Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr on July 2 unveiled his Build America Agenda that aims to have the agency pursue action on a number of fronts to pave the way for service providers to build out more fiber-based networks that provide high-speed broadband services.
“Our Build America Agenda will focus on delivering on a number of core objectives,” said Carr while promising a “deregulatory approach” from the FCC in carrying out the agenda.
“We will unleash high-speed infrastructure builds,” he said in a speech delivered in South Dakota. “We will restore America’s leadership in wireless. We will boost the U.S. space economy. We will advance our national security. And we will strengthen America’s tower and telecom workforce.”
Carr’s plan to spur increased buildouts of new fiber networks appears to rely primarily on having the FCC take action on rulemakings – as soon as later this month – that would promote the retirement of service providers’ traditional copper-based networks, and to ease rules governing pole attachments so that network providers can more readily build infrastructure on existing pole structures.
“I am announcing today that the FCC will be voting later this month to start a rulemaking that will accelerate the transition from aging copper line networks to the modern, high-speed ones that Americans want and deserve,” Carr said.
“Our goal can be stated simply: we are aiming to free up billions of dollars for new networks, instead of forcing providers to keep investing in old ones,” the FCC chairman said.
Earlier this year, the agency’s Wireline Competition Bureau adopted orders that the FCC said would help accelerate the transition from copper infrastructure to fiber infrastructure.
On the pole attachment rules front, Carr said he will seek to have the FCC vote later this month on “an item that will revise and update the agency’s pole attachment rules.”
“For too long … this process has been slow, cumbersome, and plagued with delays when it comes to the large-scale deployments needed to end the digital divide,” Carr said. “So we are taking action to encourage greater collaboration and provide more concrete timelines for these large batch requests.”
“This item will also seek comment on whether the FCC can help accelerate mobile wireless builds by finding that light poles are covered by Section 224 of the Communications Act,” he said.
“All of these actions should get America building again,” the FCC chairman declared.
Radiofrequency spectrum is also receiving attention, with Carr saying he aims to free up spectrum through an upcoming vote that will enable the FCC to auction long-unused airwaves in the AWS-3 band with proceeds expected to fully fund the FCC’s “rip and replace” program that helps carriers remove Chinese-made equipment from their networks.
That plan to auction off AWS-3 spectrum isn’t new to the Trump administration – former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel pushed rule approvals to close the $3.08 billion funding gap in the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program while working under the Biden administration.
“These are spectrum licenses that have been laying fallow for years,” said Carr. “It’s also a good outcome from a national security standpoint, too, because proceeds from this auction are being used to complete the ‘rip and replace’ program to get Huawei and ZTE gear out of our networks.”
Carr also detailed the FCC’s plans for space, saying the agency plans to push for “speed, simplicity, security, and satellite spectrum abundance,” while standardizing review procedures and new rulemaking which could free more than 20,000 megahertz for satellite broadband.
“On speed, we’re clearing out satellite application backlogs and reducing processing times at a record pace,” said Carr. “On simplicity, we’re working to eliminate unnecessary rules that throttle the satellite industry, such as obsolete power limits and cumbersome siting restrictions. On security, we launched a proceeding that looks at bolstering and safeguarding the services provided by our GPS system.”
“Our Build America Agenda will ensure the U.S. extends its lead over China in the race for critical technologies like 5G, 6G, and AI [artificial intelligence] so that American companies continue to be the gold standard around the world,” said Carr.
“Supporting these industries of the future requires significant growth and investment into America’s infrastructure so that we can keep up with the hockey stick curve we are seeing in terms of data flowing across our networks,” he continued.
Other upcoming FCC initiatives include making licensing and databases more accessible, as part of broader efforts to modernize the agency’s internal processes and operations, the chairman said.