction could ease the transition to terrestrial use and help deploy broadband throughout the nation. A C-Band auction is expected to generate tens of billions of dollars. Congress could direct the Commission to set aside a significant portion of the auction proceeds to support the deployment and sustainability of both fixed and mobile broadband infrastructure," they told Pai and the legislators.

As to private deals between satellite service providers and mobile broadband companies, the associations are not sanguine about the prospects.

"There is much concern among those most vested in serving rural areas that a transfer of the spectrum via an unprecedented private market transaction will lack the transparency, expediency, fairness and necessary oversight of an FCC-led auction – and thus ultimately lead to a spectrum transfer to the largest, most well-financed mobile wireless providers," they told the chairmen. "A Commission-led auction of cleared C-Band spectrum and thoughtful consideration of the appropriate use of the proceeds to help support widespread deployment of broadband

infrastructure will confer extraordinary benefits to the American people."

“There is increasing bipartisan interest in Congress to find a way to pay for an ambitious effort to close the rural broadband and homework gaps," said Michael Calabrese, director, Wireless Future Program, at New America's Open Technology Institute. "Since the C-band proceeds would otherwise go to four foreign companies [the C-Band Alliance], we are among the many rural broadband advocates urging Congress to legislate a public C-band auction.”

Rural broadband fans are celebrating the introduction on Friday (March 10) of the Highway Rights of Way Permitting Efficiency Act of 2017 (S. 604), which would clear away federal environmental assessments and impact statements from any broadband buildout that otherwise has an "operational" right of way, said one of the groups, WTA-Advocates for Rural Broadband.

It would also give states more authority over reviewing projects with federal rights of way.

That was all fine with the WTA.

“WTA members, small rural telecom providers, face costly and time-consuming barriers to making use of existing rights-of-way on federal lands to build broadband networks," said Derrick Owens, WTA’s VP, government affairs.

"Government should do its due diligence, but it should also work efficiently because every day spent waiting for a permit is one more day rural Americans wait for quality broadband,“ said Derrick Owens, WTA’s Vice President of Government Affairs. “Every dollar spent on duplicative environmental reviews is one less dollar available for investment in a robust broadband network. We look forward to working with the Senator to advance the shared goal of broadband buildout in rural America.”

NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association was also embracing the bill, which is co-sponsored by  Sens. Steve Daines (R–Mont.) and Deb Fischer (R–Neb.).

“Small rural telecom operators continue to endure cumbersome and time-consuming permitting processes that hinder the timely deployment of broadband networks in rural America,” said NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield. “Government at all levels should work collaboratively to expedite placement of infrastructure, and NTCA hopes this bill will help move us toward a more streamlined and harmonized set of permitting processes.”

Speeding permitting and rights of way have been topics of conversation in Washington in the past few weeks, including at an FCC oversight hearing last week in the Senate Commerce Committee. The administration is working on a trillion dollar infrastructure plan that will include broadband, as are Senate Democrats, while FCC chairman Ajit Pai has said that closing the rural broadband divide is a priority, including by speeding deployment by easing permitting and tower siting.

Reaction flooded into the FCC Wednesday (March 1) on both sides of the issue after the FCC commissioners voted 2-1 to stay implementation of the FCC's new data security rules so the new FCC can review challenges to the broadband privacy framework of which those rules were a part.

“Today’s FCC action to issue a temporary stay of the data security regulation is a welcome recognition that consumers benefit most when privacy protections are consistently applied throughout the internet ecosystem,"  
said NCTA: The Internet & Television Association. "As service providers, our companies are committed to providing a quality Internet experience that protects the security of personal information, and we will continue to operate with that commitment as the FTC and FCC pursue further action to harmonize online privacy protections.”

Transpose the acronym to NTCA, and the reaction was much the same:

“We’re encouraged by this temporary stay," asid Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association. "This rule in particular and broader one-sided privacy regulations more generally create tremendous burdens on one portion of the internet ecosystem even as they set false expectations for consumers about what data are actually protected online. NTCA looks forward to working with the FCC, the FTC and other stakeholders on a common-sense approach that gives consumers information and consistent protections across their online experience.”

“As ITTA said when the previous FCC issued unduly expansive, new consumer privacy rules four months ago, these sector-specific regulations disproportionally disadvantage ISPs vis-à-vis edge providers. Thus, ITTA welcomes today’s action by the FCC to stay a portion of these rules that otherwise would have gone into effect tomorrow," said Genny Morelli, president of ITTA, which represents mid-sized communications companies.

“The FCC acted today to address aspects of the FCC’s privacy rules that went beyond the well-developed FTC framework and that created unnecessary consumer confusion," said AT&T SVP of federal regulatory, Joan Marsh. "A consistent and uniform framework that covers the entire Internet ecosystem, and is enforced by one government entity, is the most effective way to protect the privacy rights of consumers.  That was the status quo before the FCC intervened and it is the right approach going forward.”

Verizon's chief privacy officer, Karen Zacharia, joined the chorus of industry praise.

“The FCC has taken an important step towards restoring a consistent and uniform framework for addressing data security and privacy standards for all online providers.  Verizon cares deeply about the security of our customers’ data and maintaining our customers’ trust is critical in each facet of our operations.  From the outset of this proceeding, we stressed the importance of creating a consistent approach to privacy and data security that gives consumers the same information and choices about the use of their data, regardless of the type of company they interact with online.”  

“Hitting the pause button on these new rules is the right thing to do,” said Alex Phillips, president of the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association. “We appreciated the FCC’s efforts to reduce the burden of these regulations for smaller providers, but compliance with the new data security rules on March 2 would crate a significant burden on our members. The FCC’s action today will afford the agency time to reconsider these rules.”

“Today’s FCC action is a sensible, pro-consumer approach which maintains the status quo for customers that has existed throughout the FCC’s proceeding," said Comcast VP Sena Fitzmaurice. "Consumers remain protected by the safeguards in place for the past two years, as well as the recently announced ISP privacy principles. This will all be achieved without subjecting consumers to regulations that are inconsistent with the FTC’s privacy framework for other companies and that exceed the statute.  The action allows the FCC sufficient time to fully analyze the pending petitions for reconsideration and to make informed decisions before any complex and unnecessary rules become effective.”

There were discouraging words as well.

“Chairman Pai has fired his opening salvo in the war on the Open Internet Order and broadband privacy protections are the first victim," said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who earlier in the week pledged to fight any rollback of the privacy regs. "This carve-out for the broadband industry will make consumers’ information more vulnerable to breaches and unauthorized use. This suspension is just a preview of coming attractions. Chairman Pai and  Republicans in Congress want to roll back critical privacy protections and leave consumers with no defense against abusive invasions of their privacy by their broadband provider. I will fight any attempts by this anti-consumer FCC to harm or undermine the broadband privacy rules.”

“After finally gaining basic privacy protections for broadband providers last year, it’s outrageous that Chairman Pai will now remove the simple rule that internet service providers must take reasonable data security measures to protect their customers’ information," said Chris Lewis, VP at Public Knowledge. "This is not a controversial requirement.

“This elimination of basic data security rules gives ISPs a free ride while online services and other edge providers are still required to take reasonable measures to protect their customers’ information under the FTC’s framework. That is not a level playing field. It creates a huge gap in consumer protections where websites have data security requirements, while ISPs with a direct customer relationship do not."