[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PROMOTING BROADBAND INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 22, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-68
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
98-122 PDF WASHINGTON : 2016
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRED UPTON, Michigan
Chairman
JOE BARTON, Texas FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Chairman Emeritus Ranking Member
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois ANNA G. ESHOO, California
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
GREG WALDEN, Oregon GENE GREEN, Texas
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas LOIS CAPPS, California
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
Vice Chairman JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio DORIS O. MATSUI, California
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington KATHY CASTOR, Florida
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey JERRY McNERNEY, California
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky PETER WELCH, Vermont
PETE OLSON, Texas BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia PAUL TONKO, New York
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida KURT SCHRADER, Oregon
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, III,
BILLY LONG, Missouri Massachusetts
RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina TONY CARDENAS, California7
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
BILL FLORES, Texas
SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
CHRIS COLLINS, New York
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
Subcommittee on Communications and Technology
GREG WALDEN, Oregon
Chairman
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio ANNA G. ESHOO, California
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee PETER WELCH, Vermont
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa
PETE OLSON, Texas BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida DORIS O. MATSUI, California
BILL JOHNSON, Missouri JERRY McNERNEY, California
BILLY LONG, Missouri BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
CHRIS COLLINS, New York officio)
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
JOE BARTON, Texas
FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio)
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Oregon, prepared statement..................................... 87
Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Michigan, prepared statement................................... 88
Hon. Robert E. Latta, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Ohio, prepared statement.................................... 88
Hon. Anna G. Eshoo, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, prepared statement.............................. 89
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, prepared statement........................ 89
Hon. David Loebsack, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Iowa, prepared statement.................................... 90
Hon. Ben Ray Lujan, a Representative in Congress from the State
of New Mexico, prepared statement.............................. 90
Witnesses
Jonathan Adelstein, President and Chief Executive Officer, PCIA.. 2
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Answers to submitted questions............................... 130
Stephen Roe Lewis, Governor, Gila River Indian Community, State
of Arizona..................................................... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Answers to submitted questions............................... 136
Craig Moffett, Partner and Senior Analyst, MoffettNathanson...... 30
Prepared statement........................................... 33
Answers to submitted questions............................... 141
Michael Slinger, Director, Google Fiber City Teams............... 36
Prepared statement........................................... 38
Answers to submitted questions............................... 144
Deb Socia, Executive Director, Next Century Cities............... 44
Prepared statement........................................... 46
Answers to submitted questions............................... 150
Submitted Material
Letter of July 17, 2015, from Scott Belcher, Chief Executive
Officer, Telecommunications Industry Association, to Mr. Walden
and Ms. Eshoo, submitted by Mr. Walden......................... 91
Letter of July 22, 2015, from Chip Pickering, Chief Executive
Officer, Comptel, to Mr. Walden, submitted by Mr. Walden....... 97
Letter of July 22, 2015, from Steven K. Berry, President and CEO,
Competitive Carriers Association, to Mr. Upton, et al.,
submitted by Mr. Walden........................................ 100
Letter of July 22, 2015, from Berin Szoka, President, Tech
Freedom, et al., to Mr. Upton and Mr. Walden, submitted by Mr.
Walden......................................................... 103
Articles on broadband deployment, October 15, 2014, to July 28,
2015, submitted by Mr. Olson................................... 113
Resolution MSP-15-036 of the National Congress of American
Indians, ``Preserve the Universal Service Fund Lifeline & Link
Up Programs for All Tribal Lands and All Native Peoples,''
submitted by Mr. Lujan......................................... 124
Resolution MSP-15-024 of the National Congress of American
Indians, ``Support for Policy on Universal Service Fund for
Voice and Broadband Services on Tribal Lands,'' submitted by
Mr. Lujan...................................................... 127
PROMOTING BROADBAND INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2015
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Communications and Technology,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 12:30 p.m., in
room 2322 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Greg
Walden (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Walden, Latta, Shimkus,
Scalise, Lance, Guthrie, Olson, Bilirakis, Johnson, Long,
Collins, Cramer, Eshoo, Doyle, Loebsack, Matsui, McNerney,
Lujan, and Pallone (ex officio).
Staff present: Ray Baum, Senior Policy Advisor,
Communications and Technology; Leighton Brown, Press Assistant;
Andy Duberstein, Deputy Press Secretary; Gene Fullano,
Detailee, Communications and Technology; Kelsey Guyselman,
Counsel, Communications and Technology; Grace Koh, Counsel,
Communications and Technology; David Redl, Chief Counsel,
Communications and Technology; Charlotte Savercool, Legislative
Clerk; Christine Brennan, Democratic Press Secretary; Jeff
Carroll, Democratic Staff Director; David Goldman, Democratic
Chief Counsel, Communications and Technology; Lori Maarbjerg,
Democratic FCC Detailee; Margaret McCarthy, Democratic Senior
Professional Staff Member; and Timothy Robinson, Democratic
Chief Counsel.
Mr. Walden. If we could go ahead and get started, I am
going to call to order the Subcommittee on Communications and
Technology, with apologies up front that with the classified
briefing that got scheduled at the end of last week for later
today on the Iranian agreement--that got scheduled about the
same time this hearing was originally scheduled to start, so we
moved it up to now so that we could hear from this
distinguished panel of witnesses.
And I have asked my colleagues--and I think this is on both
sides, because we also now have votes scheduled prior to all of
that--we are going to dispense with our opening statements,
which anybody who watches Congressional hearings knows is
unprecedented in the historical annals of Congress, but they
will all be in the official record.
So unless there is objection from either side of the aisle,
I would like to just proceed straight to our panel of witnesses
for their expert testimony.
This is an important hearing on promoting broadband
infrastructure investment. You all are on the front lines of
that, and we look to you for guidance, suggestions as we go
forward.
[Members' prepared statements appear at the conclusion of
the hearing.]
So we will start right out with Jonathan Adelstein,
President and CEO, PCIA, former distinguished Commissioner of
the Federal Communications Commission.
Mr. Adelstein, we are delighted to have you here. Please go
ahead with your testimony.
STATEMENTS OF JONATHAN ADELSTEIN, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, PCIA; STEPHEN ROE LEWIS, GOVERNOR, GILA RIVER INDIAN
COMMUNITY, STATE OF ARIZONA; CRAIG MOFFETT, PARTNER AND SENIOR
ANALYST, MOFFETTNATHANSON; MICHAEL SLINGER, DIRECTOR, GOOGLE
FIBER CITY TEAMS; AND DEB SOCIA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEXT
CENTURY CITIES
STATEMENT OF JONATHAN ADELSTEIN
Mr. Adelstein. The committee has shown leadership on this
issue over many years. We appreciate the opportunity to testify
at such a critical hearing today.
As you said, I run PCIA. We represent the companies that
build, design, own and manage telecommunications facilities
around the world and in the United States. The members include
wireless carriers, infrastructure providers, equipment
manufacturers, and professional services firms. Our mission is
to expand wireless broadband to everywhere, helping our members
provide wireless facilities to meet consumers' growing mobile
data needs any time, any place.
The wireless infrastructure industry, as you know, plays an
essential role in meeting that data demand that people are
asking for so much of. Put simply, infrastructure makes
wireless work. It enables the delivery of innovative
applications and life-changing services like telemedicine and
distance learning. Wireless infrastructure is a catalyst for
economic growth and job creation. A PCIA study found that
investments in our industry will generate $1.2 trillion--that
is trillion with a T--in economic growth and create 1.3 million
new jobs over 5 years.
And this committee, as I said, has shown grown leadership,
Mr. Chairman. You have done so much to try to eliminate
barriers to infrastructure deployment. I commend you, and our
industry is thrilled with the leadership of this committee.
Most notably, section 6409(a) of the Spectrum Act of 2012 has
had a real impact on the ground in speeding the deployment of
4G infrastructure. It eliminated major local regulatory
barriers to upgrading existing wireless infrastructure, and the
FCC, I might add, has done an outstanding job on a bipartisan
basis of implementing that law with a clear framework of rules.
Now, we will face major challenges. Cisco projects that
demand for wireless data is going to increase by about 700
percent over the next 5 years, and the question is how we are
going to meet that exploding demand for data.
Now, one way is more spectrum, as much as we can get as
fast as we can get it. And again, this committee has done great
work on that front. Spectrum, as you know, is expensive,
scarce, and takes a long time to get into actual use by
consumer, all the more reason to move quickly.
Another way to increase data throughput is technological
advances that foster greater spectral efficiencies like moving
from 2G to 4G and beyond, and the networks themselves are
getting smarter, directing capacity where it is needed. These
advances also take time to develop and to implement.
A third way to meet the exploding demand for data is
through the rapid deployment of infrastructure. Wireless
infrastructure driven by private capital addresses the wireless
data crunch as soon as it is deployed. Solutions range from
traditional tall towers that provide wide coverage and capacity
to small cells and distributed antenna systems that fill gaps
in capacity and target high-traffic areas, intensifications of
networks reused as existing scarce spectrum. Deploying more
antennas closer to end users allows carriers to squeeze more
out of existing spectrum.
