FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks

I welcome Congress’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic with a much-needed economic stimulus program that will help workers, consumers, health care providers, and businesses across America. It is a time for action, and the Federal Communications Commission must do more to advance its own “connectivity stimulus.” The coming weeks will lay bare the already cruel reality of the digital divide: tens of millions of Americans cannot access or cannot afford the broadband connections they need to telework, access medical information, and help young people learn when school is closed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us all of the importance of a free and open internet. Our broadband connections are more critical than ever, and we must pay special attention to protecting the access of the most vulnerable and those on the front lines of the coronavirus response. That’s why the Commission’s net neutrality remand proceeding is so important – because it asks the public to comment on how the agency’s decision affects Lifeline participants and public safety. Given these extraordinary times, I wish that we’d granted the full extension sought by the requesters.

In support of their public health efforts, states are implementing increasingly strict orders to stop non-essential business and keep residents at home. Both California and New York have, consistent with the guidance of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, identified telecommunications as essential infrastructure that must be supported even as other activities are restricted. I encourage all state and local officials to adopt this approach. Around the country, dedicated teams are working under challenging circumstances to expand access to communications networks.

One instruction remains consistent and clear during the coronavirus pandemic: Stay home. For many of us, that means taking our daily activities — work, school, medical care and connecting with loved ones — online. But not for everyone.

More and more Americans are being asked to support the public health effort by staying h home. That means taking our daily activities—work, school, medical care, and connecting with loved ones—online. But for the tens of millions of Americans without broadband access at home, that’s simply not an option. Closing the digital divide has always been my top priority as a Commissioner; today, it’s more essential than ever to our safety and our economic security. I applaud the broadband companies that have decided to make changes to their business practices to support the response to COVID-19.

Americans are going to need broadband in their homes—to help them telework to keep the economy strong; to help them understand medical information, and potentially connect with medical care via telemedicine; and to help our youngest learners continue to grow. The Federal Communications Commission must join that effort immediately with emergency steps that bring broadband into homes in communities impacted by COVID-19.

As our communications networks have expanded, we sometimes take stable, reliable access to communications—and the access to friends and family, emergency services, employment, and all of the many benefits those networks provide—for granted.

The persistent problem of the digital divide is hardening into a state of “Internet Inequality.” We know that millions of Virginians still lack access to high-quality affordable broadband. But, because of flaws in how the Federal Communications Commission collects its broadband data, we don’t actually know where they all are. That’s a cause for concern, and I am pleased that our friends in Congress sitting here today are also working to require the FCC to secure reliable broadband deployment data. For too long, the FCC has subsidized networks that are obsolete by the time they are built.

Until today, the latest broadcast station ownership data reported by the Federal Communications Commission was from 2015. While I am pleased that we finally have updated numbers to talk about, it is still an unacceptable lag of more than two years in our reporting on data from Oct 2017. To effectively address the lack of media ownership diversity, we cannot use stale data and must get better at assessing the extent of the problem in a timely manner.

People wonder: what role does the Federal Communications Commission have in the future of work? And I say, the better question is what role doesn’t the FCC have in the future of work? Fifth Generation wireless technology (5G) is going to shape our collective future – and we need to think as hard about people as we doabout pole attachments. Further, when we’re talking about the future of work, we’re talking about digital skills, and it would be misguided for us to not couple that discussion with the importance of broadband access and broadband adoption.