FCC Action on Wireless Infrastructure Hamstrings Cities but Won’t Spur More 5G Deployment

While the Federal Communications Commission is correct to take steps to promote broadband deployment (like its recent Order promoting a one-touch-make ready regime for pole attachments), its proposal to limit state and local oversight of wireless deployments on public property is likely to have little success in promoting deployment, and instead is little more than a brazen wealth transfer of $2 billion from state and local taxpayers to the nation’s largest wireless companies. The sad fact is that the FCC didn’t have to take this approach of pitting broadband providers against state and local governments. The Commission should have pursued a consensus solution that promoted flexibility for local officials to work with wireless companies to find solutions that work for the individual jurisdictions. Instead, the FCC opted for Washington-imposed unfunded mandate on state and local governments that constrains local decision-making and substitutes the judgement of three FCC commissioners for local elected officials.

Carriers are likely to pocket this new FCC-provided windfall, proceed with their already announced 5G network deployment plans, sue state and local governments that attempt to ensure 5G deployments reach unserved and underserved communities, and deplete the limited budgets that local governments rely on to pay for public safety services and public schools. This FCC action only enriches wireless carriers while doing nothing to change the economic realities of rural broadband deployment or require providers serve communities they have left behind.