Now, there is still resistance to siting this equipment
where it is necessary, and Congress can help even more to
remove these barriers. One way is by streamlining the process
of siting wireless infrastructure on Federal lands. Despite the
law enacted by Congress with the leadership of this committee
and an Executive Order by the President, significant challenges
remain on Federal property. Further legislation is needed to
facilitate access to Federal lands to expand broadband coverage
and increased deployment in rural areas.
PCIA supports S. 1618, which was recently introduced in the
Senate to address this issue, and we look forward to continuing
to work with this committee on developing legislation as well.
Additional roadblocks remain despite the assistance this
committee has provided. For example, some State and local
entities require proof of need before authorizing
infrastructure bills. These requirements are both illogical and
costly. Local communities shouldn't be in the CTO business of
deciding where services are needed. Our members invest their
capital where it is needed to serve consumers and local
governments aren't in a good position to be second-guessing
these kind of technical questions. Continued efforts to
harmonize the rates for pole attachments would also help
promote broadband investment.
The FCC has taken important steps to provide greater
access, timing, and fair rates. States that regulate their own
poles should follow the FCC's lead.
In sum, wireless infrastructure boosts every sector of the
economy. Mobile broadband is demonstrating its effectiveness in
promoting economic growth, job creation, and global
competitiveness yet challenges remain in reaching its full
potential. Policymakers from Congress to local governments need
to eliminate regulatory barriers so our industry can invest
their capital without resistance and not add costs and delays
that will slow the rollout of wireless broadband.
Our member companies are very grateful for the bipartisan
recognition of the centrality of wireless infrastructure by
this committee, by Congress, by the administration, and by the
FCC.
I would add that we look forward to making continued
progress together on some of the ideas we have laid out here
today and other panels will share, and we thank you, and thank
you, Ranking Member Eshoo, for joining us, and thank you for
holding this hearing to address these urgent issues.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Adelstein follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Walden. Thank you, Mr. Adelstein. We appreciate your
testimony and look forward to further discussions on these
matters.
We will now go to the Honorable Stephen Roe Lewis,
Governor, Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. Governor, we
are delighted to have you here. I enjoyed the time I was in
your community and toured your facilities, and we are glad you
could be here to share your thoughts on the challenges you
face.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN ROE LEWIS
Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Chairman Walden and members of the
committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf
of the Gila River Indian Community. I also want to again thank
Chairman Walden and Mr. Lujan for visiting the community, as
you just heard, to see firsthand the obstacles that tribes face
in deploying broadband. And I want to thank Ranking Member
Eshoo and Mr. Lujan for their request to have the Government
Accounting Office, the GAO, look into the challenges and
barriers to deployment on tribal lands.
Our broadband provider is Gila River Telecommunications
Incorporated, which we refer to as GRTI. It was founded in 1988
and is wholly owned by our community. Our reservation is
approximately 372,000 acres. We have more than 20,000 members
and almost 12,000 community members living on our reservation.
When we first purchased the exchange from Mountain Bell in
1988, only 10 percent of our residents had access to basic
phone service. More, those looking to get connected had to pay
tens of thousands of dollars before Mountain Bell would install
a party line connection.
Today, GRTI offers phone service to 100 percent of our
residents, and 84 percent of the residents subscribe. We also
offer broadband service across the reservation. We are very
proud of GRTI's success.
GRTI along with the National Tribal Telecommunications
Association work together to raise awareness about the unique
challenges for deploying broadband on tribal lands. Tribal
lands are the least served areas in the country. Approximately
48 percent of tribal lands in the lower 48 States lack access
to speeds of 10 down, one up, and 68 percent lack access to 25
down, 3 up.
There are a number of obstacles that present challenges to
broadband deployment on tribal lands, and I have set those out
with more detail in my written testimony, but I would like to
summarize them for you here.
First, population density is an obstacle. The Gila River,
for example, is at 20 persons per square mile. Maricopa County,
which is adjacent to the reservation, has approximately 414
persons per square mile. Rugged terrain, characterized by
mountains and hard soil, is also typical of tribal lands. Low
median income and high rates of poverty on most reservations
present a severe challenge for the delivery of broadband. The
median income on our reservation is $24,000 to $59,000 in
Arizona. Approximately 48 percent of the persons living on the
reservation live below the poverty level compared to 15 percent
for Arizona. These economic circumstances are not unique to our
tribal community.
Failed Federal policies from the past continue to
negatively impact many tribes. Our community and others like it
continue to struggle with the failed policy of allotment.
Because of the allotment policy, obtaining rights-of-way in
order to deploy broadband is complex and raises costs
substantially and delays deployment.
Finally, access to capital is a barrier. Tribal lands
cannot be leveraged as collateral for securing loans because
they are held in trust by the United States for the benefit of
the tribe. Thus, private capital is often not available,
meaning the only lender available is the Federal Government,
specifically, the Rural Utilities Service. RUS loans were
critical to GRTI when it took over its service area and remains
critical as a Warms Springs tribe in Oregon can attest.
The combination of these challenges has resulted in GRTI's
average cost per loop being over $2,873. Because tribal nations
face many unique challenges, we often need unique solutions.
Having tribes at the table and engaging in Government-to-
Government consultation is critical. Too often, Federal
policies have unintended consequences on tribes because we
weren't properly consulted in the beginning.
The current effort to reform the Universal Service Fund is
a good example. USF is, when properly scoped, a critically
important source of funding that can help make it possible to
deploy broadband to our reservations.
Tribes have offered a proposal that will target specific
support to tribal lands through a Tribal Broadband Factor that
could be added to proposals for a standalone broadband fund.
Inclusion of this Tribal Broadband Factor would promote the
targeted use of Universal Service Funding to advance the policy
objective of ensuring that broadband is made available to all
Americans including those living on tribal lands.
The FCC's Office of Native American Affairs and Policy has
been a welcome addition to the Commission's outreach efforts to
ensure that tribes are included in the development of proposals
to deploy more broadband but sometimes the FCC forgets about
tribes. That is why we appreciate the letter sent to the FCC
from a broadband group of members of this committee, reminding
the commission that tribal leaders need a seat at the table.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today and
hope to be an ongoing resource for the committee. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lewis follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Walden. Thank you, Governor. You can count on that. We
appreciate your testimony and your insights. They are very
valuable.
We will go now to Craig Moffett, Senior Research Analyst,
Moffett Nathanson. Mr. Moffett, we are delighted to have you
here as well. Please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF CRAIG MOFFETT
Mr. Moffett. Thank you, members of the subcommittee, for
your kind invitation to participate in today's hearing.
By way of introduction, I have been a financial analyst
focusing on the cable and telecommunications industries for the
past 14 years. Before that, I spent 11 years at the Boston
Consulting Group advising telecommunications companies, so this
is now my 25th year in the sector, and I have spent much of
that career focused on issues of broadband deployment and
microeconomics.
With that in mind, I thought I would share some general
observations today about the economics of broadband,
particularly focusing on the economics of competitive
broadband.
First, I would start by saying the obvious. Infrastructure
deployment requires the expectation of a healthy return on
capital. That should be taken as a given but all too often in
my experience, the issue of return on capital is either ignored
or misunderstood in policy forums. It is not a matter of
whether a business is or isn't profitable; it is instead a
matter of whether a business is sufficiently profitable to
warrant the high levels of capital investment required for the
deployment of infrastructure.
With that in mind, in 2014, the largest companies in the
cable industry earned a very healthy return. The physical
assets of Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Charter, and Cablevision,
the four publicly traded U.S. cable operators during 2014, all
earned healthy returns in excess of their cost of capital with
returns ranging from 13 to 33 percent. Those returns are
unusually high for a capital-intensive industry. On the other
hand, it should be noted that the cable industry earned returns
below the cost of capital for decades. Any long-term return on
network infrastructure has to earn returns well in excess of
the cost of capital during the maturity of that network to
offset what were typically years or even decades of losses.
By contrast, large incumbent telephone companies do not
earn attractive returns on their wireline businesses. For
example, a decade after first undertaking their FiOS fiber to
the home buildout to 18 million homes, Verizon has not yet come
close to earning a return in excess of their cost of capital.
In 2014, their aggregate wired infrastructure business earned a
paltry 1.2 percent return against a cost of capital of 5
percent. For the nonfinancial types in the room, that is the
equivalent of borrowing money at 5 percent interest in order to
earn 1 percent interest. That is a good way to go bankrupt. No
one would undertake to replicate those disastrous financial
returns.
AT&T, which at around the same time began deploying a much
less robust and therefore less costly fiber to the node network
has also earned poor returns. Their ROIC, or return on invested
capital, has been declining for a decade and is like Verizon
well below the cost of capital. AT&T is committed to the FCC to
make fiber available to a total of, I know believe it is 12 \1/
2\ million homes as of what was reported last night to their
footprint in order to make their acquisition of DIRECTV more
palpable to policymakers, but it is hard to be optimistic that
they will do much better this time around.
That said, there have been some changes in the market that
make deployment of competitive broadband networks less
unattractive than they have been in the past. Corning has
developed bendable fiber that has helped lower the labor cost
of deployment. Google has popularized the concept of demand
aggregation whereby communities pledge to subscribe to advanced
network services before the network is built so that Google can
target areas where the company has the best chance of earning
an acceptable return, and while some critics would call that
redlining as it typically means that broadband won't be built
to the lower-income communities, it has been successful in
boosting overall project returns, and you can think of it as a
way of ensuring that all the children in the class really are
above average.
