[Senate Hearing 115-887]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-887
THE RACE TO 5G: A VIEW FROM THE FIELD
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FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,
SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 12, 2018
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available online: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
57-908 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JOHN THUNE, South Dakota, Chairman
ROGER WICKER, Mississippi BILL NELSON, Florida, Ranking
ROY BLUNT, Missouri MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
TED CRUZ, Texas AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
JERRY MORAN, Kansas BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts
DEAN HELLER, Nevada TOM UDALL, New Mexico
JAMES INHOFE, Oklahoma GARY PETERS, Michigan
MIKE LEE, Utah TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire
CORY GARDNER, Colorado CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada
TODD YOUNG, Indiana JON TESTER, Montana
Nick Rossi, Staff Director
Adrian Arnakis, Deputy Staff Director
Jason Van Beek, General Counsel
Kim Lipsky, Democratic Staff Director
Chris Day, Democratic Deputy Staff Director
Renae Black, Senior Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on October 12, 2018................................. 1
Statement of Senator Thune....................................... 1
Witnesses
Hon. Brendan Carr, Commissioner, Federal Communications
Commission..................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Hon. Paul TenHaken, Mayor, City of Sioux Falls................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Dr. Jose-Marie Griffiths, President, Dakota State University..... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 13
Robert Fisher, Senior Vice President, Federal Government Affairs,
Verizon........................................................ 26
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Justin Forde, Senior Director, Government Relations, Midcontinent
Communications................................................. 31
Prepared statement........................................... 32
Mark Shlanta, Chief Executive Officer, SDN Communications........ 37
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Appendix
Letter dated September 27, 2018 to Hon. John Thune and Hon. Brian
Schatz from Shirley Bloomfield, Chief Executive Officer, NTCA--
The Rural Broadband Association................................ 57
Letter letter dated October 3, 2018 to Hon. John Thune and Hon.
Brian Schatz in support of S. 3157............................. 58
Letter dated October 15, 2018 to Hon. John Thune and Hon. Bill
Nelson from Tom Cochran, CEO and Executive Director, The United
States Conference of Mayors.................................... 61
Letter dated July 27, 2018 to Hon. John Thune and Hon. Bill
Nelson from Scott D. Pattison, Executive Director and Chief
Executive Officer, National Governors Association; William T.
Pound, Executive Diector, National Conference of State
Legislatures; Matthew D. Chase, Executive Director, National
Association of Counties; Clarence E. Anthony, CEO/Executive
Director, National League of Cities; Tom Cochran, CEO and
Executive Director, The United States Conference of Mayors; and
Christopher P. Morrill, Executive Director/CEO, Government
Finance Officers Association................................... 62
Letter dated October 2, 2017 to Ajit Pai, Chairman; Mignon
Clyburn, Commissioner; Michael O'Rielly, Commissioner; Brendan
Carr, Commissioner; and Jessica Rosenworcel, Commissioner,
Federal Communications Commission from Tom Cochran, CEO and
Executive Director, The U.S. Conference of Mayors; Matthew
Chase, Executive Director, National Association of Counties;
Steve Taylor, Executive Director, National Association of
Telecommunications Officers and Advisors; and Clarence Anthony,
Executive Director, National League of Cities.................. 64
THE RACE TO 5G: A VIEW FROM THE FIELD
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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2018
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
Sioux Falls, SD.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:08 p.m. CDT, at
Carnegie Town Hall, 235 W. 10th Street, Sioux Falls, South
Dakota, Hon. John Thune, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senator Thune [presiding].
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN THUNE,
U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA
The Chairman. Let me just say good afternoon and welcome to
everybody and thank you for coming. Today, I've convened this
hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee to explore ways to
maintain global leadership in the race to 5G, while ensuring
the benefits of remarkable new wireless technologies reach
rural America.
Over the past two years, I have convened several hearings
in Washington, D.C., aimed at identifying barriers to the
deployment of next-generation services and what we can do in
Congress to help lower them. I am pleased that today we will be
able to discuss these very important issues right here in South
Dakota.
I've heard from stakeholders throughout the country who
represent American businesses that are on the ground building
and maintaining our communications networks, deploying
infrastructure, and bringing to market cutting edge
technologies like autonomous vehicles, precision agriculture,
and remote health care services that will transform our
everyday lives.
We have also heard from the community and tribal leaders,
small businesses, hospitals, schools, and everyday Americans
that will benefit from this important technology.
The race to 5G has begun, and the United States has the
technology to win it. But as I've said before, technology is
only part of the equation. We must ensure that wireless
providers have spectrum on which their systems can operate, and
they must be able to deploy those networks in a reasonable and
timely manner. The MOBILE NOW Act, which is a bill I authored
last year, and it was enacted earlier this year, addressed both
spectrum and infrastructure needs, but more work needs to be
done.
In July, the Committee examined ways to free up more
spectrum for 5G. I am pleased to see both the Federal
Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications
and Information Administration are taking critical steps this
year to make more spectrum available for wireless use. And our
Committee will continue to encourage innovative approaches to
using spectrum more efficiently
Indeed, spectrum is critical to winning the race to 5G, but
removing barriers to infrastructure deployment is the final
piece of the puzzle. Earlier this year, I introduced a bill
called the STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act on a bipartisan
basis with Senator Schatz. The STREAMLINE Act reflects more
than a year of hard work with stakeholders, including many here
today, to eliminate needless barriers to deploying 5G and to
bring the benefits to American consumers. In fact, just last
week we received a letter of support for the STREAMLINE Act
signed by 25 groups representing a range of stakeholders from
health care to agriculture, the automotive and manufacturing
industries, Internet companies, consumer technologies, and
more.
I am confident that our legislation will allow Americans
across the country, no matter where they live, the ability to
reap the benefits of 5G leadership while at the same time
respecting the important role that State and local governments
play in deployment decisions.
Additionally, I am very pleased that the FCC, as part of an
effort led by Commissioner Carr, has just taken an important
step to modernize its siting rules consistent with the goals of
the STREAMLINE Act.
As Mayor TenHaken knows, making infrastructure siting
easier is particularly important for those of us in rural
America, where the business case for deployment is different
than in larger metropolitan areas. Lowering deployment costs is
especially important in more rural communities, where we simply
don't have the population density to justify deployment if
those barriers are high. Excessive fees, delays, and
uncertainty can ruin the case for deployment of 5G for a
community. I'm proud that our home state of South Dakota is
leading the way in 5G.
Dr. Griffiths together with Dakota State University are
training the young men and women who will design and protect
our 5G networks and the services that they will offer.
Mayor TenHaken and Commissioner Carr are leading the way
with their work to establish rules and policies that encourage
5G deployment.
And Justin Forde, from Midco; Mark Shlanta, from SDN
Communications; and Robert Fisher, from Verizon; are working to
deploy the 5G networks and related infrastructure that will
bring South Dakota the next generation of wireless
communications.
I want to thank all of you for being here today. I look
forward to hearing from you, as well as an opportunity to enter
into discussion as we get a chance to fully drill down on some
of these issues and what we can do to bring 5G more quickly and
more effectively here to South Dakota.
So I'm going to start on my left with Commissioner Carr,
Brendan Carr, who, by the way, this is his second trip to South
Dakota, and every time he comes out here, he goes and does
things to enjoy the state. Today, he climbed a 2,000-foot
tower, I'm told, so maybe he'll tell us about that. But I
appreciate the interest that he has taken in the challenges of
delivering these types of services to rural areas of the
country and his attempts to understand the unique needs and
challenges that we have.
So we'll start with him and then move to the Mayor of Sioux
Falls, the Honorable Paul TenHaken; Dr. Jose-Marie Griffiths,
who is President of Dakota State University; Robert Fisher, who
is Senior Vice President of Federal Government Relations for
Verizon; and, as I said, Mr. Justin Forde, who is Senior
Director of Government Relations at Midcontinent
Communications; and then Mr. Mark Shlanta, who is Chief
Executive Officer for SDN Communications.
It's great to have all of you here today. Thank you for
being here.
And we'll start with Commissioner Carr. Please proceed. We
look forward to hearing from you.
STATEMENT OF HON. BRENDAN CARR, COMMISSIONER, FEDERAL
COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
Commissioner Carr. Thank you, Chairman Thune, for the
invitation to testify. It's great to be back with you in South
Dakota for this field hearing on 5G and to join this
distinguished group of witnesses. I can think of no better way
to identify the barriers that slow down deployment and the
steps we can take back in Washington to remove them, than
spending time like this outside of D.C.
On my way here, I spent time in Minnesota, North Dakota,
and South Dakota. I heard firsthand the challenges that
broadband providers face in building next-gen networks in rural
America. And I saw the grit and determination the telecom crews
demonstrate in getting the job done. Whether it was Justin on
top of an already snow-covered grain elevator in Thompson,
North Dakota, that's now beaming broadband in a community of
1,000; or with Steve while he attached a new radio on a water
tower in Shorewood, Minnesota, that's adding capacity to the
network; or this morning with Amos and Mike on a 2,000-foot
tower in Rowena, South Dakota; these visits underscore the work
we need to do to make these jobs easier.
