LAS VEGAS, January 10, 2024 – Federal Communications Commissioners Brendan Carr and Anna Gomez talked net neutrality, spectrum policy, and their favorite pieces of tech at CES on Wednesday.

Carr serves as the FCC’s senior Republican, first confirmed as a commissioner in 2017. Gomez was confirmed in September 2023, ending years of an even split and giving Democrats a 3-2 majority.

Net neutrality

Carr has been an outspoken critic of the Commission’s effort to reinstate net neutrality rules. After approving the measure along party lines, the FCC moved forward with a proposal to do so in October and is accepting comments on the plan until January 17. 

The move would classify broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, opening internet providers up to more regulatory oversight from the Commission.

Carr took a similar tack on Wednesday, calling Title II a “backwards looking regime that made sense in the 1930s,” but expressed some support for less expansive, “common sense” legislation on the issue.

“This idea that we should, as a consumer, not see blocking, throttling, anti-competitive discrimination, these core sets of bright line ‘net neutrality’ rules, are ones I think are broadly agreed upon,” he said.

Gomez defended more comprehensive regulation, saying broadband is “central to everybody’s lives, and it really is important, I think, to have guardrails on the service to make sure that all consumers are benefiting from a competitive, innovative product.”

“We don’t have a national framework to ensure that, instead we have a patchwork of state laws,” she said.

Spectrum

Gomez said she would “really love to see the FCC’s spectrum auction authority re-upped, so to speak.”

The Commission’s ability to auction off bands of electromagnetic spectrum for commercial use expired for the first time in March 2023. Commissioners have pushed lawmakers in Congress to reinstate it, but efforts have stalled. A stopgap measure passed in December giving the FCC the ability to issue spectrum licenses that had been purchased before the authority expired, but the path for blanket authority remains unclear. 

“I don’t think people appreciate how long it takes to actually get a spectrum auction done. There’s so much pre-work that has to be done, and we can’t do any of that” without the authority, she said.

Carr agreed, both that Congress should reinstate the Commission’s auction authority and that the process of getting spectrum out the door often takes years of time and effort.

He also criticized the White House’s National Spectrum Strategy, a plan for studying nearly 2,800 MHz of spectrum for potential repurposing and improving the nation’s spectrum pipeline, saying the U.S. needs to move faster on making spectrum available to remain competitive.

“Under the last administration we freed up something like 6,000 MHz of spectrum just for licensed use, in addition to thousands of megahertz for unlicensed as well. The National Spectrum Strategy that the administration just put out says that we’re going to study, not free up, but study 2,800,” he said.

Favorite gadgets

Asked about her favorite piece of tech from the CES floor so far, Gomez said “I like the little Samsung robot.” The company unveiled on Monday a small ball-shaped robot called Ballie with a built-in projector.

Carr said his favorite technology that uses unlicensed spectrum is his Bluetooth headset.

“I’m almost exclusively on that thing,” he said.

WASHINGTON, January 10, 2024 – Wireless Association CTIA has formally petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for an extended deadline regarding the implementation of newly adopted rules aimed at safeguarding cell phone consumers from SIM swap and port-out fraud. 

The petition, filed on Monday, challenges the feasibility of wireless providers complying within the current six-month timeframe set by the FCC.

At the heart of the issue is the industry’s need for additional time to enact the protocols outlined in the FCC’s recent regulations. These rules mandate wireless providers to adopt more secure authentication methods before redirecting a customer’s phone number to a new device or provider. Additionally, providers are required to promptly notify customers about any SIM changes or port-out requests made on their accounts, further fortifying protection against fraudulent activities.

SIM swapping and port-out fraud have become rampant forms of identity theft, enabling perpetrators to wrest control of consumers’ cell phones by persuading carriers to transfer service to the fraudster’s possession or a new carrier’s account.

The crux of CTIA’s argument centers on the technical complexities involved in implementing these security measures across their systems. It emphasizes that the development of an account lock feature for customer use, a pivotal requirement of the new regulations, necessitates substantial system and database updates that will be both operationally intricate and costly.

In its petition, CTIA highlights the industry’s operational reality, pointing out that the standard time frame for IT-intensive system updates typically spans a full 18 months. They underscore that while this duration is customary, legacy systems pose even more substantial challenges.

The FCC’s rules, adopted during its November 15, 2023 open meeting, were intended to offer consumers enhanced protection by necessitating stricter authentication processes and immediate notifications regarding SIM changes and port-out requests. 

However, the final version of these rules differed from the initial proposals, veering toward additional provisions such as customer notification for failed authentication in SIM swap requests and broadening limits on employee access to Customer Proprietary Network Information to apply to all telecommunications service providers, not solely wireless entities.

The FCC has the option to issue a memorandum or order that modifies the rules or confirms that there will be no changes made.

WASHINGTON, January 7, 2024 – In a new report to Congress, the Federal Communications Commission says just a handful of telecommunications companies has finished removing tech equipment supplied by companies considered to have close ties to China’s Communist government.

In 2019, Congress passed the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act, which authorized the FCC to reimburse certain telecommunications providers for the removal of Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. communications equipment and services within one year of receiving funds. The FCC was flooded with funding requests.

In the FCC report, the agency said just five funding recipients have submitted final certifications that Huawei and ZTE gear is out of their networks. The report did not include the names of the five firms.

Huawei and ZTE, both based in Shenzhen near Hong Kong, are global suppliers of telecommunications equipment, including technology for advanced 5G wireless networks. Huawei says its company is entirely employee-owned. The Chinese government reportedly has a substantial stake in ZTE, which also makes inexpensive Android smartphones.

The FCC’s report was prepared for the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, panels that oversee the FCC and the communications sector.

The FCC said funding recipients attributed the sluggish pace to “lack of funding, supply chain delays, labor shortages, and weather-related challenges.”

Congress appropriated $1.9 billion for the “rip and replace” program, the shorthand phrase that many use to refer to the 2019 law. But applications for funding sought $4.98 billion, creating a $3.08 billion shortfall.

The FCC said it has so far received 12,983 reimbursement claims “across 122 of the 126 applications approved for a funding allocation.” The agency’s budget officials have approved $396.5 million in disbursements, which will cover both removal and replacement costs.

In 2020, the FCC formally determined that Huawei and ZTE posed a national security threat to the integrity of U.S. communications networks and communications supply chains. That decision cut off the FCC’s Universal Service Program as a funding source to acquire equipment provided by Huawei or ZTE.

“We cannot treat Huawei and ZTE as anything less than a threat to our collective security,” Republican FCC Commissioner Carr said in a June 30, 2020 statement.

Ted Hearn is the Editor of Policyband, a new website dedicated to comprehensive coverage of the broadband communications market. This piece was published on Policyband on January 6, 2024, and is reprinted with permission.