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FCC's New 5G Rules Favor Fast Setup Over Federal Reviews (cnet.com)
In a 3-2, party-line vote Thursday, FCC commissioners passed a measure that exempts small cell radio deployments from federal environmental and historical preservation reviews originally meant for large cell phone towers. The vote didn't affect reviews from towns and cities, but the agency may consider exemptions for those reviews later this year. CNET reports: Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has been leading the agency's charge in promoting 5G. He said the exemptions are sorely needed because reviews have been costing wireless operators too much and have slowed deployments. In 2017, these federal reviews cost providers $36 million. He anticipates that as 5G deployments increase in the coming year they could cost providers as much as $241 million. Meanwhile, he said FCC records show that less than 1 percent of cases reviewed resulted in any changes to planned deployments.
"The disproportionate fees are the product of a broken and outdated system," Carr said. "This threatens to hold us back in the race to 5G or limit the business case to densely populated or affluent areas." He added that with Thursday's rule change, the FCC "can flip the business case for thousands of communities." Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, however, said that though the current reviews process does involve red tape, Thursday's change "misses the mark" and also runs afoul of key environmental and historic preservation values.
"The disproportionate fees are the product of a broken and outdated system," Carr said. "This threatens to hold us back in the race to 5G or limit the business case to densely populated or affluent areas." He added that with Thursday's rule change, the FCC "can flip the business case for thousands of communities." Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, however, said that though the current reviews process does involve red tape, Thursday's change "misses the mark" and also runs afoul of key environmental and historic preservation values.
Yes, there is. The higher frequency (15GHz!!) affords higher bandwidth, but requires many more towers because of the shorter range:
I'd also wager, that tracking your device's location will also become more precise...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Duh! So what does the EPA have to do with Federal Communications Regulations?
;)
Actually I think the federal government needs to radically downsize and butt out of 20-30+% of what they have their fingers in. If I recall from my 8th grade civics class, the states retained all responsibility for everything not specifically granted to the federal government in the constitution. In my mind the federal government has badly over reached their powers.
Just my 2 cents
$36 million is what? 1/100th of Verizon and/or AT&T’s yearly revenues? Poor things...
The problem isn’t just spending but unnecessary tax cuts.
The government allowing individuals to keep more of what they earn (what is theirs?) is a problem?
AC Re: 'So, what exactly is so great about 5G"?
5G supports real broadband speeds.
Build a few new towers and make a great new connection to the internet.
With useful upload and download speeds.
Internet speed beyond speed on paper insulated wireline.
So much great broadband that the internet will get boring.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Federal government revenue per capita in inflation-adjusted dollars is up by 3x in the last 40 years.
The problem is that spending is up 4x in the same measure.
Spending is completely the issue, not the near record levels of revenue. Even a relatively minor slowdown in the annual spending increases would balance the budget in 20 years.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Who are we "racing" to get 5G deployed and why?
Is there some huge issue with people hitting the wall speed-wise on existing LTE networks? Last I heard no one was getting anywhere close to the maximum speeds of the infrastructure we've got -- mostly due to a lack of back-haul capacity supplying it.
Considering how the government coddles the incumbent telcos and doesn't hold them to any standards when it comes to fully supporting the markets they have been given exclusive access to, it's obvious that they don't consider high speed internet access an important thing, so that's not why.