CES 2024: FCC Commissioners Talk Net Neutrality, Spectrum, Favorite Gadgets

LAS VEGAS, January 10, 2024 – Federal Communications Commissioners Brendan Carr and Anna Gomez talked net neutrality, spectrum policy, and their favorite pieces of tech at CES on Wednesday.

Carr serves as the FCC’s senior Republican, first confirmed as a commissioner in 2017. Gomez was confirmed in September 2023, ending years of an even split and giving Democrats a 3-2 majority.

Net neutrality

Carr has been an outspoken critic of the Commission’s effort to reinstate net neutrality rules. After approving the measure along party lines, the FCC moved forward with a proposal to do so in October and is accepting comments on the plan until January 17. 

The move would classify broadband as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, opening internet providers up to more regulatory oversight from the Commission.

Carr took a similar tack on Wednesday, calling Title II a “backwards looking regime that made sense in the 1930s,” but expressed some support for less expansive, “common sense” legislation on the issue.

“This idea that we should, as a consumer, not see blocking, throttling, anti-competitive discrimination, these core sets of bright line ‘net neutrality’ rules, are ones I think are broadly agreed upon,” he said.

Gomez defended more comprehensive regulation, saying broadband is “central to everybody’s lives, and it really is important, I think, to have guardrails on the service to make sure that all consumers are benefiting from a competitive, innovative product.”

“We don’t have a national framework to ensure that, instead we have a patchwork of state laws,” she said.

Spectrum

Gomez said she would “really love to see the FCC’s spectrum auction authority re-upped, so to speak.”

The Commission’s ability to auction off bands of electromagnetic spectrum for commercial use expired for the first time in March 2023. Commissioners have pushed lawmakers in Congress to reinstate it, but efforts have stalled. A stopgap measure passed in December giving the FCC the ability to issue spectrum licenses that had been purchased before the authority expired, but the path for blanket authority remains unclear. 

“I don’t think people appreciate how long it takes to actually get a spectrum auction done. There’s so much pre-work that has to be done, and we can’t do any of that” without the authority, she said.

Carr agreed, both that Congress should reinstate the Commission’s auction authority and that the process of getting spectrum out the door often takes years of time and effort.

He also criticized the White House’s National Spectrum Strategy, a plan for studying nearly 2,800 MHz of spectrum for potential repurposing and improving the nation’s spectrum pipeline, saying the U.S. needs to move faster on making spectrum available to remain competitive.

“Under the last administration we freed up something like 6,000 MHz of spectrum just for licensed use, in addition to thousands of megahertz for unlicensed as well. The National Spectrum Strategy that the administration just put out says that we’re going to study, not free up, but study 2,800,” he said.

Favorite gadgets

Asked about her favorite piece of tech from the CES floor so far, Gomez said “I like the little Samsung robot.” The company unveiled on Monday a small ball-shaped robot called Ballie with a built-in projector.

Carr said his favorite technology that uses unlicensed spectrum is his Bluetooth headset.

“I’m almost exclusively on that thing,” he said.