This week I also heard from the Great Plains innovators,
job creators, and health care providers, that simply would not
be operating in these communities without a broadband
connection.
So this field hearing is important. It puts our shared goal
for 5G front and center. We want every community in the country
to see the economic opportunity that 5G can enable. Spectrum
and infrastructure are key.
So I want to commend the Committee for leading on them.
Chairman Thune championed the MOBILE NOW Act, which frees up
the spectrum needed for next-gen services.
And I want to acknowledge both Chairman Thune and Senator
Schatz for their work on the bipartisan STREAMLINE Small Cell
Deployment Act, which would cut red tape that's been slowing
down small cell deployments.
And at the FCC, we're building on the Committee's efforts.
In the U.S., as you know, we're on the cusp of a major upgrade
in wireless to 5G. The Wall Street Journal has called it
transformative from an economic and technological perspective,
and they're right. Winning the global race to 5G, seeing this
new platform deployed in the U.S. first, is about our economic
leadership for the next decade.
Those are the stakes. And here is how we know it. Think
back 10 years ago when we were on the verge of upgrading from
3G to 4G. Think about the largest stocks, the biggest drivers
of our economy. It was big banks and big oil. Now it's U.S.-
based technology companies that have transformed our economy
and our lives. Think about your own life. A decade ago, taking
a road trip, like I've done this week, meant walking into your
local AAA office, telling them the stops along your way and
waiting for them to print out a TripTik booklet filled with
maps that you'd unfold as you drove down the highway. Now an
app lets you get real-time directions right on your phone.
American companies led the way in developing these 4G
innovations. It is not by chance that the U.S. is the world's
tech and innovation hub. We have the strongest wireless economy
in the world because we won the race to 4G. And being first to
5G will matter even more. As Deloitte put it, ``First-adopter
countries . . . could sustain more than a decade of competitive
advantage.''
And, after all, we're not the only country that wants to be
first to 5G. One of our biggest competitors is China. They view
5G as a chance to flip the script. They want to lead the tech
sector for the next decade, and they're moving aggressively to
deploy the infrastructure needed for 5G. Since 2015, China has
deployed 350,000 cell sites. We've built fewer than 30,000.
China is deploying 460 cell sites a day. That's 12 times our
pace.
So we have to be honest about this infrastructure
challenge. And from Congress, to the White House, to the FCC,
to State and local leaders, we have a plan, and we're executing
on it. For our part, the FCC is working to get the government
out of the way so the private sector can construct the hundreds
of thousands of new small cells needed for 5G.
In March, we excluded small cells from the costly review
procedures designed for 100-foot towers. That decision cut $1.5
billion in red tape, and one provider is now clearing small
cells for construction at six times the pace as before. So
we're making progress.
When I think about success, when I think about winning the
race to 5G, the finish line isn't the moment we see next-gen
deployments in New York or San Francisco; success can only be
measured when all Americans have a fair shot at next-gen
connectivity.
So just two weeks ago, the FCC took another step in the
right direction. We built on the bipartisan ideas championed by
Senators Thune and Schatz, as well as dozens of State and local
leaders. We streamlined the local permitting process. That
decision cut another $2 billion in red tape, will stimulate
$2.4 billion in new small cell deployments, 97 percent of which
will be in rural and suburban communities, and we can
accelerate that progress with the commonsense ideas contained
in the STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act. Doing so would
represent another solid win for the U.S. in the race to 5G.
So, Chairman Thune, thank you again for holding this
hearing. I look forward to hearing from the other witnesses,
and welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of Commissioner Carr follows:]
Prepared Statement of Brendan Carr, Commissioner,
Federal Communications Commission
Chairman Thune, thank you for the invitation to testify. It is
great to be back with you in South Dakota. I want to commend you and
the Committee for holding this field hearing on 5G. Spending time like
this outside of D.C.--hearing directly from community leaders and
broadband providers alike--is critical. I can think of no better way to
identify both the regulatory barriers that needlessly slow down
broadband deployment and the steps we can take back in Washington to
remove them. And this field hearing helps put our shared goal for 5G
front and center: We want every community in the country, from New York
to Yankton, to see the economic opportunity that broadband enables.
As this hearing makes clear, spectrum and infrastructure are key
for 5G. So I want to start by commending the Committee for leading on
these two issues. Chairman Thune championed the MOBILE NOW Act, which
frees up the spectrum necessary for next-generation wireless service.
And on the infrastructure side, I want to acknowledge both Chairman
Thune and Senator Schatz for their work on the bipartisan STREAMLINE
Small Cell Deployment Act. This bill would update our Nation's
infrastructure policies by cutting the red tape that threatens the
deployment of 5G networks. At the FCC, we are building on your efforts,
and we recognize that the time to act is now.
In the U.S., we are on the cusp of a major upgrade in wireless to
5G. The Wall Street Journal has called it transformative from a
technological and economic perspective. And they're right. Winning the
global race to 5G--seeing this new platform deployed in the U.S.
first--is about economic leadership for the next decade. Those are the
stakes, and here's how we know it.
Think back ten years ago when we were on the verge of upgrading
from 3G to 4G. Think about the largest stocks and some of the biggest
drivers of our economy. It was big banks and big oil. Fast forward to
today: U.S.-based technology companies, from FAANG (Facebook, Apple,
Amazon, Netflix, and Google) down to the latest startup, have
transformed our economy and our lives.
Think about your own life. A decade ago, catching a ride across
town involved calling a phone number, waiting 20 minutes for a cab to
arrive, and paying rates that were inaccessible to many people. Today,
we have Lyft, Uber, Via, and other options.
A decade ago, sending money meant going to a brick-and-mortar bank,
standing in that rope line, getting frustrated when that pen leashed to
the table was out of ink (again!), and ultimately conducting your
transaction with a teller. Now, with Square, Venmo, and other apps you
can send money or deposit checks from anywhere, 24 hours a day.
A decade ago, taking a road trip across the country meant walking
into your local AAA office, telling them the stops along your way, and
waiting for them to print out a TripTik booklet filled with maps that
you would unfold as you drove down the highway. Now, with Google Maps
and other apps you get real-time updates and directions right on your
smartphone (Otherwise, there's little doubt that I'd still be lost in
Yankton instead of speaking to you today).
American companies led the way in developing these 4G innovations.
And it's not by chance or luck that the United States is the world's
tech and innovation hub. We have the strongest wireless economy in the
world because we won the race to 4G. No country had faster 4G
deployment and more intense investment than we did. Winning the race to
4G added $100 billion to our GDP. It led to $125 billion in revenue for
U.S. companies that could have gone abroad. It grew wireless jobs in
the U.S. by 84 percent. And our world-leading 4G networks now support
today's $950 billion app economy.
That history should remind policymakers at all levels of government
exactly what is at stake. 5G is about our leadership for the next
decade.
And being first matters. It determines whether capital will flow
here, whether innovators will start their new businesses here, and
whether the economy that benefits is the one here. Or as Deloitte put
it: ``First-adopter countries. . .could sustain more than a decade of
competitive advantage.''
After all, we're not the only country that wants to be first to 5G.
One of our biggest competitors is China. They view 5G as a chance to
flip the script. They want to lead the tech sector for the next decade.
And they are moving aggressively to deploy the infrastructure needed
for 5G.
Since 2015, China has deployed 350,000 cell sites. We've built
fewer than 30,000. China is deploying 460 cell sites a day. That is
twelve times our pace. China now has 1.9 million cell sites. We have
around two to three hundred thousand. Put differently, China has more
than 13 times the number of cell sites per mile as the U.S.
We have to be honest about this infrastructure challenge and show
the courage to act.
From Congress, to the FCC, to the White House, we take this
challenge seriously. The U.S. has a plan, and we're executing on it.
For our part, the FCC is working to get the government out of the way,
so that the private sector can construct the hundreds of thousands of
new cell sites needed for 5G in this country.
In March, we updated Federal historic and environmental reviews to
reflect new, 5G technology. While the old rules were written for 200-
foot towers with large footprints, the majority of wireless
infrastructure being built today is made up of small cells, often the
size of a backpack. Requiring every new small cell to go through the
lengthy and costly review designed for 200-foot towers was like
requiring a commercial pilot's license to fly a paper airplane. The
outdated reviews were not providing any real benefit to Americans. And
they had real costs--in both dollar figures and in the race to 5G.
For evidence of the problem, look no further than last year's Super
Bowl, which was played at NRG stadium in Houston. The construction of
the stadium itself, including the parking lot, did not involve any
Federal historic review. But when a wireless provider tried to build 23
small cells on the stadium and on poles in the parking lot so that fans
could send pictures and videos from the Big Game, our old approach
required historic preservation review for those backpack-sized
antennas. In the end, one wireless provider paid nearly $180,000 in
historic review fees to attach small equipment onto the massive
concrete stadium and parking lot.
Unfortunately, that was not an isolated incident. Twelve thousand
dollars for reviewing a small cell outside a steel factory in East
Chicago, Indiana. Another twelve thousand dollars for reviewing a small
cell placed between a sidewalk and a highway in Ohio. A million dollars
for reviewing small cell nodes in Atlanta. The fees were pointless,
increasing, and draining the limited capital needed to deploy broadband
and 5G in communities across the country.