Still, the broader takeaway here is that the returns to be
had from overbuilding, that is, being the second or third
broadband provider in a given market are generally poor.
So let that sink in for a moment. Simply stated, it means
that market forces are unlikely to yield a fully competitive
broadband market. Neither, by the way, does wireless appear to
offer the promise of imminent competition for incumbent wired
broadband providers. Wireless networks simply aren't engineered
for the kind of sustained throughout required for wired
broadband replacement services. And wireless networks, by the
way, also generally earn relatively poor returns on capital.
Returns for Verizon and AT&T are middling, and for Sprint and
T-Mobile are very poor as a consequence of aggressive price
competition in the wireless market. Neither is satellite
broadband a compelling replacement for wired broadband in any
but the most rural areas. Costs are high, and it is the nature
of satellite connection that it has to travel 22,000 miles and
back such that latency is going to be a problem.
So the simple economic reality is that overbuilding is
necessarily going to be somewhat limited, given relatively poor
financial returns that can be expected, and that alternatives
are far and few between. That naturally gives rise to the
impulse among some to regulate incumbent networks that are
already there. That is, it is a not unreasonable assumption
that any attempts to foster competition will ultimately be
unsuccessful and that regulation of incumbents, in this case,
the cable operators, is therefore required.
The counterargument, that regulation will only stifle
investment among incumbent providers and will therefore make
the problem worse and will in the process generate unwelcome,
unintended consequences is equally well intentioned and
unfortunately is equally well supported by the historical
evidence. That is to say there are no easy answers here.
I will conclude only by adding a few additional
observations about the cable industry. As everyone understands,
the cable video business is facing unprecedented pressure.
Cord-cutting has been talked about for years but is finally
starting to show up in a meaningful way in the numbers, and
soaring programming costs are eating away at video profit
margins. From a cable operator's perspective, the video
business and the broadband business are opposite sides of the
same coin. It is, after all, all one infrastructure. Pressure
on the video profit pool will therefore naturally trigger a
pricing response in broadband where cable operators have cable
leverage. That may sound nefarious but it's not intended to be
so. It is simply an observation that cable operators have
historically benefited from the fact that their infrastructure
can support two separate businesses and each can be delivered
at a lower cost than if that were not the case. The ACA, or
American Cable Association, has made this case eloquently in
arguing that absent reforms to restrain runaway programming
cost growth, video will be unprofitable and broadband will be
left to carry the entire burden of incremental deployment. All
else being equal, that will mean that even new builds of
broadband will become increasingly economically challenged and
therefore will become less and less likely, or as I am quick to
add, this is my own editorial rather than ACA's point, they
will simply have to sharply raise the price of broadband. As an
analyst, I would simply observe that the pressures in the video
business are relatively broad-based and are attributable to
more than just programming cost inflation and that this may
therefore be an unavoidable scenario.
So I will leave my remarks there. If my remarks sound
excessively gloomy, they are not meant to. The U.S. broadband
infrastructure is the envy of the world notwithstanding my view
that there are politicized and cherry-picked statistics that
would suggest otherwise. It is simply the case that broadband
is an infrastructure that is very difficult to support two of,
and in some cases even one of, and I would submit that a clear-
eyed acknowledgement of the microeconomics of the broadband
business deserves or even demands a seat at the policy table.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman and subcommittee members, for
your time and the opportunity to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Moffett follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Walden. Thank you very much, Mr. Moffett. We appreciate
your analysis.
We will go now to Michael Slinger, Director, Google Fiber
Cities. We welcome you. Thank you for being here, and the floor
is yours.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL SLINGER
Mr. Slinger. Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Eshoo, and
members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to
testify today about investment in broadband infrastructure. We
believe a successful agenda for bandwidth abundance will
benefit consumers, small businesses, and the economy.
My name is Michael Slinger, and I currently serve as the
Director of Google Fiber City Teams. In this role, I oversee
the operations, business strategy, and on-the-ground outreach
to bring gigabit speeds to cities where we deploy Google Fiber
across the United States.
We have long believed that the next chapter of the Internet
would be built on gigabit speeds. A gig delivers enough
bandwidth for everyone in the home or in a small business for
all their devices, and we know fast connections unleash
innovation and entrepreneurship. Think about it in these terms:
if today we are riding a bike, having a gig means that we could
be driving a racecar. It is just that much faster.
That is why we launched Google Fiber, which provides
download and upload connections of up to 1,000 megabits per
second. Our goal is to make the Web faster, more affordable,
more relevant and more useful for everyone.
We launched the service 5 years ago, and today it is
available in Kansas City, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri;
Austin, Texas; and Provo, Utah. In addition, we are in the
process of building out our network in six other markets and we
are exploring bringing it to another four on top of that.
In rolling out Google Fiber, we physically built a network
from scratch--one street, one pole, one house at a time. This
means reviewing infrastructure and working closely with cities
to make sure we are ready to work together to design and build
a brand-new network.
This experience has given us insight into barriers to
deployment. I will outline some thoughts on policy changes that
could reduce delays and barriers.
First, policymakers can ease gaining access to existing
infrastructure. To construct high-speed networks, broadband
providers need access to existing utility infrastructure such
as poles, conduits on a consistent, cost-effective and timely
basis. While the FCC has taken important steps to improve rules
related to infrastructure access, our own experience in
building new broadband networks demonstrates that more work
needs to be done to reduce delays and barriers.
Second, policymakers can easy rights-of-way. The expense
and complexity of obtaining access to public rights-of-way in
some jurisdictions may increase the cost and slow the pace of
broadband deployment. Policies that facilitate partnerships
between different entities and companies that are doing local
construction can be beneficial. We also see a lot of benefit in
instituting ``dig once'' policies, which may involve the
installation of an oversized conduit bank by any new network
builder within the right-of-way.
Third, policymakers can help resolve the challenge of high
rates for access to video programming. This would help smaller
players in the business negotiate fair terms for access to
popular broadcasts and cable content and make it easier to
attract and retain subscribers for broadband networks.
Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention the
importance of balanced spectrum policies that promote
innovation in the wireless sector. Federal agencies should
pursue a balanced approach to spectrum reallocation that allows
for licensed and unlicensed commercial uses at a variety of
frequencies.
I will note, as we think about deploying gigabit-speed
networks, we need to keep in mind that about 30 percent of
Americans still don't use the Internet at home. This means they
are at a disadvantage when it comes to education, job
opportunities, social and civic engagement, so one of our main
priorities is building digital inclusion into our deployment
plans from the beginning. We are guided by a couple of main
principles: Make the Internet more affordable, make access a
party of the community, and teach people how to get online.
Just last week, as part of the Connect Home Initiative
announced by President Obama and HUD Secretary Castro, we
committed to bringing our Google Fiber Internet service to
residents in select affordable housing properties across our
Fiber cities for zero dollars per month with no installation
fee. We are also partnering with community organizations on
computer labs and digital literacy programming. We are grateful
for the partners we get to work with to get more people
connected and for your attention to this important topic.
Thank you again for the invitation to speak at this hearing
and to share our views on how we can remove barriers, give
Americans more choices at higher speeds, and help reach the
goal of nationwide broadband abundance.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Slinger follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Walden. Thank you, Mr. Slinger. We appreciate your
testimony.
And now we will go to final witness today, Deb Socia,
Executive Director, Next Century Cities. We are delighted to
have you here as well. Thank you, and please go ahead with your
comments.
STATEMENT OF DEB SOCIA
Ms. Socia. Good afternoon. Thank you for holding this
hearing on such an important topic.
My name is Deb Socia, and I am the Executive Director of
Next Century Cities, a bipartisan city-to-city collaborative
formed just last October. We have already grown to over 100
member cities, all of whom are dedicated to ensuring access to
fast, affordable and reliable broadband.
High-speed access is essential to America's economic
future. It is as simple as that. What can be complicated is
making it happen on the ground. Cities face a range of
technical, economic and political challenges including
obstacles at the State and Federal levels. More and more,
providing for this critical need has emerged as a core
responsibility for local governments. Many cities and towns
from around the country are taking diverse and creative steps
to secure their Internet future.
When it comes to providing access to high-quality Internet,
everyone has a role to play. It is an issue that spans
political party, an issue that crosses the urban-rural divide,
and an issue that relies on many sectors of our society.
There is no single pathway to next-generation broadband
network, and several of the most innovative solutions have
emerged in unexpected places. The small towns of Ammon, Idaho,
and Mount Vernon, Washington, have each developed a gigabit
open access network. These local governments are directly
involved in building the physical infrastructure and then
leasing access to competing private providers. Just outside of
Baltimore, Westminster, Maryland, has initiated a public-
private partnership with Ting, a provider of fiber Internet
service, and with the introduction of Google Fiber in Kansas
City, residents there can now experience giga-level speeds at
an affordable rate. Cities like Lafayette, Louisiana, and
Chattanooga, Tennessee, have built their own networks and now
have some of the fastest, most globally competitive access
available.
Next Century Cities is dedicated to helping all communities
achieve high-quality access regardless of the path they choose
to pursue. Our membership represents an inclusive cross-section
of America from small, rural communities such as Winthrop,
Minnesota, to large, urban areas like L.A. and Boston.
