Speech

The Federal Communications Commission’s top priority must be connecting all Americans to modern high-speed communications networks. Solving this problem was always a moral imperative, and COVID-19 has raised the stakes.

Inclusion is at the foundation of communications policy in this country. The Communications Act of 1934 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 both rest on the notion that advanced communications networks should be universally available and affordable. The COVID-19 pandemic shows that there is still more to be done to adapt these policy principles to the internet age. In just two decades, having the internet at home has gone from being a toy for hobbyists to an indispensable tool for commerce, education, and connectedness.

I’ve been asked to speak briefly about our experiences dealing with the pandemic in the United States, and some of the lessons we might be able to apply to unexpected events in the future. When it comes to America’s communications networks, the top headline is that they have performed extremely well during the COVID-19 pandemic. As one would expect, we saw significant increases in voice and Internet traffic as our lives and the economy moved online due to the pandemic. Our wired and wireless networks handled this surge without any significant service disruptions or declines.

The Benton perspective is this: Everyone in America should be able to use High-Performance Broadband, by which I mean broadband connections to the home that are robust and future-proof. Broadband competition is more important than ever because—in our current crises and beyond—America has fast-forwarded into its broadband future. Yet, New York, like the nation, has too little competition in fixed broadband to ensure that all people have the advantage of competitive pricing, quality, customer service, and innovation.

University of Virginia Professor Christopher Ali spoke about rural broadband with the Reimagine New York Commission. The rural-urban digital divide is primarily one of infrastructure. At least 22.3% of rural Americans, or 15.8 million people, lack access to broadband infrastructure and are therefore cut off from the internet.

The First Amendment protects us from limits on speech imposed by the government—not private actors—and we should all reject demands, in the name of the First Amendment, for private actors to curate or publish speech in a certain way. I shudder to think of a day in which the Fairness Doctrine could be reincarnated by some other name, especially at the ironic behest of so-called speech “defenders.” Further, like it or not, the First Amendment’s protections apply to corporate entities, especially when they engage in editorial decision making.

Telehealth services surged during the coronavirus pandemic, and yet we have to deal with the harsh reality that Black communities disproportionately lack access to the telecommunications services that provide access to critical, life-saving care. This is why I have called for an expansion of the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline program, which is the only federal subsidy that offers voice and broadband services at a subsidized rate to low-income Americans, to meet the critical needs of this moment in history.

To meet the booming demand for mobile broadband that was being fueled by the smartphone revolution, Congress empowered the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a first-of-its-kind, two-sided auction that would allow spectrum used for broadcast TV to be repurposed for wireless services. In April 2017, we closed the bidding in the incentive auction, which yielded $19.8 billion in revenue. Roughly $10 billion went to broadcasters as incentive payments for giving up their spectrum.

I commend the US-India Business Council (USIBC) for launching this Webinar series on 5G. I’ve been asked to begin with an update on the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to promote the development and deployment of 5G. This is something we’ve spent quite some time on, to say the least. We call our strategy the 5G FAST plan, and it has three key components: freeing up spectrum, promoting wireless infrastructure, and modernizing regulations to encourage fiber deployment.

We’ve come together to celebrate World Wi-Fi Day, which is [June 20]. You could make the case that every day has been Wi-Fi Day since the pandemic took hold. I think it’s appropriate that the focus of this event is on the power of Wi-Fi to help bridge the digital divide—to connect the unconnected. What is the Federal Communications Commission doing to harness the power of Wi-Fi to bridge the digital divide?