So the FCC stepped in to fix that broken Federal review process.
Given their much smaller size and footprint compared to large towers,
we held that small cells should not go through the costly and lengthy
reviews designed for 200-foot towers. And we're already seeing results.
That decision cut $1.5 billion in red tape, and one provider reports
that it is now clearing small cells for construction at six times the
pace as before.
So we're making progress. But hurdles remain. We've heard from
dozens of mayors, local officials, and state lawmakers--including
officials right here in South Dakota--who get what 5G means. They
understand the economic opportunity that comes with next-gen networks.
But they worry that the billions in investment needed to deploy these
networks will be consumed by the high fees and long delays imposed by
big, ``must-serve'' cities. They worry that, without Federal action,
they may not see 5G. I'd like to read from a few of the many comments
I've received over the last few months.
Duane Ankney is a retired coal miner from Montana, a Member of the
Montana State Legislature, and chair of its Energy and
Telecommunications Committee. He writes: ``Where I see the problem is,
that most of investment capital is spent in the larger urban areas.
This is primarily due to the high regulatory cost and the cost recovery
[that] can be made in those areas. This leaves the rural areas out.''
Mary Whisenand, an Iowa commissioner, writes: ``With 99 counties in
Iowa, we understand the need to streamline the network buildout process
so it's not just the big cities that get 5G but also our small towns.
If companies are tied up with delays and high fees, it's going to take
that much longer for each and every Iowan to see the next generation of
connectivity.''
Ashton Hayward, the Mayor of Pensacola, Florida, writes:
``[E]xcessive and arbitrary fees . . . result[ ] in nothing more than
telecom providers being required to spend limited investment dollars on
fees as opposed to spending those limited resources on the type of
high-speed infrastructure that is so important in our community.''
And the entire board of commissioners from a more rural area in
Michigan writes: ``Smaller communities such as those located in St.
Clair County would benefit by having the [FCC] reduce the costly and
unnecessary fees that some larger communities place on small cells as a
condition of deployment. These fees, wholly disproportionate to any
cost, put communities like ours at an unfair disadvantage. By making
small cell deployment less expensive, the FCC will send a clear message
that all communities, regardless of size, should share in the benefits
of this crucial new technology.''
They're right. When I think about success--when I think about
winning the race to 5G--the finish line is not the moment we see next-
gen deployments in New York or San Francisco. Success can only be
achieved when all Americans, no matter where they live, have a fair
shot at next-gen connectivity.
So just two weeks ago, we built on the many smart infrastructure
policies championed by state and local leaders. We ensured that every
city is compensated for its costs in reviewing and approving small cell
deployments, while putting guardrails in place to address excessive
fees. We updated the shot clocks that have long applied to local
reviews to account for the lower impact of new small cell deployments.
And we ensured that local governments can take reasonable aesthetic
considerations into account when reviewing deployments. After all, it
is these local leaders--not FCC commissioners--that will get pulled
aside at their grocery store or post office if a provider puts up an
ugly small cell.
This was a balanced approach that will help speed the deployment of
5G. It will cut $2 billion in red tape. To put that in perspective,
that's about $8,000 in savings per small cell--on top of the $10,000 in
savings from our March decision on Federal historic reviews. Cutting
these costs changes the prospects for communities that might otherwise
get left behind. It will stimulate $2.4 billion in new small cell
deployments. And, importantly, that new investment is enough to cover
1.8 million more homes and businesses with 5G--97 percent of which are
in rural and suburban communities. That means more broadband for more
Americans.
So I am pleased with the progress we're making. But there is more
work ahead. The commonsense ideas contained in the STREAMLINE Small
Cell Deployment Act would solidify the progress we've made while
further simplifying the process governing the construction of next-gen
networks. It would represent another solid win for the U.S. in the race
to 5G.
Chairman Thune, thank you again for holding this hearing and for
the invitation to testify. I welcome your questions.
The Chairman. Thank you, Commissioner Carr. Again thank you
for the time you've invested in understanding South Dakota,
what our needs are, and for everything you're doing on the FCC.
I couldn't applaud more the steps that you and your fellow
Commissioners have taken in this to prepare and get us ready to
win that race.
Mayor TenHaken, who is a tech entrepreneur as well, so
understands these things really well and is working
aggressively I know here in the City of Sioux Falls to do
everything possible to help speed up and enable us to take full
advantage of some of these technologies. So thank you for the
leadership that you're taking, and I look forward to hearing
from you.
STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL TENHAKEN, MAYOR,
CITY OF SIOUX FALLS
Mr. TenHaken. Thank you.
Chairman Thune, thank you for holding this hearing today in
what you already know as the greatest city in the world, Sioux
Falls, South Dakota.
I appreciate the opportunity to address you today on the
importance of Internet connectivity in Sioux Falls and how
fifth generation of Internet connectivity is incredibly
important to South Dakota and to the Upper Midwest.
Sioux Falls is a growing city in the heart of America.
Continued investment in connectivity like 5G helps ensure that
South Dakota remains a technological player in the national and
international market.
With the dawn of the digital age and Internet, we've seen a
new wave of business fueled by entrepreneurs, like myself. In
2008, I founded the marketing technology firm Click Rain here
in Sioux Falls. Thanks to the explosive growth of the Internet
and digital commerce, our company quickly found our way onto
the Inc 5000 list 5 years in a row as one of America's fasting
growing private companies, and soon became one of the largest
marketing technology firms in the Upper Midwest. My background
in this space gives me a heightened level of interest and
expertise on the subject, of which I am quite passionate about.
Today, nearly every sector of Sioux Falls' economy counts
on a fast and reliable Internet connection. Organizations like
Avera Health are operating one of the most robust eCARE
backends in the country, right here in Sioux Falls.
CarsForSale.com is a dot-com success story that has created
hundreds of jobs here in Sioux Falls. DocuTAP, just up the
street, provides hundreds of tech careers delivering EMR
software to urgent care clinics all over the world. The common
thread of success amongst all these companies: fast, reliable
connectivity.
As the United States strives to be one of the first nations
with a fully functional 5G network, the city of Sioux Falls
strives to be the first mid-market city with a 5G
infrastructure. Right now, wireless carriers are negotiating
small cell tower location review fees and easement fees with
local governments to install 5G infrastructure, and that's
happening right here in Sioux Falls.
As Mayor, it's not my intent to profit off carriers to
deploy 5G infrastructure. We seek fair and reasonable
compensation for city staff time to review applications from
carriers. And, in turn, we offer a reasonable time-frame to
approve or deny these applications, or work with the carrier on
an alternative site. Last, we want easement fees that cover the
inflationary costs we incur with carriers locating their
technology on our city assets. It's a very basic ask: make the
city whole on our costs to review and house the infrastructure
that carriers need to deliver this connectivity.
It is critical that Federal regulations protect local
governments and allow them to set reasonable fees that cover
costs. Giving carriers authority to set fees that are unfair to
local governments is, in essence, an unfunded Federal mandate
that will cost local governments tens of millions of dollars
when you consider the thousands and thousands of small cells
that will be deployed across the Nation in the coming years.
5G plays a pivotal role in the future of economic
development, workforce development, and innovation in this
city. For autonomous vehicles to be safe and viable, we need
5G. For enhanced public safety with high-definition feeds for
police officer cameras, we need 5G. The opportunities 5G brings
to our community are endless, and I look forward to working
with this Committee, the FCC, and the carriers to successfully
and expeditiously deploy 5G in Sioux Falls.
So in closing, I want to thank Chairman Thune for your
leadership in this area. Your vision for streamlining 5G
deployment across the U.S. that is fair to communities,
consumers, and carriers is a step in the right direction.
I am excited to foster and support 5G in Sioux Falls as we
seek to grow our technological footprint in this city and
remove unnecessary barriers for entry for this critical
infrastructure. We're ready to help you lead this effort.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. TenHaken follows:]
Prepared Statement of Paul TenHaken, Mayor,
City of Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Chairman Thune, thank you for holding this and hearing, and welcome
to the great City of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I appreciate the
opportunity to address you today on the importance of Internet
connectivity in Sioux Falls and how the fifth generation of Internet
connectivity is incredibly important to South Dakota and the Upper
Midwest.
Sioux Falls was incorporated in 1876, around the same time in
history when communication in the United States was transformed by the
telegraph system, and the same year Alexander Graham Bell sent the
first human voice over an electric telegraph wire. Fast forward to
today, Sioux Falls is a growing city in the heart of America. Our
geographic distance from larger cities is immaterial for access
information and communication. Today, the city and its citizens are
data-driven, we are information creators and consumers, and we are
mobile in a global economy. South Dakotans can work remotely for any
global company, talk with clients around the world and read news from
Washington, D.C., and other capitols throughout the world. Continued
investment in connectivity, like 5G, helps ensure that South Dakota is
a member of the national and international market.
With the dawn of the digital age and the internet, once again,
communication and information channels were revolutionized for rural
America, and birthed new businesses and fueled entrepreneurs, like
myself. In 2008, I founded the marketing technology firm, Click Rain,
in Sioux Falls. Thanks to the explosive growth of the Internet and
digital commerce, our company quickly become our way onto the Inc 5000
list for five straight years as one of America's Fastest Growing
Private Companies and one of the largest marketing technology firms in
the Upper Midwest.
