Source: https://www.lasttreelaws.com/wireless-infrastructure-laws.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 04:40:38+00:00

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Recently the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has moved to preempt state rights by allowing retirement of copper phone lines and rejection of state regulation of wireless infrastructure. An upcoming order proposed is to allow deduction of local arrangements for public television, school technology, and the like as “in-kind” contributions to lower fees.
The decision by the FCC to allow arbitrary retirement of copper phone lines without public notice is already being challenged by Public Knowledge, the Greenlining Institute, The Utility Reform Network (TURN), and the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA), which have filed a petitioners’ brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit requesting to vacate the Federal Communications Commission’s 2017 Technology Transitions Order.
Previously, providers were required to notify consumers and retailers before removal or discontinuance, and to carefully consider the impact on communities, including on 911 and home alarm systems.
The benefits of copper phone lines include greater security and the ability to provide communications even during a power outage, as distant electricity can power copper phone lines from afar. Copper phone lines have had low-income subsidies and regulations requiring quality of service, price caps, warrants for listening, and provisions allowing economic competition on the lines. In contrast, not only does wireless communications service lack these protections, but service can be struck down remotely, shut down if overburdened, and demise of a single cell tower disrupt service for thousands.
Public Knowledge reports that federal safeguards put in place following Hurricane Sandy have been repealed by the FCC, in effect eliminating requirements to provide service to everyone in the state, provide for timely repairs, regulate customer billing, and prevent “lengthy loss of service (and in some cases, discontinuance of service).”[i] The petitioner’s brief put forward notes that following Hurricane Sandy, Verizon initially refused to restore copper networks allowing competitor services, providing instead Verizon wireless VoiceLink while disclaiming liability if 911 calls failed and noting incompatibility with fax machines, medical alert devices and medical monitors, alarm services, and DVRs. Following this incident the 2015 Tech Transitions Order provided protections, including for de facto service discontinuance where copper networks were allowed to deteriorate.
Consumer advocate Bruce Kucinick has written extensively to show that private telecommunications providers have had financial incentive to retire copper phones and replace these with expensive wireless services. Additionally, he has reported on multiple instances where private providers have failed to deliver on promises of fiber-optic services despite contractual agreements from states and payments.
[i] Stella, S. (2018, Oct 17) Hurricane Michael aftermath ‘wake up call’ on deregulating telecommunications services. Public Knowledge Press Release.
What is so concerning about 5G? The International Space Appeal describes massive plans for the end of 2018: “millions” of small cells, 20K new satellites, 200 billion transmitting objects for the Internet of Things initially, and one trillion more objects a few years later. The impact of construction and kerosene is just one environmental factor. At the Cell Phone Task Force, Arthur Firstenberg describes the impact use of “phased arrays” for 5G. Phased arrays will allow the power levels of 5G to be concentrated, so that cell phones may emit 20 watts rather than 2 watts, exceeding even federal lax federal guidelines. Firstenberg explains the FCC recently relaxed rules to allow this by claiming protection from metal shields around the cell phone – but this is just a technicality and in fact those exposures will occur. And that just considers cell phones, rather than cell towers.
Many others are concerned about the massive infrastructure and about 5G technologies.
Scientists have been reporting that wireless poses significant risks to all life. The Bioinitiative reports first published in 2014 provide reviews of thousands of studies with a great majority expressing risks. Many studies on wireless effects are based on analysis of biochemical and cellular effects, a largely objective measure. Studies continue to accrue, many from respectable sources such as the US National Toxicology Program, the Cleveland Cancer Clinic, and the Ramazzini Institute, the latter which has recently been unfairly facing attacks from Breitbart News and select legislators. Numerous appeals have been launched, from the EMF Scientist Appeal to the 5G Appeal to the 5G Space Appeal, all raising concerns of significant threats such as to well-being, memory, and fertility, besides risks to the environment.
Although certain 5G frequencies have been used as a military weapon, little public research exists regarding health and environmental effects. The research that does exist is concerning. 5G spectrum includes new wireless frequencies that scientists have noted pose additional risks of powerful heating and breakage in smaller life forms, such as insects and molecules. Researchers have found evidence of such heating in insects such as bees.[i] And already, insects are in decline and research does show wireless impacts insects and other life forms adversely.
By law, the FCC is to account for "promote the safety of life and property" [47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(a)(1)].
Due to the environmental provisions of federal law, there hasn’t been oversight of the FCC, required health monitoring, or review of recent research. FCC guidelines are based on outdated recommendations by a small committee within the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE): this committee is dominated by industry representatives and lacks medical authority. The FCC itself is not a scientific or medical agency.
