The updates the FCC is making to its infrastructure siting rules to enable 5G, “is about driving data to the network faster,” Commissioner Brendan Carr said at a USTelecom broadband funding event on Thursday. “We will need many miles of fiber. It’s an upgrade of the entire network,” he said.
Last week, executives from farms and a steel fabrication plant, from Minnesota and the Dakotas, told Carr broadband availability is vital. Carr discussed the Commission decision in March to exempt most small cells from environmental and historic review, as well as last month’s decision to ease small cell deployment locally. “There will be portions of the country [for which] there will never be a private business case to deploy” broadband, he said. That’s why there are programs like the FCC’s Universal Service Program. “I think there’s a role for states in that as well,” he added.
Asked what he’s thinking of when he climbs macro towers, as he did last week, Carr said: “It brings home how lucky we are to have such telecom crews, from broadband to broadcast. It’s a tremendous amount of work on the ground to do that,” he said of deployment. “We have construction crews working on the Gulf Coast now, working in really difficult, trying and hot circumstances,” he said concerning the recovery crews working to repair damage caused by Hurricane Michael.
In a panel discussion, moderator Wells Fargo Managing Director Jennifer Fritzsche said, some on Wall Street may be surprised to see the USTelecom study showing the investment in wired communications. Alaska Communications President/CEO Anand Vadapalli said of the telecom industry: “We have a stable, good cash flow business. The market reflects the value of the business.”
“The opportunity to provide backhaul” for new deployments “is tremendous,” he said. Earlier, Carr said on his travels, he often hears from telecom personnel about the hassles of getting permitting to lay fiber over or near railroad crossings. Vadapalli spoke about the need for regulators to be “sensitive” to these kinds of issues, adding: “When you go from 200 macro towers to 3,000 small towers, you can’t have” permitting take six months.
Blackfoot CEO Jason Williams agreed, saying one locality in Montana just changed its siting permitting requirement. A project must now be completed within 30 days after a permit is issued. “We simply can’t do that in Montana where the ground is frozen for six months of the year.”
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
October 19, 2018