Today, nearly every sector of Sioux Falls' economy relies on a fast
and reliable Internet connection. As an essential part of personal and
professional life, our mobile devices and the infrastructure supporting
the connection of these devices is an economic and quality of life
driver for Sioux Falls, South Dakota and the entire region.
Organizations like Avera Health are operating one of the most robust
eCARE backends in the country, right here in Sioux Falls.
CarsForSale.com is a dot-com success story that has created hundreds of
jobs in Sioux Falls. DocuTAP provides EMR software to urgent care
clinics across the globe. The common thread of success amongst all
these companies: fast, reliable connectivity.
In particular, the future of telemedicine from providers like Avera
will be revolutionized as the prevalence of 5G grows. Avera's eCARE
launched in 1993 focused on telemedicine care, and today it provides a
wide continuum of care including emergency, ICU, pharmacy, senior care
and behaviorial health. This team has touched 1.4 million patients
across 18 states and has saved $200 million in health care dollars over
the past 25 years. 5G will no doubt increase the capability of patients
to receive care from wherever they have access to a computer, tablet or
phone.
Imagine the ability of a doctor in Sioux Falls to consult with a
doctor and patient in Pierre while sharing a 3D CAT scan that is
several gigabytes in size and at a 4K resolution. Traditional
connections today would prohibit that type of communication on a
routine or on demand basis and require that same patient to travel to
Sioux Falls to see the Sioux Falls Specialist and the 4k 3D image. 5G
technology would allow this interaction to occur in milliseconds. This
technology could also provide telemedicine for simple and complex
medical needs from a patient's home or in an ambulance while being
transported to the nearest hospital. The potential is great and the
benefits are tremendous.
The deployment of 5G is of great importance to the continued
evolution of connecting rural America to the rest of the world. As the
United States strives to be the first nation with a fully functional 5G
network, the City of Sioux Falls strives to be the first mid-market
city with 5G infrastructure.
Right now, wireless carriers are negotiating small-cell tower
location review fees and easement fees with local governments to
install 5G infrastructure, cities with outdated ordinances are faced
with updating regulations that allow small cell towers.
As mayor, it is not my intent to profit off carriers to deploy 5G
infrastructure. We seek fair and reasonable compensation for city staff
time to review applications from carriers. In kind, we offer a
reasonable time frame to approve or deny applications, or work with the
carrier on an alternative site. Lastly, we want easement fees that
covers the inflationary costs we incur with carriers locating their
technology on city assets. It's a very basic ask--make the city whole
on our costs to review and house the infrastructure you need to earn
your profits.
Recent guidance from the Federal Communications Commission and the
proposed legislation before this Committee seeks to standardize
negotiations for cities and carriers, and in many cases is aligned with
my philosophy of rapid deployment in Sioux Falls. It is critical that
Federal regulations protect local governments and allow them to set
reasonable fees that cover costs. Giving carriers authority to set fees
that are unfair to local governments is in essence an unfunded Federal
mandate that will cost local governments tens of millions of dollars
when you consider the thousands of small cells that will be deployed
across the Nation in the coming years.
Cutting-edge technology, innovation, forward thinking and proactive
planning are crucial to preparing Sioux Falls and the region for
quality of life improvements driven by technology advancements, and 5G
plays a pivotal role in the equation. For autonomous vehicles to be
viable, we need 5G. For enhanced public safety with high-definition
feeds for police officer body cameras and surveillance equipment, we
need 5G. The opportunities 5G brings to our community are endless, and
I look forward to working with this Committee, the FCC and carriers to
successfully and expeditiously deploy 5G in Sioux Falls.
In closing, I want to thank Chairman Thune's leadership in his
area. His vision for streamlined 5G deployment across the United States
that is fair to communities, consumers and carriers is a step in the
right direction. The Chairman understands the importance of connecting
rural states with the rest of the world as well as the economic
opportunities 5G offers to states like South Dakota. I am excited to
foster and support 5G in Sioux Falls as we seek to grow our
technological footprint and remove unnecessary barriers to entry for
this critical infrastructure.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mayor. Again thank you for
everything you're doing, and the bold vision that you've
articulated for Sioux Falls. I hope it can be replicated all
across our state and across our country. It's moving the ball
in the right direction, and the sky is the limit in terms of
what we can do, but it takes the right kind of leadership. So
thank you.
Dr. Jose-Marie Griffiths, is the, as I said, President of
Dakota State University. I think everybody is well aware of the
terrific work that she and Dakota State University are doing in
cybersecurity, and the young, bright, talented people that they
are producing that are leading the way on a lot of these
technological fronts. So thank you for being here, and I look
forward to hearing from you.
STATEMENT OF DR. JOSE-MARIE GRIFFITHS, PRESIDENT, DAKOTA STATE
UNIVERSITY
Dr. Griffiths. Thank you, Chairman Thune, for the
opportunity to testify today on this important topic of next-
generation communications infrastructure, services, and
applications. I'm especially pleased that you chose to hold
this hearing in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, not only because it
brings you home, Senator, but because I strongly believe that
South Dakota represents the 68 percent of country's ``tweener''
population that live between the East Coast and the West Coast.
I'm passionate about ensuring that more than two-thirds of
the country are not bypassed by the next technological
revolution along with its need to connect not just the last
mile, but what one of my colleagues calls the ``last inch.''
I believe the best way to address the three issues that you
asked of us is to start with a coordinated effort to develop
widespread understanding and knowledge of what 5G and the cyber
universe, what I call the Cyberverse, are and why they're so
important to the economic health, security, and quality of life
for the United States in both the near--and far-term future.
As impressive as today's Internet is, it's clear that our
present telecommunications and cyber environment have major
problems with limited bandwidth, unacceptably long latency,
slow speeds, and inadequate reliability, inappropriate
dependencies on users for security and maintenance, and
interoperability chaos.
At the same time as we're hitting a brick wall with our
existing technology and networking approach, users are
increasingly demanding far more than simply access to
information. The complex problems of our 21st century world
require a more complex and fluid ecosystem of participants,
machine and human. People don't want to just access or give
information, they want to interact with it, to be immersed in
the process of its creation as much as its use, analysis,
extension and dissemination. And they don't just need to
interact with it by themselves, they need to collaborate with
multiple others in a 3-dimensional environment where they can
tap into people-to-people, machine-to-machine, and people-to-
machine interactions, more like an ocean than a highway.
I believe to make the greatest progress most rapidly, we
should create a public-private partnership to build and deploy
a real-world 5G and Cyberverse testbed. Two years ago, Dakota
State University developed the idea of South Dakota 5G, we call
it SD5G, as one, if not the first, 5G ready straight. We
believe that our state has the characteristics and resources
that make it the ideal place for such a project. We're eager to
move forward to create for the Nation a model of how to address
the various challenges of this transformative approach to the
delivery and use of technology.
South Dakota is a geographic area in the United States that
contains a cross-section of the types of population clusters
and organizations, geography, climate, industries, and existing
technologies to explore, troubleshoot, and establish best
practice models for the technology, as well as for the policies
and governance required to support 5G deployment and
development across the country.
Those who think of South Dakota as home to vast farms on
the plains, buffalo and cattle ranches stretched across the
buttes, and the lifestyle of ``Little House on the Prairie''
and Native American heritage should be aware that these days
the state is also home to impressively sophisticated technology
development and cyber innovation. Silicon Valley or Boston's
metropolis are rapidly being matched by a technology revolution
in the center of the United States. DSU cybersecurity and
Raven's Loon system are matched by multiple enterprises across
South Dakota working at the vanguard of precision agriculture,
cutting-edge and distance-delivery health care, and robotic
manufacturing, among others. To develop and deploy these new
technologies in a manner consistent with the country's
democratic values and concerns, we must engage cybersecurity
professionals in every aspect of this testbed.
With great power comes great responsibility, and that's
never been more true than with the development and deployment
of 5G and migration into the Cyberverse. 5G is what will make
it possible for us to move into the Internet of Everything;
however, every time we connect a new device to the network, we
also potentially open up a new set of vulnerabilities. The U.S.
is sorely lacking right now in standards and best practices for
security to build into Internet of Everything devices or the
software that can easily be installed as part of the basic
features of any device.
The U.S. is presently seriously underresourced in
cybersecurity professionals, and the vast majority of
cybersecurity professionals that we do have are overextended,
working to mitigate and remediate existing Internet attacks,
which multiple faster than the proverbial rabbits. However,
it's critical that the U.S. ensure that a network upon which
every activity in this country is dependent is developed in
such a way that vulnerabilities are reduced as much as possible
and that the U.S.'s 5G and Cyberverse cybersecurity expertise
proceeds in step with the development of our national 5G
networking capability. And this is one area that's of such
common concern and serves every individual and enterprise in
the country that it would be appropriate and maybe necessary
for the Federal Government to help provide the upfront
investment in the recruitment, education, and deployment of
cybersecurity professionals in 5G development.
