The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers’ (SCTE) annual conference — SCTE TechExpo 25 — began in Washington, D.C., this morning with visits from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) head Arielle Roth.
SCTE President and CEO Maria Popo launched TechExpo 25 with a call to innovation: “It’s not about organizations necessarily with the best technology, but it’s the organizations that build the platforms for what’s coming.”
Popo said innovation is a combination of the right tools and the right timing. In that vein, Popo discussed the new broadband workforce training program SCTE has launched in conjunction with Colorado State University.
The first morning of SCTE TechExpo 25 continued with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who was interviewed by NCTA President and CEO Cory Gardner.
Carr’s session focused on his Build America agenda. The agenda has “a couple of key pillars,” he said, which include:
- Permitting reform: Carr said, “Tomorrow at the FCC, we’re going to be voting on a series of permitting reform proposals, both on the wireless side — to make wireless infrastructure easier to build out — but also on the wireline side.”
- Boosting America’s “space economy”: He noted that the broadband industry is increasingly competitive, pointing out that mobile wireless companies are “taking big shares of the home broadband market through fixed wireless technologies” and arguing that Starlink and Amazon Kuiper will “open up new opportunities for innovation.”
- Artificial intelligence (AI): “In addition to the permitting reform and making sure that networks are fast, we’re also taking a look right now at whether there’s a role we can play with respect to the heavy-handed state regulation of AI,” Carr said. “There may be a portion of AI services that [are] too heavily regulated at the state and local level that the FCC may be able to [help] streamline.”
- Making new wireless spectrum available: Carr said the FCC would be examining Echostar’s recent sale of spectrum to Starlink. “If we reach the decision that that’s in the public interest, that gets really interesting,” he said.
- Cybersecurity: “There’s no piece of electronics that’s allowed to come into the U.S. to be used or sold or marketed unless it’s approved for use through a lab recognized by the FCC. But increasingly we’re asking these labs to engage in national security reviews — and up to recently, we never had any check in place to make sure that the labs themselves are trustworthy actors,” Carr said.
Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information Arielle Roth — who was recently confirmed as head of the NTIA — closed the first morning of SCTE TechExpo 25 in an interview with MPORielly Consulting, Inc. President and former FCC commissioner Michael O’Rielly.
Roth talked at length about the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. Roth said the Biden administration “took their eye off the prize,” focusing “on all kinds of extraneous central planning mandates, rate regulation, climate change, [and] unionized labor that detracted from that goal of bringing connectivity to all Americans.”
Roth said the Biden administration also “pushed extreme technology bias that had the effect of raising costs and creating distortions.”
Rielly asked Roth, “Are you happy with what you’re seeing from the states as they apply [for BEAD funds using] the new rules put forward by the Trump administration?”
“Definitely,” Roth replied. Referring to the updated BEAD guidelines as a “course correction,” she said: “43 final proposals have been submitted to NTIA that we’re reviewing now, for a total of at least $15 billion in savings to the American taxpayer. Before, it wasn’t clear whether there would be enough money to connect to everyone.
“Seeing the results of increased participation, lower per-location costs, and fewer locations to serve as a result of the private sector stepping up over the past few years, I think we’re really going to see some tremendous success over the next few months.”
Roth said the NTIA is questioning BEAD projects that are “costly to an excessive extent… In some cases where costs are unreasonable, we’re asking existing providers who have already participated in bidding for a particular area to submit their best and final offer.”
She said this best-and-final-offer process is happening in “a small minority of circumstances,” but added that it’s necessary for the NTIA to be good stewards of the BEAD funds.
“When you overspend, that can crowd out private research and development, it can crowd out innovation, and ultimately the ones who suffer the most in that situation are Americans in remote areas.”
Roth said the NTIA’s role in its final review is, partly, “ensuring that that money goes to serious providers who are going to deliver on their promises and that we’re not going to see defaults. We don’t want the money to go to fly-by-night companies.
“We also want to make sure that providers that are participating know that this is really the [last] pot of broadband money. They shouldn’t be expecting that there’s going to be another pot of money down the road.”
SCTE TechExpo 25 continues through Wednesday, October 1.
