FCC staff is sorting through some 380 applications to serve on its planned Broadband Advisory Committee. Anticipated to get rolling this spring, the group will provide advice and recommendations for the Commission on how to accelerate the deployment of high-speed internet access, Inside Towers reported. The application figure came from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai as he laid out for reporters his actions so far to spur broadband deployment in rural areas (see more details in article below).
He’s been in his new position one month and has put into effect a series of process reforms. One of those is a pilot project in which three weeks in advance, his office publicly circulates the text of items to be voted on at the monthly agency meetings. Pai did that with two out of the six items on Thursday’s agenda. Fellow Commissioner Michael O’Rielly said it’s telling that “the world didn’t end” because of the change and that he looks forward to the pilot ending and the change becoming a regular procedure.
Pai himself told reporters after the meeting that “despite the prophets of doom” regarding such a change, “we’re still standing.” He intends to say in the next few days what happens next. It’s refreshing to be “divesting power from the chairman’s office, making the FCC more open and finally doing something instead of just talking about it.”
Click here to see Part 2 of this story.
February 24, 2017
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