San Jose Mayor Sounds Warning on FCC 5G Rules

the private sector to equip their city-owned streetlight poles with these new technologies and achieve more equitable access in their communities,” Liccardo wrote Thursday in a New York Times opinion. “The telecommunications industry has quietly worked to usurp control over these coveted public assets and utilize publicly owned streetlight poles for their own profit, not the public benefit.” The new rules “force local jurisdictions to provide telecom companies with unfettered access to public streetlight poles at below-market, taxpayer-subsidized lease rates,” he said. “By eviscerating the ability of cities to negotiate with industry, the rules undermine widespread local efforts to broaden access for less affluent families and create an uncertain future for some existing agreements.” Liccardo made headlines earlier this year when he resigned from the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee complaining about a lack of local representation (see 1801250049) and his city, along with Seattle, sued the FCC (see 1810250055). Wireless industry groups didn't comment. “The real story of San Jose’s digital divide is Mayor Liccardo and his 5G tax,” emailed a spokesperson for FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. Under Liccardo “San Jose -- the Capital of Silicon Valley -- has seen zero small cells deployed,” the spokesperson said “Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of small cells have been deployed in places overlooked by coastal elites. … For those living in San Jose, Mayor Liccardo’s leadership gap has been the cruelest part of the digital divide.” Liccardo is right, countered Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood. "While it's so important to focus on the kids and the families hurt by this FCC's policies, as he rightly does, even this telling of the harms doesn't do full justice to the comedic villainy of this FCC,” he said. “Thank goodness the FCC is in line for some serious oversight questions from the incoming House of Representatives.”