From the furore engulfing the FCC this last year you might think that the agency had accomplished little but appalling privacy advocates and dancing for its patrons, the telecoms. But as is so often the case in government, much was done to little fanfare, only to be overshadowed by more controversial items.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has released a list of “accomplishments,”[1] such as they are, which serves to remind us of the many thankless items taking up the bulk of the agency’s time (and requiring a great deal of hard work by its many employees), but also of the malign agenda that has unfolded continuously[2] since the election.
With such a dire-sounding introduction, I should be fair and note that the Chairman’s stated priority of closing the broadband divide has been pursued with some vigor.
The first items listed in Pai’s report (indeed among the first passed) are the Mobility and Connect America funds, which will disburse hundreds of millions (eventually billions) with the specific goal of establishing high-speed wireless coverage and fixed broadband in underserved areas. $170 million is already earmarked for upstate New York.
This earnest action is countered by several things. Most recently, we’ve learned that the Broadband Deployment Action Committee, ostensibly a wide-ranging mix of folks assembled for that eponymous purpose, is so dominated by telecoms and consequently ineffective that the mayor of San Jose left it in disgust.
“It has become abundantly clear that despite the good intentions of several participants, the industry-heavy makeup of BDAC will simply relegate the body to being a vehicle for advancing the interests of the telecommunications industry over those of the public,” he wrote in his resignation letter[3].
Broadband deployment also...