Remarks of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, International Institute of Communications Annual Conference

The United States and other governments along with the World Bank, non-governmental organizations (NGO), and major corporations have sponsored a “Global Connect” initiative that seeks to connect an additional 1.5 billion people to the Internet by 2020. It also seeks to make information and communication technologies a development priority equivalent to other forms of critical infrastructure. It is a source of great personal pride that the Federal Communications Commission staff participates so extensively in these contributions to the increase in human capital. The exchange of experiences, the conviction that there is significant value in describing and hearing how different organizations have approached similar challenges and opportunities, of course, is what brings us together today. As it happens, the FCC has experiences that coincide very closely with the four themes of this conference:

• Connecting the Unconnected
• The Internet of Everything
• OTT convergence
• Competition

So, consistent with the conviction that the exchange of experience has value, I will very briefly describe a few of our initiatives that would be relevant to these themes in the international context.