➤ Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Nathan Simington reiterated his net neutrality stance, saying that, for practical concerns, it is best for Congress to take up a formal net neutrality law, among other reasons.

➤ Simington would like the FCC to more carefully consider security as it licenses wireless devices.

➤ The commissioner would like to see the commission move away from partisanship and focus on being an independent, expert agency.

Nathan Simington, the Federal Communications Commission's junior Republican commissioner, recently spoke with S&P Global Market Intelligence about the value of Congressional net neutrality legislation. The commissioner also discussed his passion projects and said he hopes to leave a lasting impact on the FCC while getting away from the partisanship and division seen at the agency in years past. What follows is an interview that has been edited for length and clarity.

FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington Source: FCC

S&P Global Market Intelligence: President Joe Biden rolled out a big competition executive order this past summer. In it, he encouraged the FCC to restore net neutrality protections. You soon after issued remarks saying that it would be in everyone's best interest for Congress to take up the net neutrality debate. Why do you think Capitol Hill is best suited to handle net neutrality and not the commission itself?

Nathan Simington: So there have been, as you say, Congressional net neutrality bills introduced from both sides of the aisle. And at the commission, I love deferring to Congress. From my perspective, if Congress tells us to do something, we click our heels at salute. I would never want to put myself in a position where I was trying to tell Congress what the right policy was unless it's with some technical matter where they requested our input.

As far as practical concerns, a commission order is always reversible in the next administration. So we had dueling net neutrality orders in 2015 and 2018. If we get another one, then it would be 2022 or 2023. And then if it reverses again in the next administration, that means four changes under four presidents. So dueling orders are regulatory ping-pong, from my perspective, and they slow investments because they make the hurdle rate on new infrastructure projects impossible to calculate or even really to estimate.

From a legal perspective, I also have ongoing concerns about the portability of the Title II order, if it happens at the commission level. If you look at the 2015 Open Internet Order, it had to contain extensive forbearances from provisions of Title II, which was obviously designed for the Bell system and later recast for the competitive telephone carrier system. But much of that is not appropriate or desirable for the ISP world. So there is a very large list of forbearances.

Broadband providers generally signal that they can live with some sort of a light-touch no blocking, no throttling, 2015-style Title II, assuming that all of the concerns that I've raised can be overcome. I don't know what any forward-looking Title II order would be, precisely because of these concerns.

This is the second part of a two-part Q&A with Nathan Simington. The first part can be found here: FCC's Nathan Simington says lines between tech, telcos have blurred

Talk about some passion projects you're looking forward to taking up at the commission.

I have a few interests. My first is an interference protection framework for spectral densification. Second is physical layer security. Others are policy modernization issues, notably local journalism and next-generation radio frequency enforcements, as well as making the United States a desirable jurisdiction for new entrants into the space economy.

On the interference protection framework, the commission about a decade ago had a significant amount of research taking place on the question of how we deal with the very widely-divided standards among receivers that are out there. We had a recent controversy between the aviation industry and the wireless networks, and I think, fundamentally, this is driven by the signal rejection characteristics of some of the older altimeter receivers that are now in service. They were designed with an assumption that the C-band would have relatively light RF spectrum activity. And that assumption was totally reasonable at one point. It was true until very recently. The problem is this has a way of sliding into a permanent expectation. Unless we do something, these problems will get much worse because we're increasing power levels of spectrum usage all the time.

[Editor's note: The Federal Communications Commission in 2021 auctioned 280 MHz of spectrum in the 3.7 GHz-3.98 GHz band, a portion of what is known as the C-band. This mid-band spectrum is considered essential for 5G delivery, balancing speed and range. It provides broader coverage than high-band spectrum and faster speeds than low-band spectrum.]

For physical layer security, I think the problem is driven by the proliferation of cheap, complex wireless devices. We need security measures that are focused on the physical layer and associated software controls. I'm not asking for the FCC to become a cybersecurity agency, but I want to get away from the IT focus of more conventional cybersecurity and instead look at questions where it's primarily the emitting equipment that we're concerned about. So my office is thinking a lot about this question. We don't want to be licensing devices we say are safe that actually have gaping security vulnerabilities.

Relatedly, on national security, we saw the FCC crack down quite a bit on Chinese tech companies and telcos over the past year. Where do you see the commission going next on national security affairs?

We have to take all national security threats seriously. At the commission, I think we should continue to collaborate in a whole-of-government approach to securing America's network from any foreign threat, whether from any country or from any other actor.

I think there are probably many ways of looking at the question of a secure network. So for example, what should we think about 5G network expansion across the globe? Many of the companies and components involved in this expansion are prohibited in the United States because of security concerns, but their use abroad is also a security concern because of the global nature of communication. So my question would be — are there ways the United States could look at supporting investments in safer networks by middle-income countries? I think we could be looking at ways to support our friends and allies abroad so that they don't just necessarily go with a subsidized, insecure system.

I don't have agenda setting power. I've been favorably impressed with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's leadership on national security. I'm happy with our direction in this area, and I hope to keep working on it both through the front door of directly addressing threats as they arise but also through broader thoughtfulness about how we can foster our friends' and allies' deployment efforts and how we can foster greater 5G network security internationally.

Your term is set to expire in 2024. What impact do you hope to leave on the agency? And if all goes as well, would you stay on for another term?

I'm just happy to be here. I'm so honored to serve as a commissioner at the FCC. I want to focus on being impactful in my present term, and to do that, I think we need to get away from some of the partisanship and division that we've seen at the commission prior and focus on being an independent, expert agency.

Obviously, I'm cross-party with the chairwoman, but I'm really impressed with her leadership. And I think we have a lot of common points of concern. It's my hope that we can all work together to get some great policy done for the American people, and that would be my definition of a successful term.