5G and the resulting Cyberverse are a common good whose
availability and operability will be critical to every endeavor
across the United States. As such, it's important that the
Federal Government provide leadership and corral support for
those efforts that will move development and deployment of this
vital national resource.
It's also the case that we'll only have one chance to do
this first. According to a study released by Deloitte
Consulting, the United States is losing the race against China
to develop and deploy a nationwide 5G network. And there's more
at stake here than just prestige. The National Security Agency
has stated that if China dominates the telecommunications
network industry, it will win politically, economically, and
militarily.
In addition to the concerns of national security, there's
no question that the first country to effectively deploy 5G
will also reap enormous macroeconomic gains. The first to
deploy 5G in the Cyberverse in a real-world setting will also
be the country to understand the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats related to the new technology.
The United States was the first country to develop and
implement the comprehensive Internet, initially building on the
foundation and integrating multiple federally developed
networks. The results have been clear and impressive. Despite
all of the concerns about cybersecurity issues and technology
dependencies, there is no question that the United States' lead
in developing and deploying the Internet has had profound
economic and societal impacts. There is a need once again for
the Federal Government to step forward and take the lead in
investment and organizational support for the development and
deployment of 5G and the Cyberverse.
In summary, we need a coordinated effort to develop
widespread understanding of the benefits and implications of 5G
capabilities accompanied by the creation of a public-private
partnership to build and deploy real-world 5G Cyberverse
testbed, preferably across South Dakota--of course, I'm biased
now--and engage cyber professionals in all aspects of testbed
development and deployment.
Thank you for your attention.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Griffiths follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Jose-Marie Griffiths, President,
Dakota State University
5G Networking--From the Internet to the Cyber Universe--the Cyberverse
From the Information Superhighway to an Ocean of Collaborations
A shift from driving data location to location to living, working, and
playing in an environment of technology-infused interactions and
collaborations
INTRODUCTION
This hearing is asking those of us testifying to address three
topics:
1) Existing barriers to broadband deployment on the horizon of next
generation wireless technology deployment,
2) ways to encourage investment in next generation communications
services, and
3) ways to streamline broadband deployment siting.
I believe the best way to address all three of these issues is as
follows:
1) Invest the resources necessary to build widespread understanding
and knowledge of what 5G and the Cyber Universe are and why
they are so important to the economy, security, and quality of
life for the United States in both the near and far future;
2) Engage cyber security professionals in every aspect, from the
ground up, of the creation of a 5G and Cyber Universe testbed
such that the model U.S. 5G environment is not only effective
and efficient, it is also safe and ensures the privacy and
democratic values to which we in the U.S. are committed; and
3) Rapidly create a publicly/privately-funded partnership to build
and deploy a real-world 5G and Cyberverse testbed across a
geographic area in the U.S. that contains a cross-section of
U.S. population clusters and organizations, geography, climate,
industries, and existing technologies, to explore,
troubleshoot, and establish best-practice models for the
technology as well as the policies and governance required to
support 5G development and deployment across the country.
I. BUILDING KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF 5G AND THE NEW CYBER
UNIVERSE--What are 5G and the Cyberverse and why should anyone
care?
In order to build widespread understanding and knowledge of what 5G
is and why it is so important to the economy, security, and quality of
life for the United States and its citizens in both the near and far
future, we must first be clear about what is 5G and what is the new
Cyber Universe--the Cyberverse--it will enable.
We have become accustomed to our technology becoming, ever rapidly,
faster and more capable. We understand that most of our computers or
smart phones or networks have a half-life shorter than most pro
football coaches (their average is about 3 years). It's hard to be
excited or very energized by--or put a lot of investment into--some new
technology that we anticipate will lose its ``wow'' factor predictably
and soon. The ``yawn factor'' runs deep these days in the general
public's--and even much of leadership's--reaction to calls from techies
to embrace yet another supposed new breakthrough technology with some
new strange name, like ``5G and the ``Cyberverse.''
5G is NOT just another iteration of what has come before. In
reality, calling 5G the fifth generation, just as 1G was first
generation, 2G was second generation, etc. is a misnomer. 5G is a
totally new and radical approach, not just to telecommunications and
networking, but to how we live, work, and play in the cyber universe.
A) THERE IS TROUBLE ON THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY
As amazing as the Internet is, there is trouble on the
Information Superhighway. We are facing multiple problems in
our present cyber environment, including availability/capacity,
reliability, speed, responsiveness, interoperability, security,
energy efficiency, expandability, and the flexibility to
support the complex problem-solving processes that the complex
problems of the 21st century require.
i) Travel on the Internet is not optional--network connectivity
and technology access are essential community goods
Today, the technology an organization uses--and how effectively
it uses it--is just as essential to its success as its reason
for existence--the service or product it generates. There is
really no significant activity in this country that does not
depend heavily, and often for its very existence, on
technology, telecommunications, and computer networking. From
finance to agriculture to manufacturing to healthcare to
government to entertainment, the cogs of our modern society
move by the power of cyber.
All this cyber use means that the traffic on the Information
Superhighway is increasing at a rate that is difficult to
grasp. According to a study by Cisco, Internet traffic is on
target to increase by 25 percent every year between 2016 and
2021. We are also on trend that by 2021 the number of devices
connected to IP networks will be more than three times the
global population, at the equivalent/per capita of 3.5
networked devices for every man, woman, and child on the
planet. Between 2016 and 2021 we will have added 10 billion
devices online, from 17.1 billion in 2016 to 27.1 billion in
2021. It would take more than 5 million years for one person to
watch the amount of video that will cross global IP networks
each month in 2021.\1\
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\1\ https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-
provider/visual-networking-index-vni/vni-hyperconnectivity-wp.html
ii) Traffic jams are increasingly common--capacity constraints
are creating availability, reliability, speed, and
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responsiveness problems
All this traffic is causing global-sized traffic jams. The
bottom line is that we don't have enough lanes on the
Information Superhighway to accommodate everyone and everything
that wants to use it. And we don't have enough available real
estate on the present routes, i.e., the presently used radio
spectrum bands, to add more lanes, technically called
bandwidth. The result is the cyber world matches L.A. traffic
at rush hour in the physical world. And without the required
capacity on the Highway, availability, reliability, speed, and
responsiveness fall off exponentially.
Practically, at the busiest times of the day cyber users may
find that they are totally unable to even get on the Internet--
there are simply no lanes available for them, there is no more
bandwidth available for their transmissions. We have all had
the experience of watching the spinning ball on our monitors
with increasing frustration as we try to get on the virtual
Highway. If the traffic jam and lack of bandwidth is really
bad, the system may just give up trying. An error message will
pop up on our screens saying that the connection ``timed out''
and we have to click our mouse or enter a command to try afresh
to connect. Once we do connect, depending on how our connection
is routed, if we hit a place where the traffic overwhelms the
available lanes, the available bandwidth, we may be knocked off
the virtual highway altogether and, from our virtual `ditch,'
have to try yet again to get back on the highway into a lane.
All this congestion means that we cannot rely on how long any
transmission will take. Latency, the delay between an action
taken on my computer and being received at another device, is
critical in more and more applications. In the early days of
the Internet, trying to `crystal ball' the future, developers
attempted to guess at what might be possible if we had this
ubiquitous resource to move information around. At the outer
edges of that imagining, people suggested things like remote
surgery with a physician able to operate robots in an operating
room in a rural area, providing life-saving care to patients
who do not have access to that specialized surgeon's skill and
expertise. They envisioned collaborations involving real-time
meetings with hundreds of thousands of people interacting with
each other using the same application on their various devices,
all at one time, for example following a natural disaster or in
a military operation. The reality is that we do now have the
technology to do these tasks and many more. However, the
increasingly crowded bandwidth of the Internet and the
resulting traffic jams not only impact availability and
reliability, speed and responsiveness have also deteriorated.
The movement of the surgeon's hand tying off a bleeding blood
vessel must be transmitted in milliseconds to the robot device
actually carrying out the action inside the patient's body.
Network latency cannot be an issue.
And the amount of information to be transmitted is more and
more extensive and detailed, which also is going to require
more lanes of the highway. A less dramatic but economically
significant example is with supply chain management. U.S.
manufacturers are dependent on supplies coming from around the
world on a predictable schedule. Being able to prepare for a
shortage, for example, of the raw materials to make a car's
dashboard, can save or cost an automaker thousands of dollars,
enabling them to shut down or repurpose a factory line. It's
not enough for the ship carrying those materials to have a
system with sensors that lets the captain know that a part has
broken down inside the engine. Now it is possible and
economically necessary for that engine to have sensors that can
predict that a part is close to breaking down, which sends a
message to a system that figures out when it will fail
entirely, which then sends back a message to shut down the
engine to save damage to other parts while sending an alert to
the repairman as to what needs to be fixed and, simultaneously,
notifying a supplier thousands of miles away and multiple steps
down the supply chain that the car dashboard factory line is
not going to have the parts on time. This scenario is entirely
possible, but the present telecommunications system does not
have the bandwidth to accommodate this and the other millions
of scenarios in multiple industries.
iii) Too many people have keys--and they're all different--
maintenance, security, and interoperability in the present
technology environment are dependent on millions of (non-
techie) people being technologically savvy and responsible
We are also now struggling with a high level of technology
knowledge required of even the most casual user. It's one thing
when you only have very smart technology people using the
network and sharing information. It is another thing when you
have millions of people doing that, an enormous number of whom
have no interest or ability to, for example, keep their
passwords private and change them often, or upgrade software on
their multiple devices every time another security
vulnerability is identified or a company has decided to upgrade
or expand the features available in their applications. In
addition, the responsibility for getting all of our various
devices connected to the Information Superhighway falls on each
of us individually. And often the way to do so is different for
each device--smartphone, computer, tablet, gaming console, etc.