[i] Thielens A, Bell D, Mortimore DB, Greco MK, Martens L, Joseph W. (2018). Exposure of insects to radio-frequency electromagnetic fields from 2-120 GHz. Scientific Reports. 8:3924.
Online at New Networks Institute, numerous documents have been posted by telecom experts suggesting that Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink and the FCC have overcharged citizens by $½ trillion or more, promising and then failing to deliver fiber-optic services in exchange for payments, exacerbating the digital divide and playing with accounting to make state-based wired telecommunication utilities appear unprofitable.
Federal laws have restricted the roll-out of publicly owned wired infrastructure and favored private enterprise. In Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) was funded by the state legislature with the purpose of building broadband infrastructure out to the “last mile” and bridge the digital divide.
Initial support for WiredWest, a municipal cooperative expecting funding, dropped after appointment of Eric Nakijima as MBI director by Governor Baker. Despite Governor Bakers then promise, after public outcry, to insure public funding, the state then preferentially granted funds in the millions to private providers of wireless and cable services, primarily and perhaps exclusively to Charter Communications and Comcast. Such grants tilted the playing field against community-owned fiber or smaller private operators. MBI also set extreme application requirements for providing broadband to communities, requiring for example $100 million in yearly revenue and 5 years experience in building, operating, and maintaining a residential broadband network. In a less than popular move in two towns, for example, MBI denied fiber in favor of Comcast Cable.[ii] As discussed in “The Looming Cable Monopoly” in the Yale Law & Policy Review, where FiOs exists, competition will exist, and without FiOs consumers will be left with cable monopoly.
The outcome of allowing monopoly of telecommunications by private enterprises has larger impacts than just financial, as private enterprise may also capture customer data and censor online accessibility and services. In contrast, a municipal provider would be beholden to citizens.
[i] Kucinick, B. (2018, Oct 17) States’ rights, net neutrality, & 5G: broadband Is a state-based, Title II, telecommunications utility service. Medium.
For new 5G wireless spectrum, telecommunication companies may expect installation of cellular equipment on local infrastructure such as light poles, on or near sidewalks, on buildings, utility poles, and public rights of way in front of homes and businesses. These “Small Cell Facilities” (small cells) are smaller than traditional standalone cell towers and building mounted towers, and may be mounted on structures no more than 50 feet in height including antennas, and extend no more than 10 percent of height on existing structures.
Telecommunication companies have claimed a need to install small cells in line of sight and approximately or potentially every 100 feet, although this was disproven in Verizon trials according to CEO Lowell McAdam. McAdam has stated Verizon is now planning for small cells every 2000 feet (about 37% of a mile).
Towns with fiber optic will not be exempt from applications, as small cells are intended to provide wireless coverage for cell phones and potentially for future driver-less cars and items connected to the Internet of Things.
Federal law states “[n]othing in this section affects the authority of a state or local government to manage the public rights of way or to require fair and reasonable compensation from telecommunications providers, on a competitively neutral and nondiscriminatory basis, for use of public rights of way ... ” and that “nothing in this chapter shall limit or affect the authority of ... local government ... over decisions regarding the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities” 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(iv).
Disregarding state rights and prerogatives to protect citizens and the environment, federal law also states, “No State or local government or instrumentality thereof may regulate the placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the Commission’s regulations concerning such emissions” 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(i)(I).
Environmental effects include health impacts on humans and wildlife according to the statutory interpretation of the US District Court District of Connecticut in Jaeger v. Cellco in 2012. Even if not generally "allowed," environmental and historical reviews have been considered by federal processes and law through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). In the past, the FCC has categorized "extraordinary" cases as necessitating environmental review, such as placement of towers in habitat critical to endangered species.
In a March 22, 2018, ruling on small cells, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) swept aside “extraordinary” exemptions for special historic and environmental considerations, claiming exemption by denying 5G infrastructure as a federal action. The FCC fails to allow local review while still failing to provide federal review even when the commission must consider whether its actions will "promote the safety of life and property" [47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(a)(1)]. This and other recent FCC rulings have led to legal challenges.
On September 26, 2018, the FCC passed a new rule, “Declaratory Ruling and Third Report and Order,” limiting fees charged, aesthetic requirements, and small cell application reviews to 60 days for existing structures and 90 days for new structures. The FCC claims aesthetic limits cannot include underground requirements and must be: “(1) reasonable, (2) no more burdensome than those applied to other types of infrastructure deployments and (3) published in advance.” The FCC calls “failure to act” within the 60- to 90- day shot clock as “presumptive prohibition” for the purpose of a “straight-forward case” in favor of the telecommunications industry in court.
Nevertheless, in Sprint v. San Diego the court has decided that claims by industry that localities deny wireless providers service must be materially proven by rather than speculative [543 F.3d 571 (2008)].
Guidelines for treatment and diagnosis of Electromagnetic Sensitivity were formalized by the Austrian Medical Association in 2012. In 2016, a working group published a paper for the European Academy for Environmental Medicine (EUROPAEM) for prevention, diagnosis and treatment.[vii] The American Academy of Environmental Medicine also provides trainings on Electromagnetic Sensitivity.
Peter Ohnsorge, Peter Pelzmann, Claus Scheingraber and Roby Thill. (2016) EUROPAEM EMF Guideline 2016 for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of EMF-related health problems and illnesses. Rev Environ Heal. 31(3):363-97.
Just as Verizon throttled the Santa Clara County Fire Department, besides other services such as YouTube, internet service providers are capable and willing to throttle specific traffic despite marketing unlimited or “no throttling.” Regulators in states such as Massachusetts and New York have sought advice from researcher David Choffnes, who developed the Wehe app for throttling detection, to create net neutrality legislation.
The ability of private providers of telecommunications to censor content and target groups or competitors is anathema to free speech rights.
Industry has recurring financial and political incentives to reject regulations which benefit public interests. However, telecommunications is based on public infrastructure and serves human rights including safety, security, education, and free speech. Besides these human rights and because of the immediate risks to environmental health and of increased disabilities, industry and the FCC must be brought to heel.
launching at minimum an anti-trust and conspiracy suit.
Besides these tasks, the state should ban 5G frequencies & ideally other wireless frequencies so that a safer, hard-wired system can be established, while also protecting copper networks.
The Commerce Clause provides the federal government with the right to regulate goods, but when a good is prohibited or banned by a state then the federal government lacks authority to regulate that good. Although a 5G ban would likely be challenged by federal government with the claim that communications is intrastate, such a ban would delay and deflect responsibility and legal work away from municipalities and stall infrastructure development.
The question of state versus federal authority has for a long time favored federal authority. The Supreme Court has emphasized the long range of the Commerce Clause, while historians and media have emphasized positive results. Through the Bill of Rights federal authority has been used beneficially, for example to prohibit discrimination. However, the Commerce Clause and federal authority have often been used to deny environmental protections enacted by the states. The use of federal authority to cause substantial environmental and other harm is at odds with reason, thus giving standing to states. Still, nothing requires or demands of the Supreme Court to be reasonable. Still, legal challenges and a ban provide time for states and municipalities to gather federal legislative support and develop other procedures to deny 5G infrastructure.
The judicial system and federal legislature may be stacked against municipalities and the states despite legitimate complaints. While refusing installations may place municipalities individually at risk of lawsuits, a collaborative refusal to cede state authority may have a chance of exacting pressure upon the federal legislature and judicial system. State legislatures should pass laws to establish such refusal and barriers as policy.
Federal legislation denying state environmental review coupled with the rejection by the FCC of small cells environmental review provides a potential avenue for states to take reject 5G. By law, the FCC is to account for public safety. The FCC has been made duly aware of risks through copious filings. Although several states have challenged marijuana prohibitions or immigration controls, none have challenged or nullified the prohibition on refusing wireless infrastructure on environmental grounds.
As it stands, the federal legislation is poorly written, and needs to allow for environmental review and monitoring, as well as attention to current research.
If the FCC wishes to wantonly ignore federal law and claim small cell infrastructure is not a “federal action,” fail to conduct environmental review, then FCC authority and intrastate rules should not then apply. The tenth amendment does state that matters not included in the federal Constitution are left to the states. The question of how to interpret the tenth amendment and how to interpret the power of the states versus that of federal government has been often answered in favor of the federal government, but when health and our environment are at risk then every avenue ought to be pursued.
State legislatures must also insure that monopoly, bullying telecommunications providers and the FCC are thoroughly investigated for conspiracy and penalized in full for the benefit of the public, including appropriately penalized by state taxes. Recent and future FCC orders lack credibility, logic, and, along with industry connections, cast the FCC leadership under suspicion of anti-trust and conspiracy violations.
end contracts with monopoly telecommunications providers that have supported recent FCC orders.
The continuing hubris of the FCC has moved local governments and public opinion against the FCC and hopefully will also move opinion against the federal legislative dismissal of environmental health risks.

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