HR 981 Introduced - IoT Readiness Act

Last month Rep DelBene (D,WA) introduced HR 981, the IoT Readiness Act of 2021. The bill would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to collect, maintain and report upon “data on the growth in the use of Internet of Things devices and devices that use 5G mobile networks in order to determine the amount of electromagnetic spectrum required to meet the demand created by such use” {§3(a)}.

Definitions

Section 4 of the bill provides definitions of two key terms used in the bill: ‘Commission’ and ‘Internet of Things device’. The later is defined as “a device that uses a network to communicate and share data with other devices” {§4(2)}.

Moving Forward

Neither DelBene nor her cosponsor {Rep Katko (R,NY) are members of the House Energy and Commerce to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that it is unlikely that there is sufficient influence for the bill to be considered in Committee.

I see nothing in this bill that would engender any significant opposition. If it were considered in Committee, I would expect that it would receive bipartisan support. The bill would probably receive enough bipartisan support for it to be considered by the Whole House under the suspension of the rules process.

Commentary

While this bill uses the term ‘IoT’ prominently in the title, it really has little to do with IoT issues. It is really about the adequacy of the existing 5g network spectrum to handle the expected explosion of 5G devices. This means that the overly expansive definition of the term ‘Internet of Things device’ is not a problem as it is used in this bill.