In addition, I think most of us without thinking about it, have
all taken on an enormous time-drain of overhead in obtain,
maintain, and use our ever-increasing number of devices--a
smartphone, a tablet, a laptop computer, a desktop computer,
now rapidly being joined by a TV, various kitchen appliances
and/or a smart speaker like Alexa. There is at present a
serious contrast between, for example, electricity and
technology networking.
Electricity is generally pretty invisible. Except when it goes
out, most of us, I don't believe, spend much time thinking or
dealing with electricity. We push a light switch--in our
kitchen, in our office, in the restroom at the restaurant--the
electricity connects and the light goes on.
This is not the case with our ``smart'' phones. In order for my
phone to work in my kitchen, I have a cable coming into my
house connected to a cable modem, which I have to set up with a
user name and a password. If the network goes down or becomes
disconnected, I will have to reset and re-enter the cable modem
user name and password.
The cable modem talks to a Wi-Fi router sitting on a bookshelf
in my living room, which also has a network name and password.
When the cat knocks that device over and it becomes unplugged,
I will also have to plug it back in and re-enter that network
name and password. When I brought my cell phone home for the
first time (or when I get a new one) I have to go into settings
on that phone, have it find my home network (out of an amusing
list of network names of my neighbors' Wi-Fi networks), and use
the correct user id and password to get it connected to my Wi-
Fi and, ultimately, to the Internet, where I likely also have
to use various different user ids and passwords to get into
various sites to access any information I might have online,
like my bank account, or be able to purchase something from an
online store.
Going to check my balance in my bank account first thing in the
morning, I discover that the before-school teen crowd in my
neighborhood has taken over the network bandwidth to check in
with their friends as to what they're going to wear that day.
It takes so long for my typed-in request to get to the bank
website that they consider I've been on my account so long that
it's a security risk and they have logged me out. Network
latency has hit again. And I haven't even left the house yet. .
.
Heading out for work, I lose my home Wi-Fi connection by the
time I'm in the garage, where I have to wait for my phone to
(hopefully) connect to my cell network (which also initially
required a user id and password) and then via bluetooth to my
car's audio system. On the way to work, depending on the
coverage of my provider's network, my phone may or may not stay
connected during the conversations I'm trying to have while
enroute. When I arrive at work and go up to my office, my phone
once again has to switch to the office Wi-Fi (which at some
point--and perhaps now and again must be repeated--requires yet
another user id and password). I get to the office and login in
to my computer (yes, another user id and password) and an alert
comes up telling me that someone has discovered yet another
security vulnerability in my operating system and I must
install an update immediately. Installing that update requires
my going to a website (where I have to login with--yes--another
user name and password), download the software and install it,
which takes three attempts because everyone else just got to
the office and they are also trying to download the software
and so I keep getting logged off the software download site.
Once logged on, I send to a coworker a copy of a file that I
worked on last night on my home computer. He sends me an e-mail
back saying he can't read it, because I have a different
version of the software on my computer than he has on his.
The present networking and computing configuration has put the
maintenance, interoperability and most concerning, security of
our cyber endeavors in the hands of millions of individuals
with minimal knowledge, understanding, and unknown values.
iv) People no longer want to ride only in their own vehicles--
21st century problems require fluid multiple interactions for
people and technology
At the same time as we're hitting a brick wall with our
existing technology and networking approach, users are
increasingly demanding far more than just access to
information. The complex problems of our 21st century world
require a more complex and fluid ecosystem of participants,
machine and human. People don't want to just access or give
information, they want to interact with it, to be immersed in
the process of its creation as much as its dissemination and
extension. And they don't just need to interact with it by
themselves, they need to collaborate with multiple others in a
three-dimensional environment where they can tap into people to
people, machine to machine, and people to machine
interactions--more like an ocean than a highway.
In addition, the machines are becoming smarter and smarter. The
last 10 to 20 years have seen phenomenal growth in artificial
intelligence and machine learning functionality. Computers are
now able to take millions of pieces of data, identify
predictive patterns and knowledge, and then use those results
to inform and direct further processing and analysis. This is
allowing humans to leapfrog over literally years of research to
ask new questions in new ways, leading to the creation of new
tasks for AI and machine learning machines to work on. However,
AI and machine learning require almost instantaneous access to
enormous amounts of data and need to transmit enormous amounts
of data. Today's crowded Internet cannot accommodate the speed
or density of communication that are required for these new
functions to work effectively.
B) 5G AND THE CYBER UNIVERSE--the Internet is fixable
As impressive as today's Internet is, it is clear that our present
telecommunications and cyber environment has major problems in
limited bandwidth;
unacceptably long latency, slow speeds, and inadequate
reliability;
inappropriate dependencies on users for security and
maintenance,
interoperability chaos, and
inability to accommodate the multidisciplinary, multi-agent
processes required of people to people, people to machine, and
machine to machine interactions for 21st century endeavors.
i) How 5G will move us from the Information Superhighway to the Cyber
Universe
Bandwidth, latency, speed reliability
5G deals with bandwidth and latency in a new way, resulting in
orders of magnitude improvements in cyber speed and reliability.
The radio spectrum is broken up into bands, each with different
features as you move up into higher frequencies. Our existing
telecommunications systems work on certain bands of frequencies. 5G
will run on a new ``high-spectrum band'', which uses higher frequency
signals than previous generations of telecommunications. The new band
will be much less congested than at present because there are many more
frequencies available in higher ranges. These high frequencies are
great for a number of reasons, one of the most important being that
they support a huge capacity for fast data. Not only are they less
cluttered with existing cellular data, and so can be used in the future
for increasing bandwidth demands, they're also highly directional and
can be used right next to other wireless signals without causing
interference or crossover.
This is very different from 4G towers that fire data in all
directions, potentially wasting both energy and power to beam radio
waves at locations that aren't even requesting access to the Internet.
5G also uses shorter wavelengths, which means that antennas can be much
smaller than existing antennas while still providing precise
directional control. Since one base station can utilize even more
directional antennas, it means that 5G will support over 1,000 more
devices per meter than what's supported by 4G. Traffic jams, and the
resulting crashes and slowdowns that contribute to today's lack of
connection reliability will be a thing of the past once 5G is deployed.
Given that the Internet of Things is going to move us into an almost
unimaginable number of devices on the network, we need that capacity
and speed yesterday.
With 5G, for example, when a user makes a request from their phone,
the network will respond about 10 times faster than the blink of an
eye. (That is, network response times will be approximately 1
millisecond.) Importantly, this is below the human threshold to even
detect a delay! To the physician's hands sending signals to the remote
robot, it will seem to the doctor that he and the robot are moving the
scalpel at exactly the same time.
Security, maintenance, interoperability
One of the goals of 5G is to make our networking connections as
invisible and requiring as little of our attention as electricity does
now. 5G is designed to have everything connected to everything else,
and to have all that connectivity taken care of and managed not by each
individual user but by systems and processes in the Cloud.
For example, with 5G, the network follows a user through
``cells''--geographic areas of connectivity. That cell of connectivity
will no longer depend on a certain type of connection, for example Wi-
Fi or cable. The network will seamlessly connect together all of the
various cells provided by various technologies. Whether connectivity is
being provided by a cellular network or a cable modem or a ``small
cell'' device on the telephone pole outside their window will be of no
concern to the user and will require no action on their part. In this
heterogeneous but cohesive network, cells will assess the needs of each
user's device and route it to the most efficient services regardless of
where location. There will continue to be larger cells, with broad
coverage, but other areas, for example, a college campus, will be
covered by small cell technology hung on lamp posts or the roofs of
building, and, in new buildings, possibly even inside the bricks in the
wall. But none of these different connections will require every
individual user to enter a user id and password as their connection is
moved from cell to cell.
For example, algorithms in the network will determine how fast a
moving device is travelling and what it's networking needs might be
because of that. An autonomous vehicle might be connected to a large or
macro-cell, such as a large cellular tower, so that it stays connected
without having to be shifted from cell to cell as it travels over a
long distance. However, students walking across campus, texting on
their smart phones can connect to smaller cells with less coverage, as
the connections can easily be transferred to the next small cell as
needed, so quickly that the student won't even notice.
Everything will be connected to everything all the time, just like
electricity. Once the connection is there it stays connected. And if it
goes down, when it comes back up, once again everything will be
connected to everything else without any intervention on the part of
users.
