Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, headed by former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai, has done it again. This time, instead of ripping away consumer protections, Pai is continuing the telecom policy of doing away with competition, while stealing money out of the country’s municipal coffers. The next frontier that telecoms want to conquer, as cover for their lack of upgraded broadband networks and the profound inadequacies of our unregulated telecom markets, is 5G service. The pipe dream is that with 5G service, the United States’ lagging broadband speeds—the result of Big Telecom’s broken promises—will be compensated for by wireless high-speed service. But, as with everything, before this can happen, there needs to be an infrastructure in place. In the case of 5G service, telecom giants like Verizon will need to basically attach small radios to existing structures such as telephone poles to transmit signals. Ajit Pai and his Republican majority voted on Wednesday to limit what local municipalities could charge telecoms for the permits that would be needed to do that. According to the three Republicans on the FCC panel that voted for this new plan, it will save telecom companies around $2 billion that they would have had to give to localities, but instead can be spent on building networks.
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