What unites these mayors is a commitment to the imperative
of broadband access for continued growth and an understanding
that local governments are best situated to understand and
provide for the needs of their residents. It is an exciting
time, a time for creative local solutions to usher in a new
generation of innovation as the Internet continues to transform
all aspects of society.
Next Century cities recently developed a policy agenda
showing how mu stakeholders can help communities develop the
crucial infrastructure needed today. Consistent with our
mission, this new resource provides guidance that will be
useful to communities regardless of how they choose to pursue
their broadband goals.
Part of the policy agenda looks at steps local and State
government can use to ensure high-quality access. Locally,
governments can institute ``dig-once'' policies that minimize
disruption as well as take other steps to ensure their cities
are fiber ready.
At the State level, the policy agenda addresses changes
such as modernizing State regulations and making investments in
the middle mile infrastructure. But we are here on Capitol Hill
today, and I wanted to emphasize some recommendations we heard
from mayors about steps the Federal Government could take to
help empower local communities. First and foremost, Congress
can encourage competitive local markets through national
legislation and other avenues. In addition, you have the
ability to provide a national platform for the issue of
broadband as necessary infrastructure. Hearings such as this
help to elevate this discussion and attract national attention
to this critical issue.
And finally, the policy agenda discusses how Congress could
better require information about available Internet access
including speed of connection, price for consumers, and areas
of operation for service providers.
As is clear from everything we have heard so far today, the
need for fast, affordable and reliable broadband Internet
access is undeniable. Innovative leaders in communities across
the country recognize this urgent need and are developing the
critical broadband infrastructure that will allow their
residents and their cities to thrive. It is evident by the over
100 Next Century Cities I am speaking on behalf of today,
communities that represent over 18 million Americans.
Thank you for providing this platform for communities to
share their experiences and develop opportunities for
collaboration with Federal policymakers. I look forward to
working with members of this committee and your colleagues to
ensure that communities across the country have the next-
generation access that all Americans need and deserve.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Socia follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Walden. Ms. Socia, thank you very much for your
testimony and your insights.
I will start off with questions.
Mr. Adelstein, as you probably know, the Middle Class Tax
Relief and Job Creation Act directed the GSA--Government
Service Agency--to develop a master contract to simplify the
placement of wireless antennas on Federal buildings and other
property. Last year, the Administrator of the GSA told Congress
that the master contract was complete and available for use by
executive landholding agencies. In your opinion, do you believe
the GSA--General Services Administration--has done everything
in its power to give life to the siting directives embodied in
section 6409, which you referenced in your testimony, of the
Middle Class Tax Relief Act? Have they done everything they
can?
Mr. Adelstein. Mr. Chairman, I do not believe they have. As
a matter of fact, I am the former Administrator myself of a
Federal agency, and if I had implemented something so poorly
that Congress instructed me to do, I would be embarrassed,
frankly. And it is worse than that because the Executive Branch
as well ordered them. There is an Executive Order by the
President of the United States directing GSA to move faster to
try to get these master contracts together, and to date,
nothing has been done, 3 years after Congress enacted this
legislation. Progress has been slow. GSA hasn't been proactive.
The law required standard rates, common forms and applications
to provide clarity to agencies in the wireless industry, and I
think our members now are having to negotiate for each and
every site individually, just as they have in the past. So GSA
has not implemented the intent of Congress, and we can't wait 3
more years for what is needed I think today. There is an urgent
lack of coverage on Federal lands. The administration has made
a priority of this, this committee has made it a priority, and
yet GSA I think has been dragging its heels. I think there
might be need for further legislation.
Mr. Walden. Or maybe a hearing with one witness. They
always like those.
I appreciate that, and for the rest of the panel, if there
are issues you are running into with Federal siting, let us
know because this is one we raised because it is important and
we don't--we concur with what Commissioner Adelstein has said.
I don't think they have got it right yet.
Ms. Socia, traditionally network operators were given a
monopoly exchange for the obligation to serve anyone upon
reasonable request. In the models we have been discussing,
carriers only deploy to areas where there is an economic case
for the build. How do we balance sound network economies with
the threat of redlining, a practice of refusing service to
areas that are deemed a poor financial risk? And as I heard
about the incredible buildout that Google is doing, which I
applaud, representing a district that is bigger than any State
east of the Mississippi, getting access out into our tribal
lands, getting access out into our very remote rural
communities, whether it is wired or wireless, remains a big
problem. And so I wonder how we can address that better.
Ms. Socia. I think that the interesting thing about--when
you think about profit, I think that is a problem across the
board with building out to these more rural locations and
therefore requires an influx of capital. There just isn't a way
to do this without support. But I think the ways that our
cities are looking at what is a profit are a little bit
different than the ways that a company might look at what a
profit is, right? So it is about education, it is about public
safety, it is about economic development and transportation and
all of these opportunities that are presented when you have
access. And so what is that worth and how do we ensure that our
tribal lands and our rural communities can benefit in the same
ways that other communities are able to?
Mr. Walden. Before I go to Mr. Moffett for his comments,
this is also an issue just to get wireless phone coverage out
in areas of Montana, upstate New York. Elise Stefanik has made
this case to me, our new Member from up there, that just
getting access, getting connectivity remains a real issue. The
job is not done.
And so Mr. Moffett, from your perspective as an analyst,
what do we do?
Mr. Moffett. Well, I would certainly agree with Ms. Socia's
comments that it is simply not realistic to think that those
projects are going to be entirely self-funding in the more
rural areas. That said, I think the targeting of the funds that
are available, the Connect America funds, can be improved such
that those funds are more carefully directed to new greenfield
projects that really are bringing broadband to places that
haven't been served in the past. There is always some
controversy around whether an area is either partially served
or sufficiently served.
Mr. Walden. Right.
Mr. Moffett. And then secondarily, I think it is also
important that those Connect America funds be made available to
all manner of companies so that there can be more competition
of potential providers of those services.
Mr. Walden. I want to get a quick answer from Mr. Slinger.
Does Google have plans to try a model out in sort of rural,
remote areas of the country to see if you can make that work?
Mr. Slinger. Well, as you know, Fiber may not be the right
solution technologically----
Mr. Walden. Correct.
Mr. Slinger [continuing]. For rural areas, and we want to
make sure that there is sufficient spectrum available for
unlicensed wireless technologies. As well, as you know, we are
experimenting with balloon technology with Project Lune, and as
well with fixed-wing aircraft out of New Mexico. So we think
that in rural areas, it may be new technologies that are going
to affordably bring Internet to those areas.
Mr. Walden. I hate to cut you off, but I know we are all
tight for time, so I will turn to my colleague from California,
Ms. Eshoo.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, first of all for having
this hearing and for the high level of cooperation relative to
witnesses and invitations. We appreciate it.
Jonathan, it is great to see you, former Commissioner at
the FCC, and to everyone that accepted our invitation to be
here today.
To Mr. Slinger and Ms. Socia, first of all, thank you for
your important advocacy for the ``dig once'' policy. I wish
that the Congress had passed it because I think that we would
have more of that policy actually--excuse the expression--
embedded in our Federal roadways, but how do you think, A, the
Executive Order is working? I want to get my questions out
first, OK, because the time is very brief, and if you think
there are any additional steps that Congress should take to
incent that deployment of conduit as part of the Federal
highway projects and that system, which I don't know, right now
it doesn't seem like the highway project system is going
anywhere. It looks like it is being driven off the road in
Congress. But anyway, here maybe we can concentrate on that.
Mr. Moffett, I listened very carefully to what you said,
and I think it is really highly pessimistic. It was depressing
to listen to your description of every last sector of the
telecommunications marketplace, and my question to you would
be, where do you see a bright spot?
To Governor Lewis, thank you for being here. You know,
there was a report that just came in out of terms of broadband
penetration in our country. We are 24th in the world. And I
think that a good part of that number is a representation of
Native Americans and reservations in our country. It is a
shameful record. It is a shameful record. And I think if there
is going to be something that moves up to the top of the list
here in a bipartisan way is to see that we bring to the parts
of the country where there are reservations that you get first-
class service for first-class citizenship. You really do. I
mean, for students to have to be driven by their parents 65 and
75 miles away to sit in the car in order to get some kind of
connection to do their homework, I don't think any Member of
Congress who is a parent here would ever put up with that. We
shouldn't have that in our country. And I hope that Mr. Slinger
and Governor Lewis will form a partnership and then come back
and report to us. I would really like to have you meet and see
what you can come up with because you both need each other and
we need both of you.
To Ms. Socia, does Next Century Cities support having local
municipal systems?
Ms. Socia. We support whatever it is our local communities
need to do in order to get where they are going. So----
Ms. Eshoo. Well, that doesn't answer my question, though.
Ms. Socia. OK.
Ms. Eshoo. It is too broad. Excuse the----
Ms. Socia. I understand.
Ms. Eshoo [continuing]. Term.
Ms. Socia. Many, many of our mayors signed on to a letter
we sent to the FCC in support of the preemption. The two cities
that filed petitions, Chattanooga and Wilson, are two of our
cities, and we have--we believe deeply in the idea that
competition is important and we believe deeply in the idea that
local folks should be able to solve their local problems in a
way that makes sense to them.