An example of the difference in this approach can already be seen
in our K-12 schools, many of which have moved from tablets or laptops
for their students to Chromebooks. What is the difference? For schools,
which often need to have many hundreds of devices to serve their
students, teachers, and staff, a huge difference is in tech support. A
tablet or laptop has an operating system (OS) on it, as well as
applications. When there is an update to either the OS or any of the
apps, that update has to be installed on each device. While school
networks often do have programs that will update multiple machines at
the same time, some IT support person still has to ensure that all the
devices are charged or plugged in and on the network and not being used
at the time to run that program and that no one happened to take their
machine home the night tech person is installing the upgrade. And that
some user didn't go rogue and install some out-of-the-ordinary app on
their machine that collides with the new OS or software upgrade.
Chromebooks update themselves automatically both for OS upgrades
and application upgrades. There are no applications on Chromebooks--
they connect to the Internet and use applications in the cloud. If an
application needs updating, it is updated in the Cloud and the next
time the students go to that app, they are automatically connected into
the new version.
One of the features of 5G is to move to the Chromebook model rather
than the tablet or laptop computer model. It is a shift away from our
devices--hardware and what is included and runs on a particular
device--to having all the technology we need to use running in the
Cloud. The device we use to connect to the Cloud becomes almost
unimportant. Incompatible files caused buy only having access to a
certain old version of a software application would be a thing of the
past. How many times have we gone to show someone something on our
phone and say ``oh, I can't get that on my phone--I'll have to show it
to you on my computer.'' It used to be that children would say ``my dog
ate my homework.'' Today it is ``my computer crashed and I couldn't
print it out'' or ``my brother spilled orange juice on my laptop and
fried my file.'' New excuses will be required with 5G--that homework
will live in the cloud and be available from anywhere on any device.
With zero perceived delay in access, even for those large files, 5G
will change the economics of technology expense within an organization.
The faster, low latency, reliable connections will make it more
sensible to move expensive cyber storage and processing into the Cloud,
which will require much simpler, less expensive, lower-maintenance
devices in the hands of users.
In addition, by moving the bulk of processing and storage into the
Cloud, the energy demands of user devices will drop as well. It will be
possible for smartphones, for example, to have batteries that last
weeks or even months, given that the only processing required on that
device is to make a connection to the network and then the Cloud.
Medical implants will be able to function for decades without having to
be removed or upgraded, since only maintaining a connection to the
network will require very little battery use.
ii) An immersive efficient cyber universe of interactions
When bandwidth, reliability, latency, security, maintenance and
interoperability are no longer constraints, it will be possible to
migrate to a fluid immersive cyber universe of the people to people,
people to machine, and machine to machine interactions required for
21st century endeavors.
Analysts predict that by 2020, each person in a developed country
will own and use about 27 connected devices. These will range from
existing technology, such as smartphones, tablets and smartwatches, to
refrigerators, cars, augmented reality glasses, and even smart clothes.
Some of these devices will require significant data to be shifted back
and forth, while others might just need tiny packets of information
sent and received. The 5G system itself will understand and recognize
this and allocate bandwidth respectively, thereby not putting
unnecessary strain on individual connection points.
II. CYBER SECURITY MUST BE BUILT IN FROM THE GROUND UP--and why it is
important the U.S. get to 5G first
A) Cyber Security Professionals
We must engage cyber security professionals in every aspect of the
development of the U.S.'s 5G system. such that this country's 5G
environment is not only effective and efficient, it is also safe and
ensures the privacy and democratic values to which we in the U.S. are
committed.
With great power comes great responsibility, and that has never
been more true than with the development and deployment of 5G and
migration into the Cyberverse. 5G is what will make it possible for us
to move into the Internet of Everything (IoE). However, every time we
connect a new device to the network we also potentially open up a new
set of vulnerabilities. Presently companies are racing to make their
devices, from crock pots to lawn mowers, IoE-ready. In the absence of
instructions and requirements, cyber security tends to be the last
consideration of most of these manufacturers. The U.S. is sorely
lacking right now in standards and best practices for security to be
built into IoT devices, or the software that can easily be installed as
part of the basic features of any device.
The U.S. is presently seriously under-resourced in cyber security
professionals. The vast majority of the cyber security professionals we
do have are over-extended trying working to mitigate and remediate
existing Internet attacks, which multiply faster than the proverbial
rabbits. However, it is critical that the U.S. ensure that a network
upon which every activity in this country is dependent is developed in
such a way that vulnerabilities are reduced as much as possible, and
that the U.S.'s 5G and Cyberverse cyber security expertise proceeds in
step with the development of our national 5G networking capability.
This is one area that is of such common concern and serves every
individual and enterprise in the country that it would be appropriate
and likely necessary for the Federal Government to provide the upfront
investment in the recruitment, education, and deployment of cyber
security professionals in 5G development.
B) Why we must get to 5G first--and why we are falling behind China
According to a study released by Deloitte Consulting, a top
industry consulting firm, this past August 2018, the United States is
losing the race against China to develop and deploy a nationwide 5G
network. For a long time, the U.S. led in telecommunications and
networking. As FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel has said, the U.S.
has 5 percent of the world's population but we have over 50 percent of
the world's 4G deployment. The smart phone revolution and the
application economy started in the U.S. and we have reaped the rewards
of that leadership position. Other countries have decided they are not
going to let that happen with 5G.
There is more at stake here than just prestige. The National
Security Agency has stated that if China dominates the
telecommunications network industry it ``will win politically,
economically, and militarily.'' Michael O'Reilly, one of the U.S. FCC
commissioners has stated that he believes if the U.S. loses the race to
5G it will mean that the Nation will be dictated to by foreign powers,
many of which can't be fully trusted, don't believe in capitalism,
don't believe in freedom, don't believe in fair play, don't believe in
the role of the individual over the government, and rebuke American
leadership.''
Deloitte's report also states that since 2015 China has outspent
the U.S. by $24 billion in 5G infrastructure. China has built 350,000
new cell sites, while the U.S. has built fewer than 30,000 in the same
time-frame. The U.S. mobile carriers' industry association, CTIA,
estimates that the number of cell sites in the U.S. must more than
double from about 325,000 to 800,000 for 5G to be deployed. Deloitte's
report noted that China plans hundreds of billions of dollars in 5G-
related spend and suggests that ``China and other countries may be
creating a 5G tsunami, making it near impossible [for the U.S.] to
catch up.''
In addition to the concerns of national security, there is no
question that the first country to effectively deploy 5G and the Cyber
Universe will also reap enormous macroeconomic gains. Given the
increased capabilities of 5G and the Cyberverse, companies that develop
and are designed to take advantage of those capabilities will quickly
become global leaders. There is also something called the ``data-
network effect,'' in which early leadership in new markets translates
into more users who generate more data that, in turn, helps improve
services and attracts more users. The first to deploy 5G and the
Cyberverse in a real-world setting will also be the country to
understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
related to the new technology.
III. WE NEED A PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP TO BUILD AND
DEPLOY A REAL-WORLD 5G AND CYBERVERSE
A) What we need
The United States needs to rapidly create a publicly/privately-
funded partnership to build and deploy a real-world 5G and Cyberverse
testbed across a geographic area in the U.S. that contains a diverse
cross-section of population clusters and organizations, geography,
climate, industries, and existing technologies. This entity will make
it possible to explore, troubleshoot, and establish best-practice
models and tools for 5G and the new Cyberverse, as well as the policies
and governance required to support similar development and deployment
across the United States.
5G and the new Cyberverse is clearly critical to the economic,
safety, and quality of life future for this country. But there is a lot
we still don't know and won't know until we actually fully deploy and
use a 5G network and a Cyberverse. And we need to do it quickly.
A big issue in the U.S. is finding a workable model for
municipalities, states, and the nation, along with private industry, to
work together to integrate the multiple networking components and
resources it is going to take to achieve 5G. In an authoritarian
country such as China, those are nonissues, and so they are moving very
rapidly through that process. We can be successful in this work in the
United States, still maintaining our respect for the rule of law and
regional rights, but we need a model to do so. To develop that model,
we need to develop and deploy a test 5G network in an area that has
multiple types of communities. A model that will work in a large city
will likely not work the same way in a rural area or a small town. More
than 85 percent of cities in the U.S. are small, under 10,000 people.
If we are going to reach ubiquitous 5G, we have to develop a model that
works in more than just urban areas along the two coasts. However, at
present the telecom companies are concentrating only on those two
areas, seeing them as the ``low hanging fruit'' where they can make the
most money quickly. Only 15 percent of the U.S. population lives on the
west coast, and only 17 percent in the northeast, which means that 68
percent of the country does not live in the areas where U.S. telecoms
are working to develop 5G. It is going to take Federal leadership and
investment to ensure that more than two-thirds of the country are not
bypassed by the next technological revolution.
B) SD5G and the SD CYBERVERSE
South Dakota is now working to become the first state in the Nation
to develop and deploy a state-wide 5G network and Cyberverse. We
believe that our state has the characteristics and resources that make
it the ideal place for such a project. We are eager to move forward to
create for the Nation a model of how to address the various challenges
of this transformative approach to the delivery and use of technology.
An American model for 5G and Cyberverse development and deployment
must develop best practices that integrate the needs and particular
characteristics of multiple:
1. Cyber security demands, software to hardware, end user through
the Cloud
2. Technologies--small cell, large cell, fiber, etc.
3. Enterprises--education, government, agriculture, manufacturing,
health care, transportation, etc.
