Today: U.S. House Broadband Infrastructure Plans, FCC on False Alarm in Hawaii  

U.S. House Broadband Infrastructure Plans Revealed

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) and Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have outlined the committee’s plan for introducing legislation to improve broadband infrastructure in rural America.  Building on last week’s executive orders and resolutions See the Regulatory Mix dated 1/11/18, the Chairmen said that the Subcommittee members will be introducing a series of bills in the coming week and that the Subcommittee will hold hearings to discuss these issues further.  The bills will be introduced in three buckets: removing barriers to infrastructure buildout; supporting innovation; and strengthening the public safety benefits that come with access to broadband internet.  The first round of legislation will focus on removing the barriers to deploying infrastructure through legislation to simplify permits and requirements, and clean up duplicative agency processes.  The next round of legislation will seek to establish a defined, consistent framework for all broadband technologies, encouraging innovation, growth, and prosperity in rural America.  The final set of legislation will advance funds for high-speed broadband in declared disaster areas to improve public safety response rates in affected regions. 

FCC Statement on False Alarm in Hawaii

In response to the false alert of an imminent missile attack in Hawaii on January 13, 2018, Chairman Pai issued a statement saying, in part: “ The false emergency alert sent yesterday in Hawaii was absolutely unacceptable.  It caused a wave of panic across the state—worsened by the 38-minute delay before a correction alert was issued.  Moreover, false alerts undermine public confidence in the alerting system and thus reduce their effectiveness during real emergencies. The FCC’s investigation into this incident is well underway…Based on the information we have collected so far, it appears that the government of Hawaii did not have reasonable safeguards or process controls in place to prevent the transmission of a false alert. Moving forward, we will focus on what steps need to be taken to prevent a similar incident from happening again.”

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The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Briefing.