Ms. Eshoo. Well, I come from local government so I agree
with you, and I think that they should have the opportunity to
do that as well.
Jonathan, I regularly hear from constituents who are
frustrated with the tower siting process. Now, here is one for
you. Everyone wants great service, the best service in the
whole wide world, but no one wants a wireless tower in their
backyard or where they can see it anywhere near where they
live. So how do you respond to this, you know, the people that
say that reforms need to be made to take away local
jurisdiction, say, over the placement of cell towers. It is
really a--it is like trying to get socks on an octopus. I mean,
they want it, they don't want it. And yet there are some have-
tos in this. So those are my questions, and you have 13 seconds
to answer them. Oh, no, you don't have any time because I am
over time. But you can respond in writing, and that way I will
get more meat on the bones, I think.
So thank you for being here, and please, Mr. Slinger and
Governor Lewis, come together, and if my office, other offices
can help facilitate, let us know.
Mr. Walden. The gentlelady's time is expired.
I will turn to the vice chair of the subcommittee, Mr.
Latta, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Latta. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and thanks very much to
our panel today. It is always a great discussion that we have
in subcommittee.
Mr. Adelstein, if I could go back to some of the questions
that the chairman was posing and also I think you said about
the GSA dragging its feet in getting some of these things done,
especially when we are talking about streamlining the process
for providers to obtain the necessary permitting and other
approvals needed to build on Federal lands and protected lands.
Just out of curiosity, on average, how long does it take for a
negotiation process with the Federal Government compared to the
private industry? Any idea?
Mr. Adelstein. It takes about 4 years with the Federal
Government, less than half of that with the private sector, and
sometimes it can drag on much longer with the Federal
Government for many, many years. And so generally private
companies will just avoid Federal lands because it takes so
long. They don't see the return on investment that Craig was
talking about and so the Federal Government is actually
deprived of that revenue because it will go right next door if
there is non-Federal land nearby.
Mr. Latta. OK. When you say that then, so you are saying
that on average it is four but can drag out even longer?
Mr. Adelstein. That is right.
Mr. Latta. And any ideas or examples of how long some of
them have taken? Over 4 years?
Mr. Adelstein. Yes, I have heard from people that it has
taken 10 years and longer. I have heard sometimes they have
tried and it never gets done. And there is never even a
finality to it. There is on decision-making process that is in
place. That is why this committee in its wisdom said that the
GSA was supposed to take steps to standardize the process, and
yet it hasn't been done.
Mr. Latta. Let me follow up with that. Because of that, you
know, 4 to 10 or who knows or maybe into infinity and beyond,
what additional costs are incurred when the Federal Government
is unable to streamline its process for the broadband
infrastructure buildout?
Mr. Adelstein. Well, there is lost revenue. There is huge
costs trying to go through that process for the individuals who
are trying to get the site acquisition done. It is a shame.
Thirty percent of all the land mass in the United States is
Federal property, especially in rural areas, and a lot of very
valuable Federal buildings in dense urban which could use a
facility as well to deal with the capacity demands. So it is a
shame that these negotiations take so long, that they don't
lead anywhere. Not only do you lose revenue that you need for
deficit reduction, companies lose valuable places and the
consumers lose access to service they need.
Mr. Latta. Thank you.
Mr. Slinger, I think in your testimony you were talking
about the percentage of the population out there that does not
have access to broadband, and what percentage would that be?
Mr. Slinger. We are seeing now, the stats that we are
seeing, is about 60 million Americans. In some of our cities
that we are working in right now, 25 to 30 percent of people
have never had an Internet connection at home. They may have
access through cell phones but they don't have an Internet
connection at home.
Mr. Latta. OK. Just two quick follow-ups on that then
because again, I represent from urban to very, very rural, and
when you look at the numbers then or the percentages, what
percentage of that would be urban, suburban, very rural and
that percentage when you talk about that? Was it 60 million?
Mr. Slinger. Yes.
Mr. Latta. And how would that break down, and also, how
many people would that include that would not want to have
access to broadband?
Mr. Slinger. I don't have a breakdown of urban versus rural
within the numbers but again, in urban areas, I can say in many
cities that 25 percent, 30 percent of these cities, residents
don't have anything at home at all, no Internet connection.
Mr. Latta. Thank you.
Governor, if I could turn to you, and again, thanks very
much for being here with us today and for your testimony.
Because again, you said that you have, you know, a very, very
rural population, I think you said that you have 20 persons per
square mile, and you know, it is of great concern in your area
along with all the rural areas in the country about having that
essential broadband for our constituents, and you talked about
the USF and that that would help you, but are there other areas
besides the USF that you could see that would be of benefit to
you and your community?
Mr. Lewis. Thank you for that question, and first of all, I
would like to recognize that I have two of my council members
here, Councilman Devin Redbird and Councilwoman Caroline
Williams, and also from our GRTI, Gila River
Telecommunications, Belinda Nelson and Pamela Thomas from the
Gila River Community.
Mr. Latta. Thank you.
Mr. Lewis. Thank you. And I would say that one critical
issue is rights-of-way, and you know, rights-of-way is a
challenge where it is a complex issue. It has to do with the
nature of tribal land. It goes back, as I said, to the
allotment policy that has a devastating effect on tribal lands,
and so the short answer is that GRTI in regards to rights-of-
way, if they do not get rights-of-ways, we have to build around
it, and of course, that costs--it is very capital-intensive,
and so we either have to move to another route or where we can
in some cases have to build a wireless link to go over the
right-of-way, and obviously this is pretty costly as compared
to trenching through an established right-of-way, but sometimes
this is our only course of action. That is an issue that, you
know, we really need to look at.
Another is the ETC designation process, which is overly
complicated, and so streamlining of that ETC designation
process would be welcome to many tribes.
Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much, and Mr. Chairman, my
time is expired and I yield back.
Mr. Walden. Thank you.
We will now recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr.
Pallone, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to get one question in to Mr. Adelstein about
infrastructure during disasters like Hurricane Sandy, but then
I want to get a question in to Governor Lewis, so I am trying
to split this up.
Three years ago, Hurricane Sandy devastated my district.
The force of the storm knocked out some communication for days.
Mr. Adelstein, you testified about all the wireless
infrastructure that is being deployed and upgraded across the
country, and I support all this deployment, but my constituents
are also concerned about whether the equipment works in a
disaster.
So what is your industry doing to make sure people can call
for help and reach loved ones in an emergency, and what do you
think of the FCC's work to improve resiliency?
Mr. Adelstein. Well, ensuring----
Mr. Pallone. Two minutes.
Mr. Adelstein. Ensuring reliable access to
telecommunications is a real top priority for our industry. We
want to make sure all of the customers get access when they
need it most, which is in a disaster. You know, during
Hurricane Sandy, we saw cooperation, for example, between T-
Mobile and AT&T that agreed to share each other's network in
the region affected by the storm and share their network
operations centers. I would say that in terms of the structures
themselves, not one of them went down during the storm, not
one. The issue was things that were beyond the control--power
companies, access to roads, trees that fell. But what makes it
difficult is that sometimes we can't even get generators sited
on these things. Going back to the issue of this committee, we
find from localities that you can't put a generator there
because it violates a noise statute. It is only going to be
used in a time of emergency. I don't think anybody in the
neighborhood would complain about the noise of a generator when
otherwise their wouldn't work, and yet localities will not
allow us to put them there and then complain when the system
doesn't work in a disaster. We need more proactive thinking
about having backup power and facilitating access to it.
And one more point to add, which is the best thing you can
do for reliability is redundancy. The more these facilities are
up, the more likely you are going to have one that works in a
time of emergency. So all the work done by this committee to
promote deployment is promoting redundancy and ensuring that
there will be adequate facilities in case of emergency and more
likelihood that they will survive the disaster and be available
for use of public safety as well as for the citizens in the
community.
Mr. Pallone. Do you want to comment on the FCC's work?
Because Chairman Wheeler committed to me that the FCC would act
by the end of the year to complete its rulemaking on improving
wireless network resiliency.
Mr. Adelstein. We are thrilled with what the FCC is doing.
We have worked very closely with Chairman Wheeler and the other
members of the Commission that are looking at a cooperative
arrangement where we can try to provide incentives for industry
to deploy this kind of equipment. I think industry is doing a
lot already, making major investments in things like backup
power, and we are working together with them in a very
cooperative fashion. We believe that the goals are shared in
making sure that these networks are resilient and redundant.
Mr. Pallone. All right. Thank you.
Let me go to Governor Lewis, and I should say that I love
the Gila River Reservation. I haven't been there in a long
time. It is about time I go back.
But you know, on the one hand I was thinking that I guess
relative to many tribes, you might have more ability than even
some of the, you know, more remote or even poorer tribes, if
you will, to achieve some of the goals that you mentioned. So I
just wanted to ask about funding. You mentioned the Universal
Service Fund. I guess the gentleman from Google talked about
this Connect Home Initiative. I think the President was
actually at the Choctaw Reservation last week or so talking
about that.
I mean, what are these sources of funding? Is the Universal
Service Fund useful to you now? What would we have to do to
improve it? You know, what could the Federal Government do in
terms of funding for tribal infrastructure, particularly for
those tribes that might have even more difficulty. I am
thinking of like the Pueblos in New Mexico or the tribes at the
Grand Canyon, you know, smaller than Gila River, less funding
available. How are these funds helpful to you, the ones that we
do have, these programs that we do have, or are they?
Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Congressman Pallone, and you are
always welcome at the Gila River Indian Community.
And with USF funding, stable funding mechanisms are
critical to businesses like GRTI and those in Indian Country
where they have to develop deployment plans and rely on Federal
funding sources to be there to begin with. Now, our U.S.
funding is critical as well for providing funding for
infrastructure buildout, and that is critical to the long-term
sustainability of these telecommunications providers in Indian
County.
Mr. Pallone. Now, are you using funds from Universal
Service now?
Mr. Lewis. Yes, we are.
Mr. Pallone. And how is that working? What does it mean?
How do you do it?
Mr. Lewis. That is critical to the overall business plan of
Gila River Telecommunications. You know, they rely on that
source of income moving forward. It is critical to the long-
term business outlook. And also in regards to long-term capital
buildout as well.
Mr. Pallone. All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman's time is expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr.
Shimkus, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great panel.
I appreciate you all being here.
I want to go to Adelstein, Commissioner, and Governor Lewis
real quick to highlight the challenges because especially the
environmental review process, especially on Federal lands, is a
burden. So have you thought through how local municipalities
and they do their zoning outside of Federal lands and how we
could marry that with which goes on there and can you comment
on that?
Mr. Adelstein. Yes. You know, some localities are great,
and what we heard today from Google, from Ms. Socia, is that
those communities that promote broadband make it easier to get
access, and that is where the investment goes, and those that
throw up roadblocks, not to name any specific parts of the
country represented by folks here but there are some that
aren't seeing investment they would get if they weren't
throwing up roadblocks, and to the question of Congresswoman
Eshoo about, you know, people saying not in my backyard, they
are not going to have service in their backyard. So we work
very cooperatively with local communities. I mean, we try to--
every single facility that has been sited has been sited in
cooperation with local government. But to have it to be dragged
out, it took the work of this committee to say you don't have
to get another zoning hearing for something that has already
been zoned to put a 4G antenna up on a tower that is already
there. Why should the committee have to do that? Increasingly,
communities are recognizing this. The smart ones are moving
ahead. Ten States have enacted laws in the last several years
since 2013 to streamline deployment in their States, and those
States are seeing more investment. They are working with local
partners, the National Association of Counties, the National
League of Cities and others to get out word about the way the
FCC is implementing the law that you passed. Commissioner
Cliburn asked us to go out----
Mr. Shimkus. Let me get to Governor Lewis on the Federal
properties because that is another big challenge because they
have got to get past the Government land issue, and Governor,
really, the question is, can't we force a zoning issue, get you
guys the zoning ability like we do municipalities?
Mr. Adelstein. Yes. You know, there is a bill that was
introduced in the other body by Senator Rubio that would create
a standard fee schedule, fee retention for the agency that the
agency could keep the money they get from that to pay for the
cost of processing it. There would be common forms and
contracts, which you have already tried to get enacted, but
there is a need for more legislation to get them to do what you
asked them to do already. There is an expectancy of lease
renewals, so when somebody invest there, they are not going to
get cut off.
Mr. Shimkus. Let me get Governor Lewis to respond.
Mr. Lewis. Federal lands in Indian Country, that has been a
long issue in regards to, you know, our unique situation as
Indian tribes and the nature of Indian land in regards to
highly fractionated land interest that, you know, are just so
critical and sometimes are one of the major obstacles to
buildout in regarding to getting right-of-ways. If we can
somehow streamline that process through the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, through the Department of Interior, that would greatly
help out tribal infrastructure buildout in the future.
Mr. Shimkus. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Slinger, let me go to you real quick. My largest
community in my Congressional district is 33,000 people. When
do you think Google would hit that community on your timeline?
Mr. Walden. Did you want to name that community?
Mr. Shimkus. But I am not the chairman of the committee so
I don't have as much power.
Mr. Slinger. Well, you know, we published this Fiber
checklist so that we can, as Mr. Adelstein said, get cities to
ready by themselves for Fiber deployment, whether it is Google
Fiber or any other provider, by making sure that they have
smooth permitting processes that allow for a large volume of
permits to go through to make it easy for people to get onto
telephone poles through streamlined make-ready engineering and
construction.
Mr. Shimkus. So it is the same type of debate as we are
talking with the rural or the Federal lands deployment, the
ease of being able to have access and a timely response.
And let me finish up with Mr. Moffett. It is all about
return on investment--I don't care how people want to marry
it--if you believe in the capital model. So if a rural area
can't make a go based upon the formula, then you have to be
able to dip into RUS or other forms of low-interest loans to
make the business sense. Is that correct?
Mr. Moffett. That is exactly correct.
Mr. Shimkus. And also, time is money. So any delay, as what
we have just talked about here, affects the ability for someone
to go to the capital markets to make a pitch that they are
going to get their return on investment that you propose.
Mr. Moffett. That is correct as well, yes.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman yields back his time.
The Chair now goes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr.
Doyle, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this
excellent hearing and this excellent panel.
Jonathan, welcome back.
Mr. Adelstein. Thank you.
Mr. Doyle. Broadband infrastructure has become a critical
component to almost every facet of our daily lives from
students using Blackboard for school or watching Netflix and
Amazon to stream movies and TV shows, and by all levels of
Government to communicate with citizens and increasingly
leverage the network to improve the delivery and efficiency of
services.
Pittsburgh in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University
and Google is deploying a connected platform that will
integrate road sensors, traffic cameras and information kiosks
to create a living laboratory at a city scale for the next-
generation technologies. This platform will be used to improve
traffic patterns in real time, allowing city departments to
efficiently predict road wear and schedule maintenance and to
allow people to explore and interact with the city more
effectively. Fast, available and ubiquitous broadband
infrastructure provides the basis for these next-generation
solutions.
I for one am a big fan of making every tool in the toolbox
available to local governments to make sure that they have
access to the best networks and the best platforms in order to
improve the lives of the people living there.
Mr. Chairman, I would love to work with you on putting
together some legislation to address some of these challenges.
Let me start with Ms. Socia. How can localities leverage
shared infrastructure to expand access and increase the
deployment of broadband? As cities like Pittsburgh build this
infrastructure to address our own municipal needs, how can we
and other municipalities use what we are building to expand
access more broadly and what, if anything, stands in the way of
municipalities leveraging the infrastructure?
Ms. Socia. Really interesting work has been done all over
the country, as you suggested. Many of our cities are using
smart infrastructure to do really interesting work, determine
particulates in the air and checking asthma rates and using
streetlights that also have cameras in them for public safety.
We are seeing a lot more of that happen, and I think there are
barriers for cities to doing this work as well, and some of
them are the State regulations that prohibit their building out
their own infrastructure, and in some case, it is, as was
mentioned earlier, issues of how densely populated, the
circumstances of their current financial situation. All of
those things impact the capacity of a city to actually build
out their own.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
Mr. Slinger, I am curious. What dividends has Google Fiber
found in communities where you have deployed your gigabit
broadband to? Has it impacted jobs or the local economy or
education or local government? What are you finding in these
communities?
Mr. Slinger. Yes, we are seeing a great economic impact in
the cities that we are in. There have been reports that Kansas
City, Missouri, is not working on an economic impact analysis.
Let me start by saying there are certain categories of
employees where there is no unemployment, because obviously
when you build a big network, there is a lot of demand for jobs
for certain types of labor, and I think last week the Fiber to
the Home Council released some research that showed that GDP
growth in cities with a gig network rises and the average cost
per home or, you know, value of a home goes up 3.1 percent in
those cities, and that is new data from about a week ago.
But we also see, and we have heard from Mayor Holland and
Mayor James in Kansas City that they have seen it as a draw to
regional economic development. Other companies when deciding
where to locate in the Midwest will now look at Kansas City and
say hey, this place has a gig network, let us join.
Mr. Doyle. I am curious too about the discrepancies that
exist between price and speed. In Pittsburgh, for instance, I
can get 500 megabits a second but it will cost me about $400 a
month. When we look at cities like Chattanooga and Kansas City
and Austin and other cities, residents can get a gig for less
than $100. I am curious, maybe Mr. Moffett and Mr. Slinger and
Ms. Socia, you could comment on why you think these
discrepancies exist.
Mr. Moffett. Thank you for the question. My observation
would be, you are right, there are a very wide range of
economic models, and it is a challenge because there is no
near-term variable cost that dictates a cost-plus model and so
you see a lot of companies experimenting with different prices,
in part because they are trying to figure out what the quantity
demanded will be at different prices.
The challenge--but obviously you tend to have lower prices
where you have multiple competing networks and then again it
raises the question of whether the providers are earning a
sufficient return at the market share and the prices that they
are charging. In many cases they are not. This is a very
difficult area to do economic research, however, because you
will find that there are a lot of the companies who have
different motives rather than simply profitability of the
network itself.
Mr. Doyle. I want to give Mr. Slinger just a--because I
know our time is up.
Mr. Walden. Yes, we have go to----
Mr. Slinger. Well, I would say that if you look at the
cities in which we are already operating or cities where we
have announced, we have seen incumbent prices drop immediately
and speeds go up, so I think there is more room there.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walden. We will now go to the gentleman from Louisiana,
the Whip of the House, Mr. Scalise, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
having this hearing.
