Michelle Christian, SBA National Director Office of Rural Affairs, will Keynote WISPAPALOOZA 2019 and will address access to capital and right-sizing regulations for small businesses, among other important issues to WISPs.  

Claude Aiken formally opens WISPA's annual WISPAPALOOZA conference being held in Las Vegas, NV, Monday, October 14th through Friday, October 18th.

Today, the D.C. Circuit upheld key aspects of the FCC's 2018 Restoring Internet Freedom Order (RIFO).  Though we are still carefully reviewing the D.C. Circuit’s decision, we welcome its outcome.  The onerous Title II rules, which the FCC adopted in 2015, presented a significant obstacle to deployment for our members, the overwhelming majority of whom are small ISPs serving underserved rural communities.  The RIFO for the most part represents the right approach to these matters – one which keeps inapt, utility regulation away from the Internet, and in doing so, promotes ubiquitous broadband deployment via the light-touch regulatory regime WISPA has favored. 

WISPA's Vice President of Policy, Louis Peraertz, commends the FCC for its work on clarifying certain CBRS auction procedures for PAL licenses. 

WISPA files Joint Comments with USTelecom and ITTA, as well as its own comments, on the FCC's Digital Opportunity Data Collection Report and Order and Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.  In the Joint Filing, the commenters call for the implementation of the Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric to make location-based data collection hyper-accurate; and in the WISPA comments, we ask the FCC for “safe harbors” for fixed wireless broadband data reporting specifically geared to the technology and the spectrum band being used.

Comments filed by WISPA reveal that the association favors much of the FCC's proposed $20 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, including its proposal to allocate support based on the successful Connect America Fund (“CAF”) Phase II reverse auction process, as well as the adoption of certain performance requirements and enforcement mechanisms.  WISPA also offered some suggestions to make the program even better for WISPs and rural Americans.