Chairman Pai Proposes $954 Million Plan For Puerto Rico and USVI

“FCC Chairman Ajit Pai speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.” Gage Skidmore. https://flic.kr/p/GBJEcW. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Following the devastation in Puerto Rico, Chairman of the FCC, has proposed a $954 million plan to help restore networks in Puerto Rico. After months of struggling to get the much needed assistance the island sought from federal relief aid, the chairman proposed the long awaited plan back in March. The plan will direct the funds toward short-term assistance to help get communications back to normal operating standards and long-term assistance to help rebuild and restructure the broadband networks of the island for better and efficient access across the island. Not only will the funds be used to help repair the communications on the island, but also to ensure processes are in place to prevent anything from this extent to happen again in this years upcoming hurricane season.

This news was released by the FCC in attempts to make the public more aware of the efforts being taken to help the neighboring island. Further analyzation of this article also led me to the discovery that Puerto Rico was a major proponent for the repeal of the net neutrality rules, that was recently carried out by the current presidential administration. One of the major reasons the island may have been in favor of the new legislation is because according to the chair of the Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce, the same Verizon funded group that is helping to allocate funds for rebuilding on the island, is the same group that was in favor of putting the new legislation in place.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/chairman-pai-proposes-954-million-plan-puerto-rico-and-usvi (the actual article will have the option to be opened as a word document or pdf)