Mr. Adelstein, I know you talked in your opening statement
about a lot of the work that has been done to expand spectrum,
of course, a lot of that within this committee where we have
come together to make more spectrum available. I know the
chairman has been a great leader in that effort too.
One part of that equation absolutely is expanding more
spectrum, and then of course, the other part of that is your
members--where you all come to actually build it out and to
build that infrastructure to take advantage of the new
spectrum. If you could maybe share with us some of the
challenges or hurdles that your members face to make the
investment that they need to make to take advantage of that
spectrum and hopefully even make more spectrum available in the
marketplace?
Mr. Adelstein. Yes. You know, spectrum has been quite a
hurdle. You saw that $41 billion was spent for a limited amount
of spectrum recently, basically 65 megabits.
Mr. Scalise. It is a little bit better than the CBO
estimate, Mr. Chairman, wasn't it?
Mr. Walden. Which was zero, and it was $41.9 billion.
Mr. Scalise. Hopefully the CBO recognizes the value of the
spectrum that clearly everyone else seems to know about.
Mr. Adelstein. I think the CBO estimated zero, and it was
$41.9 billion, so they were off----
Mr. Scalise. They were off by a little bit there.
Mr. Adelstein. 41.9, yes. But the fact it, that was for a
12 percent increase in the available commercial mobile
spectrum. So you just got a 12 percent increase in the
throughput and you have 700 percent you need in the next 5
years. So we are down to 688 percent, a long way to go to build
out to meet the needs of people, and as I said, local
communities often are saying no to these facilities. We have--
the business case has to be made in rural areas as we have
discussed today, and overall investment is very difficult with
those prices for spectrum. We can't afford to have regulatory
drag on these investments, slowing them down, making it more
expensive when there is not enough capital to build out to meet
these needs already. I like to joke, you know you are in
trouble when you quick solution is infrastructure, but that is
kind of where we are at in this country, and as slow as it is,
it is immediately available when it is built if you take that
same spectrum and reuse it. So all of these burdens on Federal
lands, in urban areas, the FCC has done a great job, this
committee has done a great job of trying to address that, but
we need to work with our partners and State and local
governments as well.
Mr. Scalise. And clearly on Federal lands too, we have been
grappling with that here trying to remove some of those
burdens, not just in the spectrum space but in a whole lot of
other areas, especially as it relates to energy production
where Federal lands and even in the local areas, some of those
restrictions make it really hard to experience a lot of the
economic opportunity we can. Thanks for that answer.
Mr. Moffett, I want to ask you, in some of your analysis,
if you could share with us some of the similar challenges
that--you know, what are some actions maybe that Congress or
the FCC can take to further expand the opportunities for WiFi,
for broadband?
Mr. Moffett. Well, as I said earlier, I think there are
opportunities in Connect America Funds and making those
available to a wider range of companies for bringing broadband
to rural areas, but there is an overarching question here, and
it relates to the question that Ranking Member Eshoo asked
earlier about where are the bright spots. If you think about
this as a larger value chain of microeconomics from everything
from the content companies and the internet providers to the
infrastructure providers, where the bright spots are is very
clearly outside of infrastructure. The apps developers and the
content companies are actually earning extraordinary returns,
and there is a very knee-jerk and familiar regulatory impulse
to say let's try to protect the companies that are making very
high returns from the ones that are making very low returns. As
an economist, that is a very odd structure.
Mr. Scalise. Well, final question as I am running out of
time, Mr. Slinger. When Google Fiber was being deployed, it has
been reported you all were able to work with some local
governments that gave some exemptions, maybe some expedited
approval processes so that not just your but other new entrants
were able to move things a lot quicker. If you can talk in
general about the ability for more local governments to take
more of that deregulatory approach and how deregulation in a
sense of helping expedite the expansion of technology has
helped you and could help others to develop even more
broadband?
Mr. Slinger. Sure. And I am going to go back to the Fiber
checklist which we published in 2014. Some of our major
barriers obviously are getting access to poles and making it
easy to do the make-ready construction and get the poles ready.
One thing that has been suggested, I believe by the Fiber to
Home Council, was if municipalities took a proactive step in
doing pole maintenance, and while they are doing pole
maintenance, if they could do that make ready, get rid of the
old wires that aren't needed and make slots that would allow
new entrants, Google Fiber or any other entrant, to get in
quickly and attach to poles, that is one thing that would
really help.
And again, ``dig once'' policies and access to the right-
of-way, there is more we can do with local communities and more
we could do with Federal highways to make sure that if someone
is ripping up a road to do construction or repaving, that we
put in conduit that anyone can use. Those are just smart
things. They allow new market entrants and ultimately more
competition and choice at the local level.
Mr. Scalise. Thanks for your answers. I yield back the
balance of my time.
Mr. Walden. The gentleman yields back the balance of his
time.
Unfortunately, we are going to have to pull this to a close
because we are down to about 4 minutes left in the vote.
This is not the last hearing. We expect to continue this
work going forward. Your testimony has just gotten us to a
really good starting place. We have a lot more work to do, some
follow-up to do.
I know there are members who didn't get a chance to ask
questions. We do have information to submit for the record,
including from TIA, Comptel, CCA, Tech Freedom.
Mr. Walden. Mr. Olson, I believe you had a document you
wanted to submit, some articles on broadband deployment.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Walden. And with that, I am afraid we are going to--
unless, Ms. Matsui, do you want just a minute or two?
Ms. Matsui. Yes, just a minute or two.
Mr. Walden. Go ahead.
Ms. Matsui. I was curious, I wanted to ask Mr. Slinger some
questions. I find what you are talking about very interesting
because I look at this, and what you say is all very important
about deploying broadband infrastructure, and I am from
Sacramento, so we have wonderful areas that are doing great
things. I am looking at a particular area in our city that is
economically deprived, and we have a light-rail station that is
going to be--a light-rail line that is going to be completed
there with fiber and transit-oriented development stations. But
yet we have schools and libraries that are just deprived and
businesspeople there who just have no access. If we were to do
something there, and I don't know whether we can have a special
project, but I'm looking at this being very, very special for
economic development. Is that something that we can provide the
access, as you say that you need, is that something that you or
somebody else can take on as a project working with us? Because
I am trying very much to help this area that feels very
deprived, looking at the rest of my district that feel like
they are on the move and they are not on the move, and I want
to get them on the move if there is something we could do
there.
Mr. Slinger. Yes. There is a lot that we do really early
stage with all the cities that we look at to make sure that
they have the right kind of digital inclusion plans in place
early, to make sure that the cities have a focus on it, and
again, there is no silver bullet with any one company but we
want to make sure that all providers and local community groups
take this on, and as Fiber or any other technology is built out
in those areas to really make sure people understand the
relevancy of the Web, and hopefully get more people online.
Ms. Matsui. OK. Well, thank you very much, and thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walden. Thank you.
We are going to have to call it to a conclusion here.
Again, we do have votes on the House floor followed by the
Iranian briefing. So thank you to all of you for your
testimony, your counsel. We look forward to being back in touch
with you as we move forward and to others who have ideas for
the Congress on how we can expand access to affordable
broadband across the country, on Indian reservations, rural
communities, urban communities, wherever it is not.
And we have some tribal letters for the record as well from
Mr. Lujan, which we are happy to accept.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Walden. And with that, we will adjourn.
[Whereupon, at 1:41 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Greg Walden
Welcome to the Subcommittee on Communications and
Technology's hearing on Promoting Broadband Infrastructure
Investment. Broadband Internet access has become the
communications and commerce tool of our time. Whether it's
renewing your car registration, streaming the latest episode of
Silicon Valley, or video chatting with friends and family,
broadband has fundamentally changed the way approach so many
things. It has literally changed the old rules for how we live
our lives. Which begs the question: why are we using old rules
to regulate new networks?
The broadband market has changed significantly from its
early days, and continues to evolve to meet our society's
needs. Every city now wants to be a ``Gig City,'' to attract
the best and brightest entrepreneurs and to galvanize their
economies. And our rural and tribal areas want to ensure that
they are not left behind their urban counterparts.
Unsurprisingly, Americans are finding varied ways to meet
this demand.
Trillions of dollars--public and private--have been
invested in American broadband networks since 1996. According
to one study, the U.S. broadband sector invests twice as much
per household as its European counterpart. And USTelecom
estimates that in 2014 alone, broadband providers spent $78
billion in capital expenditures to continue to grow and upgrade
the national broadband infrastructure.
New entrants have also joined the picture. Although Google
is one of the better-known entrants, other start-ups have
jumped in to meet demand. US Internet, a wild card small start-
up, is taking on incumbents by stringing 1 Gigabit fiber across
the poles of Minneapolis. Dan Gilbert is backing Rocket Fiber,
a startup in Detroit, to trench 1-Gigabit fiber throughout the
town.
In other instances, municipalities have built networks or
crafted private public partnerships to bring 1-Gigabit networks
to their town. For example, Ting has worked with Westminster,
Maryland, and Charlottesville, Virginia, to bring high-speed
broadband to those towns. Others are working to help
municipalities determine the best course for accelerating
broadband access. Former FCC official Blair Levin has launched
Gig U.--an organization dedicated to facilitating buildout of
high-speed network. And Deb Socia, our guest today, heads Next
Century Cities, which helps cities and towns collect their
experiences in attracting private investment, and--when
necessary--procuring and deploying municipal networks.
