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FCC Angers Cities, Towns With $2 Billion Giveaway To Wireless Carriers (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission's plan for spurring 5G wireless deployment will prevent city and town governments from charging carriers about $2 billion worth of fees. The FCC proposal, to be voted on at its meeting on September 26, limits the amount that local governments may charge carriers for placing 5G equipment such as small cells on poles, traffic lights, and other government property in public rights-of-way. The proposal, which is supported by the FCC's Republican majority, would also force cities and towns to act on carrier applications within 60 or 90 days. The FCC says this will spur more deployment of small cells, which "have antennas often no larger than a small backpack." But the commission's proposal doesn't require carriers to build in areas where they wouldn't have done so anyway.
The FCC plan proposes up-front application fees of $100 for each small cell and annual fees of up to $270 per small cell. The FCC says this is a "reasonable approximation of [localities'] costs for processing applications and for managing deployments in the rights-of-way." Cities that charge more than that would likely face litigation from carriers and would have to prove that the fees are a reasonable approximation of all costs and "non-discriminatory." But, according to Philadelphia, those proposed fees "are simply de minimis when measured against the costs that the City incurs to approve, support, and maintain the many small cell and distributed antenna system (DAS) installations in its public rights-of-way." Philadelphia said it "has already established a fee structure and online application process to apply for small cell deployment that has served the needs of its citizens without prohibiting or creating barriers to entry for infrastructure investment." The city has also negotiated license agreements for small cell installations with Verizon, AT&T, and other carriers. In addition to Philadelphia, the Rural County Represenatives of California (RCRC), a group representing 35 rural California counties, also objects to the FCC plan. They told the FCC that its "proposed recurring fee structure is an unreasonable overreach that will harm local policy innovation."
"That is why many local governments have worked to negotiate fair agreements with wireless providers, which may exceed that number or provide additional benefits to the community," the RCRC wrote. "The FCC's decision to prohibit municipalities' ability to require 'in-kind' conditions on installation agreements is in direct conflict with the FCC's stated intent of this Order and further constrains local governments in deploying wireless services to historically underserved areas."
The FCC plan proposes up-front application fees of $100 for each small cell and annual fees of up to $270 per small cell. The FCC says this is a "reasonable approximation of [localities'] costs for processing applications and for managing deployments in the rights-of-way." Cities that charge more than that would likely face litigation from carriers and would have to prove that the fees are a reasonable approximation of all costs and "non-discriminatory." But, according to Philadelphia, those proposed fees "are simply de minimis when measured against the costs that the City incurs to approve, support, and maintain the many small cell and distributed antenna system (DAS) installations in its public rights-of-way." Philadelphia said it "has already established a fee structure and online application process to apply for small cell deployment that has served the needs of its citizens without prohibiting or creating barriers to entry for infrastructure investment." The city has also negotiated license agreements for small cell installations with Verizon, AT&T, and other carriers. In addition to Philadelphia, the Rural County Represenatives of California (RCRC), a group representing 35 rural California counties, also objects to the FCC plan. They told the FCC that its "proposed recurring fee structure is an unreasonable overreach that will harm local policy innovation."
"That is why many local governments have worked to negotiate fair agreements with wireless providers, which may exceed that number or provide additional benefits to the community," the RCRC wrote. "The FCC's decision to prohibit municipalities' ability to require 'in-kind' conditions on installation agreements is in direct conflict with the FCC's stated intent of this Order and further constrains local governments in deploying wireless services to historically underserved areas."
Not overcharging is now called a "giveaway". Did you want good 5G service
Well, I guess you can at least rest assured that there won't be any "giveaway" from the companies to their customers.
Ezekiel 23:20
Local government is going to spend X.
Government doesn't work that way. They don't decide on the services they want to provide, and then set the tax rates accordingly. Instead, they look at the pile of money they have, and then decide what to spend it on. The list of spending options is always bigger than the money pile.
You either pay them directly, through taxes, or you pay them as passthrough
You really think they are going to see the money coming in from the telcos and say, "Hey, we can use this to reduce other taxes"?
5G deployment is in the interest of the public. It is a silly thing to tax. It is even sillier to add pointless bureaucratic delay.
Oh, you think you own that publicly-owned Government land that holds the existing poles that these 5G cell antennas will mount to? Hah! Heck, you don't even own the land on which your house sits! Try not paying your property taxes for a few years and find out...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
So how is it a handout?
Quite simple. It federally enforces local municipalities to sell use of public land for under fair-market value for that locale.
Who do you *think* that benefits? The consumer? You think your service bill is going to go down?
Municipalities will make $270 per cell per year.
That's probably wonderful for some places. Certainly you recognize that there is a difference in fair market values in locations with median incomes of 32k/year/family vs. places with median incomes of 75k/year/family. You'd mandate the richest economies sell their public assets- with access to *millions* of people, for the price Harrison, Arkansas gets serving their few thousand?
You'd support federally mandating that rich ass cities try to pay their bills like small shithole towns?
Put that on a telephone pole (rather, allow a 5G provider to pay for their own people to put it on a pole and maintain their equipment) and make $270 per year.
It's my pole, not yours. Why are you trying to tell me how much it's worth?
Given that a telephone pole runs about $3000 [dailyherald.com]
Good god, you can't think that price is uniform across the country... You can't. Right? Poles are erected under contract; contractors charge fair market value for an area; fair market value for an area is dependent upon many factors, including income and cost of living in the area.
that means the city is paid to replace each pole so used every 11 years if they like.
Perhaps that is even true for some magical "average" city in America (what is that... 10k people?)
But even if it is, again, it's their fucking pole. They can replace it on whatever schedule the voters in that city deem important. Maybe the people of Harrison, AR love bent nasty poles. The people of Bellevue, WA probably want some fancy ass poles. They go better with their 10 million dollar houses. What gives you the fucking right?
Now, since poles tend to last a LOT longer than that, it means those people putting the 5G cells on the poles (at their own expense, mind you) will effectively pay for 5 pole replacements on average.
All this math is based on some stupid average number you dredged from the internet, and beyond that still- it's fucking irrelevant. The federal government should not have a say in what my public right-of-way is worth. It doesn't make sense for it to.
And this also means that municipalities cannot keep 5G infrastructure out from their domain via insanely high rental prices.
Yes, because affluent cities are known for their limited new services. I'm looking at an LTE coverage map right now, and it's weird, but it appears at cursory glance to be really concentrated around rich ass big cities. Places with high prices of living and high incomes. Places with expensive fucking utility poles.
Or should we just say that wireless communications should be left at 2G/analog and screw anything else?
Don't know where you live, and frankly, I don't fucking care. Being fortunate to live in a big city, I've had every major new service as soon as it came out. I guess it's just one of the cool benefits I get from paying more in taxes. You're free to do it however you like in your area. But since I'm the one with LTE, and you're the one worried about 2G and analog, perhaps we should fairly evaluate who's ideas are working better.
End of the day- a tower here serves vastly more people than the average city in the US. However we choose to charge corporations using public land to provide services for our people to support our high standard of living is our own business. Not yours. You're free to move here and vote otherwise, of course.