Speech

The Federal Communications Commission takes an all-of-the-above approach to public safety, so in addition to meeting our statutory obligations, the Commission is pursuing its own initiatives to strengthen emergency calling.

I’m constantly meeting with the National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) and its members for a very practical reason. Actually, make that two practical reasons: One is the race to 5G and the other is the broadcaster repack stemming from the FCC's incentive auction.

I believe it is no longer enough to be first to 5G—the networks we deploy must also be secure. And to build 5G security effectively, we must build a market for more secure 5G equipment. That means making sure our companies can continue to innovate and encouraging other countries to invest in 5G security, too. This is a big task. As with all significant endeavors, the hard part is where to start. But I have some ideas—about where the Federal Communications Commission should begin.

For America to win the race to 5G, we must invigorate the free market by empowering our tower crews. We need to put you, the builders of wireless infrastructure, in a winning position by freeing you from needless government regulation and red tape. I’m proud that the FCC is executing on just this strategy. In 2019, I am taking another look at the federal rules governing wireless infrastructure deployment. We will look to fully and faithfully implement the decisions Congress has made to streamline the deployment of next-generation technologies.

Our two nations are connected by shared values and shared interests, and that is certainly true in the field of communications. Each of our governments is committed to connecting all of our citizens with what I like to call digital opportunity. And on Dec 17, the US Federal Communications Commission and the Israeli Ministry of Communications put this commitment into practice. We convened the first meeting of a new Joint Working Group to exchange information and learn from each other’s experiences.

According to the Federal Communications Commission’s last-published report, 24 million Americans lack access to high-speed internet service, with 19 million of them in rural areas. But last week the New York Times offered new numbers and they’re problematic, too. It found that 162 million people across the country do not use internet service at broadband speeds. There’s a big delta between 24 million and 162 million. 

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been aggressively implementing telehealth services. And at the Federal Communications Commission, we’ve been working to seize the opportunities of connected health for all Americans, including veterans. So it’s fitting that we gather this morning to reaffirm our shared belief that telemedicine can improve the quality of health care that our veterans receive. We can’t realize the promise of telehealth without connectivity. This is one of the reasons that, since day one as FCC Chairman, my top priority has been closing the digital divide.

I’m pleased to note that the Americas region continues to work hard and steadily advance regional proposals for the 2019 International Telecommunication Union World Radio Conference. We are deeply focused on the WRC-19.

I thought I’d focus on what the Federal Communications Commission is doing to promote US leadership in some of the most promising sectors of our economy. In particular, I’d like to talk about next-generation wireless technology and the space industry, which you may be surprised to learn has key tie-ins with the FCC.

No matter who you voted for or what party you belong to, I think we can agree on one thing - access to high-speed broadband is one of the most important issues in the US today. In Congressional race after Congressional race, in Maine, Vermont, Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, Colorado, Michigan, and New Mexico, just to name a few, voters said that broadband access was a top three issue, sometimes coming after health care and jobs, and other times, like in Vermont, coming in as the number one concern for voters.