Outgoing FCC chair optimistic about the future of tele-health
WASHINGTON — In a farewell talk with Pittsburgh-area technologists, outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chair Ajit Pai said Tuesday he hoped the federal government’s efforts to keep Americans connected during the COVID-19 pandemic continued under the incoming Biden administration.
Mr. Pai — a Republican appointed to the FCC in 2011 by former President Barack Obama — said he believed a shift to telehealth “is going to be most dramatic change, I think, in the next couple of years.”
“The model of health care delivery is being inverted, with care being delivered where the patient happens to be, as opposed to where the brick-and-mortar health care facility happens to be,” Mr. Pai said during a Zoom call hosted by the Pittsburgh Technology Council.
Lawmakers in Congress, responding to the pandemic last March, authorized the FCC to create a COVID-19 tele-health grant program. The commission doled out $200 million to 539 applicants in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Guam.
UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh received $192,500 in the first batch of funding to purchase 400 mobile devices for organ transplant pediatric patients who are immunocompromised and who are at an increased risk for getting COVID-19.
“That’s already delivering huge benefits in terms of health outcomes — and also a reduction of anxiety and stress parents might have,” Mr. Pai said.
Mr. Pai, a Kansas native whose wife’s family is from Youngstown, Ohio, has visited the Pittsburgh region numerous times throughout his tenure on the commission, including a visit to a broadband project site in Zelienople.
After being elevated by President Donald Trump to chair in 2017, Mr. Pai made headlines for voting with the commission’s Republican majority to repealing net neutrality rules. The move was one of many that put Mr. Pai at odds with Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, who chairs the congressional panel overseeing issues of telecom policy.
Mr. Doyle and Mr. Pai clashed during the pandemic, too, on whether the FCC should be doing more to encourage remote learning and assisting low-income households with internet connectivity.
“Millions of Americans lack [broadband] access, and millions still cannot afford access,” Mr. Doyle said during a May hearing with Mr. Pai. “The shortfalls and inequities of our nation’s broadband networks have been put in stark relief by this crisis. This administration, the FCC and Congress need to do more to close the digital divide.”
But Mr. Pai said Tuesday he wished Congress would have authorized more funding for broadband expansion.
He recalled his first major policy speech as chairman — delivered at Carnegie Mellon University in March 2017 — in which he called on Congress to allocate “substantial funding” in the neighborhood of “$50 billion, $60 billion, whatever that number is.”
“Imagine now, almost four years later, had Congress given us that funding, how much even stronger our broadband networks would be,” Mr. Pai said. “I hope that they will tackle this in a bipartisan way in the future.”
Mr. Pai also said some local governments are standing in the way of faster 5G rollout — a matter of concern to those in the tech council.
“Pittsburgh is currently on the small list of cities that are falling behind other parts of the country on deployment of 5G,” said Audrey Russo, president and CEO of the tech council. “There are many sticking points, but the issue of permits and fees is currently high on that list. What can the FCC do to help us?”
Mr. Pai said the FCC had been aggressive in promoting 5G rollout, in part by reducing local barriers to development of the next generation of broadband networks.
He pointed to FCC actions that capped the costs that municipalities can recover from internet providers and required local officials to make permitting decisions within a “reasonable” timeframe. The commission also drew up a model code for municipalities interested in advancing 5G networks in a uniform way, he said.
The FCC has “very good partnerships” with cities of all sizes, such as Los Angeles and Sioux Falls, S.D., and “as a result, they’ve seen a dramatic increase in wireless infrastructure they’ve been able to deploy.”
He said the 5G infrastructure, composed of cells that tend to be the size of a pizza box, is less conspicuous and more environmentally friendly than many think.
“At the end of the day, I hope we can convince local leaders we’re all on the same page: We want our constituents to get connected,” Mr. Pai said.