Despite the clear demand for high-speed services,
investment in network infrastructure is not for the faint of
heart. A staggering amount of capital is required to deploy
fiber, antennas, routers, and switches to build a network with
useful scale. Those who invest often won't see returns for
years; and the return comes only if the service satisfies
enough customers to keep them coming back. There are real
challenges to investing in broadband infrastructure, our laws
shouldn't be among them.
With new players and incumbents looking to invest in
infrastructure and compete for customers on the networks of
tomorrow, the Federal Government should find ways to encourage
deployment and eliminate barriers. Despite repeated calls to
facilitate access to Federal lands and buildings, to simplify
and expedite access to utility poles, and improve the process
for tower and cell siting, these still present hurdles to
efficient investment and deployment. Nor have we solved the
issues that come with deploying on tribal lands, where the need
to improve the communications network is very real.
We hope that today's hearing will start a discussion that
reinvigorates a national debate on the best policies for
continuing the model of private network investment that has
made the United States a world leader in broadband. I'd like to
thank our witnesses in advance for their testimony. We are
looking forward to your insights.
Prepared statement of Hon. Fred Upton
Communications and commerce have never been easier, thanks
to the networks that comprise the Internet. As a world leader
in broadband, we take for granted what an expensive and
immensely challenging task it is to build, maintain, and
upgrade the networks necessary to drive the modern information
society. There is an incredible infrastructure that makes tasks
that once took hours and even days as simple and as instant as
a click or a swipe. In Michigan and across the country, we all
are reaping the benefits. But if we, as a country, are to
continue our leadership in the global technology industry, we
must have policies that promote investment in the
infrastructure to support it.
This committee has always encouraged and promoted the
deployment of communications facilities, and I am glad we have
witnesses with such different backgrounds providing their
unique insights today. My hope is that the discussion today
will shed light on challenges to the economics of broadband
networks and ideas that will help us replicate conditions that
have already led to successful broadband deployment.
Prepared statement of Hon. Robert E. Latta
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding this
hearing today and I thank our panel of witnesses for testifying
on this important issue.
Access to broadband is essential. It is a primary driver of
economic development and it empowers and connects communities--
especially rural communities like I represent in Ohio.
Americans are increasingly connected to networked and wireless
devices forcing broadband networks to grow in both scale and
scope to keep pace with consumer demands. That is why we need
to seek opportunities to maximize buildout of broadband
facilities, such as utilizing Federal lands and buildings as
access points for broadband deployment of wireless antennas.
Our Nation's free-market, private-investment approach to
broadband expansion has been very successful; therefore, I hope
today we can identify policies that further encourage and
advance investment in broadband infrastructure. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Prepared statement of Hon. Anna G. Eshoo
In the early 2000s, access to a broadband connection was
considered a luxury. If you could download a music file in mere
minutes, you were living the high life. In just a few short
years, much has changed. Today, broadband access is ubiquitous
with access to employment opportunities, education, health care
and commerce. It's used for advanced research among our
academic elite, and it's a conduit of democracy for a new
generation of voters.
Yet 55 million Americans lack access to the broadband
speeds needed to unlock everything the Internet has to offer.
Equally alarming is the fact that more than half of U.S.
households have just one choice for high-speed broadband
service. Despite an impressive $46 billion investment by the
top four telecom and cable companies last year, the U.S. still
ranks 17th globally in Internet speed.
The fact of the matter is that there won't be another $7
billion broadband stimulus anytime soon. So ``bold'' and
``innovative'' should be our operative words when discussing
broadband deployment policies. This is about our collective
future. So where should we be bold, and where can we be
innovative?
For years I've advocated for a ``dig-once'' policy. Quite
simply, broadband conduit should be included during the
construction of Federal highways just as gas and electric lines
are. Recognizing the enormous benefits of this cost saving
measure, President Obama included it as part of a 2012
Executive Order to accelerate broadband infrastructure
deployment.
Many new broadband entrants also face challenges in
accessing utility poles and other rights-of-way. According to
former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, the use of existing poles is
nearly a tenth of the cost of having to dig underground
trenches through streets and sidewalks. When a provider
ultimately gains access to these rights-of-way, the terms
should be fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory.
Another barrier to broadband deployment comes from State
laws, established at the behest of incumbent providers that
restrict or ban municipal broadband networks. Earlier this
year, the FCC voted in favor of bolstering 21st century
broadband infrastructure in local communities by preempting
State laws in Tennessee and North Carolina. Across the country,
local communities including Palo Alto and Santa Cruz County in
my Congressional district have demonstrated their desire to
bring fast, affordable broadband to their residents.
Finally, through the power of unlicensed spectrum, Wi-Fi
can expand broadband coverage in underserved communities,
including rural and tribal lands. The 600 MHz band and its
ability to penetrate walls and travel longer distances makes it
uniquely situated to serve these and other communities on a
nationwide basis.
These aren't by any means a cure-all prescription to what
ails our Nation's broadband system. But they are concrete steps
I believe Democrats and Republicans can support. More
importantly, they are steps that will bring greater access to
broadband for millions of Americans who need it.
I thank our distinguished witnesses for their commitment to
promoting broadband infrastructure investment and I look
forward to your testimony.
Prepared statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.
Thank you, Chairman Walden, for calling today's hearing.
Thanks also to our witnesses for being here today.
This subcommittee has become an example of how real
bipartisan efforts can create real results. Today we continue
that tradition. Discussions about whether to invest in our
Nation's infrastructure should not have two sides--whether we
are talking about roads, bridges, or communications networks.
The priority in Congress should never be if we should invest in
infrastructure; it should be only how we invest. To build a
sound infrastructure, both industry and the Government must
contribute. Sacrificing either will only lead to failure.
Our focus today is on our Nation's broadband networks in
particular. The Internet has become integral to all of our
lives. And in many ways, our broadband infrastructure is a
bright spot for our economy. While the Government contributes
billions of dollars in grants and an updated Universal Service
program, private investment has been the primary driver behind
the growth of our networks. Over the past 20 years, the private
sector invested $1.4 trillion in their networks --a trend I
expect will continue. So it is no wonder that broadband
capacity has doubled about every 2 years. And just as
important, this investment creates real jobs across the
country.
But despite this success, our work is not done. We are
fortunate in New Jersey to be one of the most connected States
in the country, but rural areas like Vermont or Iowa and Tribal
lands in New Mexico aren't so lucky. The most recent data
released by the FCC shows that Americans living in those areas
disproportionately lack access to broadband--53% of rural
Americans and 63% of Americans living on Tribal lands and in
the U.S. territories do not have access to the new benchmark
definition of broadband. We must continue to look for ways to
help these communities.
So I am interested to hear from our witnesses about what
policies work and which ones need to be updated. I also want to
hear about how to make sure our communications networks are
resilient enough to withstand emergencies.
I hope that ideas generated today will be the inspiration
for more bipartisan work going forward.
Prepared statement of Hon. David Loebsack
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Today's hearing is a crucial part of our national dialogue
about the importance of rebuilding our infrastructure. Access
to broadband is no longer an indulgence for the rich-it is an
indispensable part of all of our lives. That is certainly true
in urban areas-but it is just as true in the vast rural areas
we have in Iowa.
I heard this loud and clear earlier this year during a
Broadband Access Roundtable Tour that I took across my
district. This is was not a short trip, either. I sat down to
visit with my constituents in every one of the 24 counties that
I represent. I took the time to make this trip because access
to broadband is vital to survival in today's economy.
And at every stop--every one--I heard that we need to do
more to expand the reach of high-speed Internet access. But
broadband that costs hundreds of dollars is not good enough.
Because low-income Americans deserve affordable Internet access
whether they live in a city or on a farm.
Mr. Adelstein, I appreciate your testimony regarding the
importance of utilizing spectrum efficiently to expand wireless
broadband access. I agree that this limited resource needs to
be optimized. That is why I introduced the Rural Spectrum
Accessibility Act with Rep. Kinzinger, which will encourage
spectrum license holders to lease unused spectrum to small
rural carriers to expand wireless coverage in rural
communities.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today, and I
look forward to hearing their suggestions on how we can move
forward on this important issue.
Prepared statement of Hon. Ben Ray Lujan
Thank you to the chairman and ranking member for scheduling
this incredibly important hearing on promoting investments in
broadband infrastructure.
As we all know, when it comes to broadband, too many
Americans have been left behind.
The FCC reports that more than half of rural Americans and
two-thirds of Americans living on tribal lands lack access to
advanced broadband. In New Mexico, those numbers are 77 percent
and 89 percent respectively.
As I've said before, if we can have Internet access at
30,000 feet in an airplane, we should be able to have Internet
access all across rural and tribal America, including New
Mexico.
By supporting investments in broadband, we support the
entrepreneurs and innovators who want to build a brighter
future for their people. By connecting schools, we can help
children prepare to succeed in today's competitive economy,
while investments in telemedicine ensure that seniors receive
the care they deserve.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on how
we can scale this digital divide. And, I look forward to
working with my colleagues to connect more people in rural
America and on tribal lands.
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