FCC (News - Alert) Chairman Julius Genachowski’s last day was Friday and his departure was accompanied with a flurry of activity – including, among other things, telling incumbent local carriers that they no longer have to comply with a lot of outdated regulations and taking the first steps toward creating a broadband-focused Universal Service plan for the nation’s smaller rate of return telephone companies.
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn is stepping in as acting chairman while the industry waits to see whether former communications industry association honcho Tom Wheeler (News - Alert) is approved as Genachowski’s longer term replacement. In just a few days, Clyburn has already helped to move one important item along. As of Wednesday, the nation’s larger price cap carriers now know what they’re being offered to help cover some of the costs of bringing broadband to remote, costly to serve, areas in the Connect America Fund program.
But there are still many other items pending, and I thought this might be an opportune time to highlight some of the more important open issues related to the telecom industry.
In no particular order, these include:
- Finalizing the band plan and the auction plan aiming to free up spectrum for mobile broadband by allowing TV broadcasters to voluntarily relinquish spectrum and share in the auction proceeds.
- Figuring out what other spectrum might be made available for mobile broadband and figuring out a way for government users to share their spectrum with commercial users.
- Finalizing the plan for, and overseeing, a TDM-to-IP transition trial that aims to resolve a wide range of issues currently preventing a full transition of that nature from occurring.
- Finalizing and implementing the plan for the longer-term Connect America Fund program for both price cap and rate of return carriers.
- Determining how today’s Universal Service program and tomorrow’s Connect America Fund program will be funded long term.
- Determining whether or not to approve various pending mergers.
- Determining what steps, if any, will be taken to enhance interoperability in the 700 MHz band (a topic the commission has been investigating for over a year and which has hampered LTE (News - Alert) deployment)
At a minimum, I suspect Clyburn will tackle the last item on the list, as mobile broadband interoperability has been a pet cause of hers and something she might be able to accomplish in a relatively short time period.
She won’t be in charge long enough to see most of the other items through. But hopefully she will continue to keep things moving.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi
