With the dust settled on the US presidential election, the second term of Donald Trump kicks off in January 2025, but what that means for the telecommunications industry remains to be seen.
During the run-up to the election, neither Trump nor Kamala Harris provided manifestos on their telecommunications-related plans. Mobile World Live reached out to several analysts to ask them what they see in their crystal balls.
The clearest takeaway is the likely change at the helm of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
By law the FCC has commissioners representing both major political parties, with the five appointed by the president and confirmed by the US Senate.
Roger Entner, founder and analyst at Recon Analytics, expects senior Republican commissioner Brendan Carr to be named chair of the FCC. Carr would oversee the agency’s agenda, with his party holding a three member to two advantage over Democrats.
“He’s been pretty outspoken,” Entner said. “I think we will see a greater emphasis on satellite and multimodal technology agnosticism for programmes like Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD).”
Entner, Strand Consult analyst John Strand and Disruptive Analysis founder Dean Bubley expect the FCC and Carr to pull the plug on recent attempts to revive net neutrality, which was rescinded during the previous Trump administration.
“Deregulation will be the order of the day,” Strand said.
Spectrum authority
In March 2023, the FCC lost its spectrum auction authority after the House of Representatives passed legislation to extend it, but the Senate was unable to agree. Politicians, industry groups and operators have strongly stated there’s a growing need for access to more spectrum.
Republicans hold a majority in the US Senate while the political makeup of the US House of Representatives is still to be determined (at the time of writing).
Strand said the “Senate will likely take up spectrum reauthorisation and pipeline build-up, something that is sorely needed.”
“It may well be that Trump helps the FCC get its grove back,” Strand noted. “Space and satellite are poised to advance in a GOP [Republican] administration.”
Bubley stated the allocation of spectrum remains unknown going forward.
“There are lots of stakeholders and it is unclear which will have most influence: telcos, cable companies, the Department of Defense, satellite, or big IT players like Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE),” he said.
Entner said a second Trump administration could make the Department of Defense (DoD) more pliable.
“That’s how we got the 3.45MHz spectrum. It was the White House coming down on the DoD, and then suddenly things worked.”
CHIPS Act
There was talk by some Republicans in recent weeks about tweaking the CHIPS Act which was enacted under current President Joe Biden.
“Both Democrats and Republicans want to insource things, so there’s not a big difference between the two of them,” Entner said.
Tariffs
Trump is vocal about instituting tariffs on foreign goods brought into the US. Bloomberg reported he has threatened to impose tariffs of as much as 60 per cent on Chinese goods.
Bubley noted it is unclear what the impact of tariffs will be on the telecom sector and what they would apply to.
“They may help vendors like Ericsson with US manufacturing, but the telcos will still need lots of imports,” he explained. “It’s the same question about chips and phones.”
Regulatory environment
Bubley said the second coming of Trump may not be great news for tech giants such as Google and Meta Platforms “given US concerns about big tech and censorship”.
“Amazon and Apple and maybe Microsoft may be less impacted, but I’m really unsure.”
Entner noted for good or bad, telecom was not at the forefront of policy conversations leading up to the election.
“I don’t think you can get too many people energised over BEAD money and things like that. Neither campaign has been very policy-focused,” he explained. “A lot of it will also depend on what happens in Congress.”
Source: www.mobileworldlive.com
