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One of Ajit Pai's attempts to eliminate regulation of 5G deployment has been overturned by federal judges.
The Federal Communications Commission last year approved an order that "exempted most small cell construction from two kinds of previously required review: historic-preservation review under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)," federal judges said in their decision partially overturning the order.
The FCC claimed its deregulation of small cells was necessary to spur deployment of 5G wireless networks. But the commission was sued by the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma, the Blackfeet Tribe, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The FCC order was of particular interest to tribal groups because it affected construction on "sites of religious and cultural importance to federally recognized Indian Tribes," the judges noted. "The Order also effectively reduced Tribes' role in reviewing proposed construction of macrocell towers and other wireless facilities that remain subject to cultural and environmental review."
The FCC's opponents argued that the elimination of historic-preservation and environmental review was arbitrary and capricious, that it violated both the NHPA and NEPA, and that the changes to tribes' role in reviewing construction was arbitrary and capricious. A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued its unanimous ruling today.
Judges wrote that Pai's order "does not justify the Commission's determination that it was not in the public interest to require review of small cell deployments. In particular, the Commission failed to justify its confidence that small cell deployments pose little to no cognizable religious, cultural, or environmental risk, particularly given the vast number of proposed deployments and the reality that the Order will principally affect small cells that require new construction."
The FCC also failed to "adequately address possible harms of deregulation and benefits of environmental and historic-preservation review," which means the commission's "deregulation of small cells is thus arbitrary and capricious," judges concluded.
The judges did not vacate the FCC order in its entirety, and they remanded some remaining issues back to the commission.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @02:16AM (3 children)
I should get as much unlimited mobile broadband data as I want for free, wherever I want, whenever I want, because I torrent and I'm worth it because I torrent torrents for free.
Torrent Bro
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @04:05AM (2 children)
A strange parody to make. Using in-network seed boxes instead of in-network streaming CDNs would be a more efficient solution. However, that would require the transformation of both internet and media into utilities (media → public+private online library) and the expropriation of the MAFIAA. Once that has been accomplished we will also gain an extremely fault-tolerant planetary system for preserving our cultural history while allowing it to grow and develop free of the shackles of capitalism.
Imagine a 5G build out that's not meant to track citizens who willingly carry their own cattle tags in addition to providing a planetary communications network (on the terms of the ruling class with 5G). The internet-as-a-public-utility model could lead to privacy-centric design. Without any need for billing, there is no reason to keep indexed logs of metadata. Would ring buffers suffice for diagnostic needs?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @04:30AM (1 child)
We already have a fault-tolerant system for preserving our cultural history. It's called uploading shittons of copies of everything to every file sharing site. MAFIAA doesn't get their cut but capitalism survives when hardcore porn advertising pays the hosting bills.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @04:54PM
I thought that's what I proposed but without DMCA takedowns and with tighter infrastructure integration.