Adelstein Says FCC May Issue NPRM on Small-Cell Siting

The FCC may issue an NPRM “in the coming months” that would use authority under Communications Act Section 253 to eliminate unreasonable fees blocking broadband deployment, Adelstein told us Tuesday. It should be a bipartisan issue that commissioners could OK even if they don’t have a full five-member commission, said the former Democratic FCC commissioner. "We could get action on a wireless infrastructure siting regulation with a bipartisan, unanimous vote sometime in the spring [or] summer.” WIA supports the FCC stepping in where local communities act unreasonably to thwart wireless builds, he said. Adelstein and Crown Castle CEO Jay Brown highlighted local resistance to small cells in keynotes Tuesday (see 1610250028).

“Siting is a major focus of the commission, but no decision has been made on the best path forward,” an FCC spokesman said Wednesday. On the panel, Smith said Wheeler sees small-cell siting as a critical issue upon which to act. "We do recognize the need for moving quickly,” Smith said. "We have within the toolbox of authorities at the FCC the authorities to address this, and we are trying to figure out … the best way forward and trying to get as much input as we possibly can." Possible authorities might include Section 253, he said.

Wheeler recognizes "these are local issues with national implications,” Smith said. "If it's taking you as long to get approvals on each one of those [small cells] as it would to get approval on a cell tower, then a lot of users are never going to have 5G, and this will become a very significant economic differentiator between one community and the next,” Smith said. The adviser didn’t mention the possibility of a rulemaking.

At the NATOA conference last month, local government officials raised concerns about giving up their authority on what goes up in their communities and said they’d prefer working collaboratively with industry to federal pre-emption (see 1609220037). "We need to remove unreasonable barriers while working with localities in a responsible fashion,” Adelstein replied Tuesday. “We're not saying you just need to knock down the walls and let us do whatever we want whenever we want.” But local governments shouldn't treat pole attachment access fees like "an ATM,” he said. Industry supports FCC action for these outlier communities causing problems, he said. “You can’t let the NIMBYs get in the way of the needs of the broader community. Most local officials are increasingly realizing that, but some don’t. … Let's bring them all up to the level of the smart leaders of NATOA that will work with us in a collaborative fashion.”

NATOA wants to work with industry, the FCC and other local government associations to educate local officials about 5G and why the additional infrastructure is needed, Executive Director Steve Traylor emailed us before speaking Wednesday on a local government panel. “That's why we had the joint workshop with the FCC earlier this year, why we had sessions on deployment at our annual conference and why I'm here in Houston helping to explain the local government aspect on these issues.”

WIA sees Google Fiber as an ally in its mission to streamline siting rules, Adelstein said. “Google is getting localities to agree to things that nobody else has agreed to.” Google Fiber became a WIA member in September, he said. “We’re trying to find ways to work collaboratively. We may not have the same agenda on everything, but certainly looking at their model, [it’s] a good one.” The company is scaling back its fiber ambitions (see 1610260034).

Industry officials supported FCC action to ease local siting. “There’s a lot of ways that the federal government could approach this that would be helpful,” including FCC preemption or a congressional amendment to the Telecom Act clarifying small cell situations, ExteNet Systems General Counsel Anthony Lehv said on the small-cells panel. “These difficulties that we run into really do have an impact. They make it impossible for the carriers to put their networks up and get them running and functioning the way they need … to relieve some of these capacity constraints and coverage constraints.”

Some municipalities are receptive to small cells, some are "actively hostile" and many others fall between, said Lightower Fiber Networks Senior Assistant General Counsel Natasha Ernst, who negotiates with cities on deploying small cells. In one state where Lightower is in talks with 36 municipalities, 20 percent “are turning into an issue,” she said. “For some of those, they are absolutely on hold in kind of an informal moratorium.” Also, some consultants have come to cities claiming broadband expertise and, when engaged, slowed down negotiations, she said. When a city decides to stop negotiating, a six-month approval process can turn into more than two years, she said.

IoT, Ultra HD video and many more applications not yet known will be enabled by 5G, said Paula Doublin, AT&T assistant vice president of antenna solutions. “It’s going to be awesome. What we have to do to get to awesome is going to be a lot of hard work.”