Speech

I have called for the FCC to enact a “connectivity stimulus” to see Americans through the coronavirus crisis and power our economy. While a lot of data are still coming in, early results have delivered a clear message: COVID-19 is disproportionately hitting densely populated urban areas and having a devastating impact on African Americans and other communities of color. On a personal note, I read a report this week that Black residents of Kansas City make up 50% of those testing positive for the coronavirus, while they are only 30% of the population.

When public health requires social distancing and quarantine, closing the digital divide becomes central to our collective safety and economic security. In particular, we should leverage the Federal Communications Commission’s $8 billion in universal service funding, and focus our efforts on students and vulnerable, struggling Americans. Each week, as millions more Americans apply for unemployment and food assistance programs - - the FCC needs to enhance its Lifeline program, the only federal program with the sole mission of bringing affordable communications to low-income Americans and a c

This past Nov, a bipartisan majority at the Federal Communications Commission adopted a vertical, or “z-axis,” location accuracy metric of plus or minus 3 meters for wireless 911 calls. That means that in the coming years you will be able to more accurately identify the floor-level for most 911 calls and reduce emergency response time.

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.

Chairman Davis, Vice Chair Dumais, members of the Committee, my name is Gigi Sohn and I am a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law and Policy and a Senior Fellow with the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society. I have been a public interest advocate for open, affordable and accessible communications networks for over 30 years. I was Counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler from 2013-2016, and during that time, I helped the FCC adopt the 2015 Open Internet Order, which included the strongest ever network neutrality rules.

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.

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.

One theme I keep hearing at the National Rural Health Association's 2020 summit is “rural America is having a moment; let’s make it a movement.” And there’s certainly a new movement in telehealth that we should tap into.  Given the significant cost savings and improved patient outcomes associated with connected care, we should align public policy in support of this movement in telehealth.

The challenge for those of us charged with regulatory authority over certain technologies is to explain, educate, and, to some degree, manage expectations. Added to that is the obligation to enable the proper environment for innovation, and only take regulatory action when absolutely necessary, and only to the extent that doing so produces greater benefits relative to costs. In other words, our concern about any potential downside cannot be an automatic bar to further innovation, lest we expect to return to the days of dwelling in caves without fire.

Current research suggests that low-income people can only afford to pay about $10  monthly for broadband. Anything more competes with other utility bills and the cost of food. Meeting the goal of universal connectivity and providing fixed broadband at about $10 per month requires a multi-pronged strategy - what my Benton colleague Jonathan Sallet calls an “Affordability Agenda.” It includes: