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The Federal Communications Commission has defeated dozens of cities in court, with judges ruling that the FCC can preempt local fees and regulations imposed on wireless carriers deploying 5G networks. The ruling is good news for AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
The FCC voted to preempt cities and towns in September 2018, saying the move would prevent local governments from charging wireless carriers about $2 billion worth of fees over five years related to deployment of wireless equipment such as small cells. That's less than 1 percent of the estimated $275 billion that the FCC said carriers would have to spend to deploy 5G small cells throughout the United States.
Cities promptly sued the FCC, but a ruling issued [Wednesday] by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit went mostly in the FCC's favor. It wasn't a complete victory for the FCC, though, as judges overturned a portion of the FCC ruling that limited the kinds of aesthetic requirements cities and towns can impose on carrier deployments.
"The court rightly affirmed the FCC's efforts to ensure that infrastructure deployment critical to 5G... is not impeded by exorbitant fees imposed by state and local governments, undue delays in local permitting, and unreasonable barriers to pole access," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said, calling the court decision "a massive victory for US leadership in 5G, our nation's economy, and American consumers."
On the losing side were localities including Portland, Oregon; San Francisco; New York City; Los Angeles; Boston; Chicago; Washington, DC; Las Vegas; Philadelphia; Austin, Texas; and others.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RamiK on Monday August 17 2020, @10:13PM (2 children)
5G is pushed hard because the patents and additional computational requirements act as an industry wide barrier of entry. Naturally having more capabilities and infrastructure propagates the surveillance state... But the industry groups pushing this are just that: Industry groups. There's no conspiracy beyond the usual military-industrial complex collusion of interests. It's no different from a large civil contractors donating to the governor so they'll commission some absurd road work specced to use some niche digging equipment only they own. It's just that it's getting more and more expensive and dangerous to civil liberties.
Either way, no new conspiracies that I can see.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday August 18 2020, @04:31AM
Still no less dangerous, unfortunately. Someday, the conspirators will discover the groundwork has already been laid for them to seize control. The fact that they had nothing to do with laying that groundwork only makes it that much harder to see now where it leads.
Not least because all the conspiracy theorists are wasting all our attention wildly gesticulating at ghosts and aliens.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday August 19 2020, @01:42PM
>There's no conspiracy beyond the usual military-industrial complex collusion of interests.
but those interests are entirely artificial, maximising the amount of fiat money. Which is only one, and one of the shittiest, ways to organize a society. So what you imply as an inevitable behavior is in fact a facet of the actual conspiracy.
Account abandoned.