Permitting reform is an evolving process, and attorneys who represent the wireless industry are hoping this evolution will accelerate in the industry’s direction during President Trump’s second term. The recent Executive Order on using technology to make environmental permitting processes more efficient was encouraging to many, including attorney David Bronston of Phillips Lytle. Bronston, who recently moderated a permitting panel at The Wireless Infrastructure Association (WIA)’s Connect (X), noted that the President’s order used some of the same adjectives WIA has used to describe ideal permitting processes: transparent and predictable. “But that’s not necessarily the world we live in and operate in, which could be murky, uncertain and out of whack,” said Bronston. He then asked his panelists to each share one permitting change that they’d like to see above all others, in a perfect world.
Verizon (NYSE: VZ) managing associate general counsel Meghan Riley said her top priority would be changes to the FCC tests used to identify user coverage gaps. She said current tests are often “outdated and voice based,” which is inconsistent with the way most people now use their phones. This can make it hard to show a municipality where coverage is truly needed, she said. “We have limited capital dollars. We really do. We’re not looking to invest in solutions that we don’t need,” she said.
Tom Anderson, managing counsel at Crown Castle (NYSE: CCI), said his top priority would be for the FCC to revisit the concealment part of Section 6409(a) of the Spectrum Act of 2012. He said the agency clarified Section 6409(a) in 2020, and the Ninth Circuit upheld all the clarifications except for the concealment element, leaving the wireless industry with “a little bit more ambiguity and subjectiveness in these collocation modification applications than I think is good for the deployments.”
Karen Sprung, senior corporate counsel at T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS), said her top priority “would be to see greater harmonization throughout the federal, state and local ordinances. A lot of states have now enacted these broadband-ready laws and shot clocks which mirror the federal shot clocks. And this is all very promising and certainly a great start. However, it is very critical to ensure alignment with the local ordinances as well, because any disparities between these frameworks can cause confusion and create delays.” Reducing these disparities would probably fall to state legislators. For example, the Texas State Legislature is currently considering legislation that would make it harder for people living near properties slated for zoning changes to block those changes through protests.
Sean Shahini, CEO of Inorsa, an AI platform to expedite permitting applications, agreed that more consistency across municipalities would be ideal. He said companies are sometimes unsure how many people will need to review their applications, and how many review rounds will be needed, because the process is so different from one city to the next.
Bronston pointed out that municipalities are understandably resistant to standardization. “It’s hard to have standards when we have various red, blue, green, yellow, cities and states, and each one has their own perspective of how local government should operate,” he said. “But there’s no question that that would help deployment.”
By Martha DeGrasse, Inside Towers Contributing Analyst
This article represents the opinions of veteran telecom industry editor and journalist Martha DeGrasse, an Inside Towers Contributing Analyst with features appearing monthly. DeGrasse owns Network Builder Reports and contributes regularly to several publications. She was formerly a writer and editor with RCR Wireless and a TV business news producer.
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