CCA’s Mobile Carriers Show kicks off as rural telecom providers face the potential of an ‘asteroid-hitting moment’ in the USF case before SCOTUS
With the Competitive Carriers Assocation kicking off its annual Mobile Carriers Show this week in Denver, Colorado, RCR Wireless News caught up with CCA President and CEO Tim Donovan ahead of the event.
What will be top of mind this week for attendees at the CCA show? Donovan gave us some insights on what’s in store.
Tariffs. “There’s certainly going to be talks over some of the tariff issues and and some of the current political updates, and what that means,” Donovan said. Or at least, as best anyone can parse the current tariff whiplashes, including new exemptions on electronics—which may not last?—and China stopping its exports of rare earth minerals. Donovan acknowledged: “I don’t know if we have all the data points we need yet to really have an answer to some of those—but it’s something that folks are talking about.”
The future of the Universal Service Fund. Perhaps the most existential topic of the week will be the future of the Universal Service Fund—the constitutionality of which is under review at the U.S. Supreme Court.
“That’s huge. Huge. Could not be a bigger issue for rural telecommunications in general, including for most of our members,” Donovan said emphatically. Donovan said that while there may be room for “some cautious optimism” based on how oral arguments went in the case, he warned against reading too much into what has so far transpired before SCOTUS.
Rural telecom is looking at potentially earth-shaking consequences if the USF is axed. Some rural carriers are already running scenarios on what their cash flow looks like without the USF, Donovan shared. “It’s not a slow deterioration of some of these networks,” he continued. “It’s the asteroid-hitting moment, and trying to figure out what comes next.”
CCA has already been working with Congress on what Donovan called “break-glass fixes” might look like if the USF is found unconstitutional. But any potential solutions to get something USF-like back into play as soon as possible, can’t fix constitutionality problems unless or until the Supreme Court says exactly what they may be.
Even if SCOTUS finds the USF constitutional, Donovan said. “there are still changes and updates that are needed to make sure that it’s also functioning and on solid foundation. … First things first—we’ve got to keep the patient alive, and then we can work on the cure going forward.”
Spectrum. Auction authority for the Federal Communications Commission continues to be a hot topic, Donovan said, especially related to how much money any potential spectrum auctions might contribute to the U.S. Treasury.
And, while expectations might be sky-high (up to $100 billion!) considering the eye-popping total that the C-Band auction brought in, Donovan also pointed out that there hasn’t been a spectrum auction since interest rates have gone up. The cost of capital will certainly factor into how much operators are willing to pay.
The FCC is already squaring up for the first auction under Chairman Brendan Carr, in the form of the re-auction of unused AWS-3 licenses, and that also means setting table-stakes for how Carr’s FCC will view things like small business bidding credits, license sizes, potential adjustments to credits that take inflation into account, build-out requirements and details like requirements on bidding activity for individual licenses, so that large carriers can’t spread out their bids and leave rural license-bid stagnant while they tussle with each other over big markets—then swoop in late to bid up rural licenses out of smaller carriers’ reach.
All of that means CCA is shining up its positions on bidding rules with the hopes of benefiting small and rural wireless network operators.
Infrastructure investment. Donovan said that CCA is anticipating that word will come soon from the FCC on updated allocations on the “rip and replace” program to remove gear and services from banned Chinese vendors from U.S. telecom networks. The timing of funding availability is good, he added, because most of the country is coming into building season when sites are accessible and work can be done.
The Rural Fund for 5G—which was supposed to be “reignited” last year, under previous FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel—is also a USF program, and could be impacted both by that ruling and/or any rule changes under Carr—who was the sole vote against the program when it first passed the FCC, on the basis that BEAD deployments would fundamentally change the calculations for the Rural 5G Fund and that the program should not pre-empt BEAD.
Arielle Roth, who is President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which administers the BEAD program, just had her nomination passed out of the Senate Commerce committee and it is now headed for a full Senate vote. Donovan expects that further guidance on BEAD will be available in the coming weeks, but it still isn’t clear what requirements will remain or be reworked, and the extent to which states might have to rework their formulas and delay implementation even further.
“There’s just a little uncertainty about where it goes next. And uncertainty can bring opportunity. It can bring some confusion, depending on how it works out, but we’re tracking that as well,” Donovan said.
Accuracy in the data that the federal government uses to determine coverage. This has been a consistent position for CCA, and Donovan said that as networks are funded and built out, the organization is going to continue its push for mobile coverage maps in particular—which he says haven’t received the same level of scrutiny as the fixed broadband maps which underpinned BEAD.
Artificial intelligence. “I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to have a trade show and not talk about AI these days,” Donovan joked. And the Mobile Carriers Show checks the box with sessions, for example, on AI-driven management for cellular networks—as well as broader conversations about the use of AI to benefit rural telecom networks, and whether end-user adoption of AI will spur new use cases and revenue streams.
“At its base level, a lot of the AI technologies aren’t going to work if you don’t have connectivity. And some of those use cases that could make the biggest difference in more sparsely populated areas, or places where you have to long drive distances to get to other things, could be both some opportunities to both provide a new service, as well as as build the business case for these carriers to to keep up operations,” Donovan offered.
He heads into the event set to get CCA members up to speed and remind them that in uncertain policy times, they have a group representing their interests working in Washington. “CCA’s primary role is advocacy and working with the government, and it’s never been more important to make sure that you have the team in DC. Not just for the big carriers that have their own DC offices, but especially for those that are trying to just run their business day to day,” Donovan said. “That’s what we’re here for.”
