How will a Trump administration affect broadband policy?

Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential race stunned the entire country Wednesday morning. As policy analysts recover from the surprise, they’ve tried to understand what a Trump administration will look like. President-elect Trump has said very little of substance about his proposed policy plans, and even less about telecommunications policy. Below is what we might expect based on the evidence available.

Opposition to the AT&T-Time Warner deal? Trump has been vocal in his opposition to the $85 billion deal, saying in late October that it is “a deal we will not approve in my administration because it’s too much concentration of power in the hand of too few.” It’s unclear if Trump will deliver on his promise once president, but the Department of Justice and possibly the FCC will review the deal.

Telecommunications infrastructure investment? According to the Trump campaign’s infrastructure page, the president-elect will “create thousands of new jobs in construction, steel manufacturing, and other sectors to build the transportation, water, telecommunications and energy infrastructure needed to enable new economic development in the US.” There are no details for this investment, either where the money for investment will come from or how it will become infrastructure.

Reversal of recent FCC rulings? A change in FCC leadership will almost certainly revisit some of the more contentious recent rulings, such as the 3-2 ruling for Title II authority over ISPs and the FCC's new privacy rules.

Congressional rewrite of the Communications Act? An emboldened Republican majority in the House and Senate may take this opportunity for further deregulation through a rewrite of the Telecom Act, barring Title II regulation to protect an open Internet.

The Trump administration’s telecom policy priorities are not clear, but expect more information in the coming weeks as it announces the transition team and selects advisers. Don’t expect a cushy position for T-Mobile CEO John Legere, though. He and Trump have bumped heads on Twitter before, and Legere said that, if Trump becomes president, he “will live on another planet.”

Links:

Trump, our next president, promised to block AT&T/Time Warner merger (Ars Technica, Nov. 9, 2016)

Round two? T-Mobile’s John Legere takes on Donald Trump in another epic Twitter throwdown (GeekWire, Nov. 16, 2015)