Biden Administration FCC Policy Priorities: A Look Ahead
It's going to be an interesting year.
With the announcement at the end of November that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Ajit Pai, as is customary, will step away from the FCC on Inauguration Day, it’s important to try to read the tea leaves of how a Biden Administration will change the trajectory of the FCC. While the Pai-directed FCC has taken major steps forward in the direction of 5G deployment, in other areas of communications technology policy and deployment, its actions hurt consumers the most, particularly with the horribly misnamed “Restoring Internet Freedom Act (RIFA),” which invalidated much of the original net neutrality provisions enacted in 2015 when Tom Wheeler was FCC Chairman and Barack Obama was President. Although a return to Obama-era policies, particularly in the area of actual broadband deployment, won’t come easy, they should, and for many, they can’t come quickly enough.