White House Seen as Introducing Uncertainty, Cutting Regulations

DALLAS, March 13, 2025 – The Donald Trump administration is moving to drastically slash the federal workforce and consolidate power in the White House, amounting to some uncertainty for the broadband industry, experts said Wednesday.

“The cuts seem to be fairly random. They’re not necessarily driven by an overarching management philosophy of eliminating positions that you don’t need,” said Johannes Bauer, director of the Quello Center at Michigan State University and former chief economist at the Federal Communications Commission. “The one fear I have is that this will lead to some decisions that actually make the problem worse.”

He spoke with other experts at the Connected America conference in Dallas.

Bauer pointed to the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, which has been in a planning stage for years as the National Telecommunications and Information Administration worked closely with states to develop more accurate coverage maps and implementation plans.

“A reduced staff that perhaps doesn’t have the expertise of some of the people who left might actually come up with some very bad decisions,” he said. There haven’t yet been reports of widespread cuts at the NTIA. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said at the agency’s February meeting that it would comply with all Trump directives, including around cutting workforces.

The White House has also been attempting to freeze existing federal grants it is ideologically opposed to, something the courts have ruled against in multiple cases. Congress has historically controlled spending, and even the possibility of the executive branch interfering with existing funding is significant, said Carol Mattey, a broadband deployment consultant and former deputy bureau chief at the FCC. 

“Four months ago I would say an existing authorization is golden and you don’t need to worry about it, but now it’s an open question as to whether there will be an effort to look at existing programs,” Mattey said.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has been holding up BEAD money that had been approved for spending under the Biden administration, preventing that work from getting underway. There hasn’t yet been an indication that existing infrastructure programs, like the FCC’s Universal Service Fund or the NTIA’s middle mile and Tribal broadband programs, have seen funds frozen.

Deregulation

Industry groups are still welcoming an expected push to axe regulations, even if unpredictable tariff announcements and walk-backs have soured the general economic outlook.

Carr, for example, opened Wednesday a new docket titled “In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete.” As the name suggests, it’s an invitation for parties to flag rules they’d like to see ditched. In particular, legacy broadband providers are trying to loosen copper retirement rules.

The FCC and state regulators need to approve the decommissioning of copper networks, an effort to avoid swathes of people losing access to 911 and voice services. But the networks are costly to maintain and don’t provide competitive broadband speeds anymore, so companies want them gone.

“We believe that, as folks have signaled, some of the streamlining will allow providers to focus their investments on modern networks,” said Diana Eisner, VP of regulatory affairs at USTelecom. “And we’re looking forward to that.”

The group had filed a petition with the FCC Feb. 27 asking to loosen rules around discontinuing voice services – meaning decommissioning copper. Blair Levin, New Street Research’s policy advisor and former FCC chief of staff, wrote in a note to investors Wednesday that he expects the FCC to act quickly on the request, as Carr has consistently been supportive of speeding the transition off of copper.

“The relief sought in the petition can make mid-sized ILECs with some fiber assets but with an unknown contingency due to its copper network more attractive to buyers of fiber assets,” he wrote.