Filled with Customer Comments

Let's play a game.

What do the following topics have in common?

• Proposed Transfer of Control of Sprint Corporation to T-Mobile

• Gray Media

• Group Restoring Internet Freedom

• 5G Spectrum Auction

• Robocalls

Stumped? Scroll down for the answer…

All of the topics mentioned above are currently being debated by or are on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s docket.

For those of you unfamiliar with the FCC, here's your snapshot -

"The Federal Communications Commission regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories"

Courtesy of the FCC's website

So, it layman terms, it's a committee that is focused on the devices that we now use or interact with daily. This committee reviews mergers (i.e. Sprint & T-Mobile) to ensure it benefits the consumer, it oversee spectrum auctions (i.e. airwaves that make our cell phones work) and responds to consumer complaints (more on this in just a minute).

Now that you know what the committee does - let's take a moment to explore who sits on the FCC. It's five lucky people appointed by the President of the United States who undergo confirmation hearings. They serve five year terms and most interestingly, the committee must have political diversity. Only three commissioners can be from the same political party.

Note - Here's a link to see all the current FCC Commissioners.

With the basics established - let me tell you why I decided it warranted a blog post.

Typically, my blogs have focused on tech and media companies - examining their latest product releases, discussing their next steps or challenges. I would call these "reactive" blogs because some action had to occur for the companies to behave this way.

This week, I want to be more proactive on topics under discussion by the FCC. Why? I believe that many of the decisions being made over the next 6-12 months by this government agency will significant impact the American public. Yes, this statement may seem grandiose and braggadocios to some but let me provide a few examples.

Broadband

For Memorial Day, I decided to take a trip back to the Midwest for fun, sun, friends and perspective. I love the wide open spaces and the clear night sky. However, every time I am back in the Midwest, I am reminded of the disparity in technology between the coasts and the interiors of the United States. Specifically, I am referring to broadband and wireless access.

The FCC published a study that found 39% of Americans living outside of an urban city lack access to high-speed broadband versus 4% of urban residents.

This means that rural communities and their public institutions have access to slower speeds or devices than their urban counterparts. Think about where you grew up and how if you lacked adequate (i.e. <10Mbps) how different your life may be.

How does the FCC fit here? In the past, the commission attempted to incentivize broadband companies with subsidies through a program called "Connect America Fund." The goal was to build infrastructure in rural communities that could be reinforced or added to.

The good news is - broadband is being delivered to more rural communities. Take a look at the Connect America Fund's deployment map. The bad news? There's still a significant portion of the country in need of high speed broadband. In August 2018, the FCC backed a $1.5B initiative to connect 700k homes and businesses.

Why this matters now? The technological divide between rural and urban continues to widen. This impacts every facet of a city - it's ability to raise productive citizens, to develop sustaining economies, and to bring wealth into its communities. Broadband and cellular need to be deployed in conjunction. Simply deploying one or the other will not solve the technological divide. 5G may greatly impact how broadband is deployed to rural economies in the future. Speaking of 5G…

5G

Back in April, I got goosebumps when I read about a speed test conducted at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas. Industry analysts tested out one of the first 5G network devices (called a "puck") and achieved speeds up to 1.3Gbps - wooza! [For context, in 1Q19 mobile speed tests, most carriers reached 33-34 Mbps.]

Before you get too excited about this future, recognize that this technology is still months away for consumer roll out. In fact, how quickly it deploys will be dependent upon the FCC.

Contrary to popular belief, lighting up a "network" is not as easy as flipping a switch. The technology has to be developed, tested, tested again and then organizations must come to a consensus. And a central player and facilitator of 5G is the FCC.

Read about the FCC's 5G FAST Plan here.

Depending upon reader interest, this can be revisited at a later time. In the meantime….

A key tenet of this strategy is facilitating one of the largest spectrum auctions in history. Spectrum or airwaves are the wavelengths that our communications ride along. In an attempt to avoid getting too complex, understand that 5G requires specific airwaves which the FCC gathers up and then leases the rights to in an auction.

Serious cash is dropped during these spectrum auctions - mostly by wireless carriers. If a carrier wins the auction, they are granted blocks of spectrum which they must modify to work on devices. It's not an understatement to say that a customer's experience will be impacted by how much spectrum is purchased and how it is modified…which means this latest auction is pretty important.

Pay close attention to the winners and losers of this auction. We are now halfway through the spectrum auction as of today. Just this auction round generated $2.7B for the lucrative and highly sought after 24 GHz and 28 GHz spectrum licenses. The next 5G spectrum auction is scheduled for December 2019 and will cover the 37, 39 and 47 GHz.

Robocalls

Chances are we have all experienced the following scenario -

I'm sitting at my desk when suddenly I hear a noise. Urg, the familiar buzz of my cell phone. "Again?!?!" I thought to myself. Annoyed, I craned my neck to the right - where my cellular device laid. I let out an exasperated sigh. "Looks like another robocall" to which I promptly hit the "decline" button. It was the fifth call I'd received that day from a suspected robocaller.

"Can't someone do something about this?" - it's a thought I've had frequently the past few months. Clearly, I'm not the only person who felt that way - in 2018, it is believed Americans received 26.3 BILLION robocalls. That's almost a fifty percent increase from 2017.

The organization tasked with taking down this hideous hydra - the FCC. And it's not going well. Cut off one head and another two sprout up. In the meantime, there's been a lot of consumer complaints, excuse me, consumer "comments" - over 232K in fact on this particular matter making it one of the most important and watched topics by the public.

To be clear, this has been a priority of the FCC for some time. The FCC has not been ignoring robocalls. On the contrary, it's been trying to take action. Earlier this month, the FCC agreed to empower wireless carriers to block specific types of robocalls by default. This means that your wireless carrier would block a call before it ever reaches you. They also indicated high fines will be levied against found robocall companies. Many (including myself) believe this is a step in the right direction, however, more action must be taken.

In particular, as someone who regularly works in operations - aligning on a solution versus implementing said solution are different animals. From my vantage point, more policy clarity and actual policy will be needed before this scourge gets any better.

There you have it - a small snapshot into the FCC and some of the issues occupying their time. For a small commission that was impacted by the government shutdown in January, there's a significant amount of work left to do.

Yes, in some cases, there is cause to be concerned - our problems (lack of rural broadband, robocalls) should have you concerned that things may very well get worse before better. On the other hand, the agency occupies a unique position to create policy that could benefit customers more than their wildest dreams. It's that possibility that make it an interesting organization to follow.