The agency moves to limit how municipalities and states can impose requirements and costs on cell sites and cut off funds that provide Wi-Fi hotspots to students.
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The FCC took two steps forward and one step back in making broadband internet more widely available, voting Tuesday to speed wired and wireless broadband buildouts and then cutting off federal funding for two school Wi-Fi programs.
The proposals from FCC Chair Brendan Carr to try to lower state and local obstacles to building broadband infrastructure–a key part of the “Build Agenda” he announced in July–won unanimous support from the three members of what’s normally a five-person commission. They agreed to begin writing rules to limit how municipalities and states can impose requirements and costs on cell sites, which stands to benefit wireless carriers.
The 51-page Notice of Proposed Rulemaking covers such issues as “concealment” rules that require wireless carriers to camouflage cell towers as trees, one-time application and recurring access charges, how long permits take to be issued, and dispute-resolution processes.
The FCC didn’t lend the same hand to wireline providers, instead voting 3-0 to launch an inquiry, an earlier stage in its rulemaking process, that asks for comment on whether and how the FCC could “require state and local governments to process applications to access and use public rights-of-way in a timely manner and limit their fees and other demands for compensation as necessary to avoid prohibitive financial burdens.