4. Population clusters and types--from urban to rural, with special
focus on making sure the ``last mile'' and the ``last inch''
are as connected as the first and reviving ``main street''
through migration to `smart cities'
5. Governmental organizational structures and concerns--city,
county, state
6. Geographies and climates
1) Cyber security demands, software to hardware, end user through the
Cloud
South Dakota is home to Dakota State University (DSU) in Madison,
South Dakota. DSU is part of a state-wide regental system of six public
universities. The DSU started in 1881 as a teachers' college to serve
the growing educational needs of the Dakota Territories and over time
grew into a comprehensive university. In 1986, a remarkably prescient
South Dakota state legislature re-missioned DSU to add to these roles
an augmented and specific focus on technology-infused and technology-
intensive degree programs and R&D.
Today DSU is one of the leading cyber security universities in the
country, with four Center of Academic Excellence designations by the
U.S. National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security, in
cyber education, operations, and research. The Beacom College of
Computer and Cyber Sciences has a breadth and depth of cyber degrees,
associates through doctoral, unmatched by any university in the
country, its graduates at 100 percent placement, either in a
professional position or a top graduate school. DSU also has the
largest cohort in the country of the National Science Foundation's
CyberCorps Scholarship for Service program, where in exchange for
scholarship support after graduation individuals serve in a state,
federal, or tribal organization for the same number of years they
received the scholarship. Dakota State is also home to the Madison
Cyber Labs. The MadLabs is a prolific collection of public/private
partnerships in research, scholarship, economic development, and policy
development clusters organized around expertise and technology
application in specific enterprises. DSU has experts exploring and
working with leading edge technologies in a wide range of disciplines,
from health care to adaptive technology for individuals with
disabilities, from digital forensics to cyber security for the
financial sector, and more. There are presently 14 clusters, and a new
facility, funded by a private/public partnership, will open in 2019 to
provide centralized and collaborative space for the MadLabs. Because
DSU is part of the state-wide comprehensive regental university system,
it is integrated into a rich fabric of disciplinary experts and
exploration at the other five universities with their various emphases,
from agriculture to law, from the medical school to mining.
South Dakota is thus developing and will be deploying our 5G and
Cyberverse solutions with the professionals and resources of DSU's
robust cyber security environment interwoven into every decision and
solution. We continue to see the enormous cost to public and private
safety and security when cyber security issues are ignored or left out
of technology solutions. One only needs to consider the recent issues
facing Facebook over the last few years to understand that we must
never again consider cyber security a lower level ``add on'' to our
technology innovations and solutions.
2) Technologies--small cell, large cell, fiber, etc.
South Dakota has been remarkably energized and diversified in
pursuing and taking advantage of networking and cyber innovations and
technologies. One of the reasons for this is that with a smaller
population, the state can be remarkably agile in making decisions and
implementing change.
In addition, the state has a wide cross-section of needs in its
population that are representative of the wide cross-section of needs
across the country. South Dakota has urban (e.g., Sioux Falls) and
rural populations, and a large collection of typical ``small town
U.S.A.'' communities. The state continues to have strong concerns and
is constantly looking for quality-of-life improvements for its Native
American population, which for the most part continues to face poverty,
physical and mental health illness, and a lack of socio-economic
opportunities. Because of the wide geographical distribution of
population, many physical solutions to issues in education, healthcare,
transportation, business, development, etc. turn out to be cost-
prohibitive and impractical. Early on, as the State legislature's 1986
commissioning of DSU illustrates, South Dakotans recognized that
computing and cyber had more potential to provide solutions to its
challenges than the models developed and implemented in more
geographically dense areas of the country. South Dakota is by no means
alone in this respect. As mentioned before, 85 percent of U.S. towns
have populations under 10,000 people, and 68 percent of the country's
population does not live in the primarily urban or population-intense
northeast or west coast.
Thus South Dakota has already taken initiatives to create the
foundation of multiple networking technologies that will require
integration to deploy 5G and the Cyberverse. The state already has a
number of areas that have deployed small cells, and a number are under
development. Sioux Falls and Brookings, two of the state's larger
cities already have some small cells deployed. Dakota State University
is working in collaboration with the City of Madison to deploy a city-
wide small cell system in the next year. The state is connected to the
Internet2 high-speed fiber background through the REED Network.
One of the most innovative new networking technologies has emerged
from Google's Project Loon, an effort to find a new way to provide
Internet access to rural and remote areas. The company that emerged
from the R&D project uses high-altitude balloons placed in the
stratosphere at an altitude of about 18 km (11 mi) to create an aerial
wireless network. The balloons use patch antennas--which are
directional antennas--to transmit signals to ground stations or LTE
users. Some smartphones with Google SIM cards can use Google Internet
services. The equivalent of the ``base station'' that talks directly to
devices is carried in the balloon (adding new meaning to the idea of
technology in the ``cloud''). Users of the service connect to the
balloon network using a special Internet antenna attached to their
building. The signal travels through the balloon network from balloon
to balloon, then to a ground-based station connected to an Internet
service provider (ISP), then onto the global Internet. The system aims
to bring Internet access to remote and rural areas poorly served by
existing provisions, and to improve communication during natural
disasters to affected regions. It was named Project Loon for 2 reasons:
one was that even Google itself found the idea of providing Internet
access to the remaining 5 billion unconnected people in the world an
unprecedented and ``loony'' idea, and `loon was a short-hand for the
``balloons.''
It turns out that South Dakota is a significant partner in the Loon
technology, through the company that makes the highly sophisticated
balloons, Raven Industries, Inc. Established in 1956 to make high-
altitude balloons, Raven was launched by a group of General Mills
employees, including General Mills High Altitude Research division
employee Ed Yost. Yost picked Sioux Falls for its favorable wind
conditions and over the years the company has focused in on its
precision agriculture, engineered films, and Aerostar divisions. The
U.S. military and other government agencies are among its clients. The
balloons are superpressure balloons filled with helium and stand 49
feet across and 39 feet tall when fully inflated. They carry a custom
air pump system that pumps in or releases air to ballast the balloon
and control its elevation. A small box weighing about 22 lb containing
each balloon's electronic equipment hangs underneath the inflated
envelope. This box contains circuit boards that control the system,
radio antennas and a system to communicate with other balloons and with
Internet antennas on the ground, and batteries to store solar power so
the balloons can operate during the night. Each balloon's electronics
are powered by an array of solar panels that sit between the envelope
and the hardware. In full sun, the panels produce 100 watts of power,
which is sufficient to keep the unit running while also charging a
battery for use at night. A parachute attached to the top of the
envelope allows for a controlled descent and landing when a balloon is
ready to be taken out of service. In the case of an unexpected failure,
the parachute deploys automatically. When taken out of service, the
balloon is guided to an easily reached location, and the helium is
vented into the atmosphere. The ground stations use a Ubiquiti Networks
'Rocket M5'radio and a custom patch antennae to connect to the balloons
at a height of 12 miles. The balloons are equipped with automatic
dependent surveillance broadcast and so can be publicly tracked along
with other hot air and weather balloons.
Those who think of South Dakota as home to vast farms on the
Plains, buffalo and cattle ranches stretched across the buttes, the
lifestyle of Little House on the Prairie, and Native American heritage
should be aware that these days the state is also home to impressively
sophisticated technology development and cyber innovation. Silicon
Valley or Boston's metropolis are rapidly being matched by a technology
revolution in the center of the United States. DSU's cyber security and
Raven's Loon system are matched by multiple enterprises across South
Dakota working at the vanguard of precision agriculture, robotic
manufacturing, and distance-delivery health care, among others.
This multifaceted foundation of expertise and deployed technologies
is making it possible for South Dakota to move rapidly in the
development and deployment of SD5G and the SD Cyberverse. The only
constraints at present are garnering the investment needed to move as
rapidly as we are able to. We understand the national security and
economic impacts of the United States achieving working and workable 5G
and Cyberverse models before those countries whose development of these
technologies will likely not be in our best interest or to our profit.
South Dakotans long learned how to overcome obstacles and turn dry
ground into fertile fields, and our efforts in cyber are determined to
be comparably fruitful.
3) Enterprises--education, agriculture, manufacturing, health care,
etc.
South Dakota, especially over the last century, has developed a
remarkably diverse business and industry environment. In every area,
often due to the particular challenges of rural areas and difficult
geographies, technology development and use is key to the state's
economic development and health.
a) Education
5G and the Cyberverse will be especially transformative in
terms of education. The South Dakota university system launched
some of the very first online courses, and, for example, DSU's
Internet-based degree programs reach students across the
country and around the world.
Technological advances have already moved many rich digital
resources far beyond the physical confines of the classroom and
into the hands of learners. 5G and the Cyberverse will enable a
learning model that will be an international, immediate,
virtual, and interactive environment. It will make it possible
for teachers and students to learn and interact in much
different ways that we do today. The new model will be learner-
centric, skill-centric, on-demand and personalised, which will
in turn improve student development in the areas of critical-
thinking and collaborative learning.
5G and the Cyberverse will create a network capable of
transferring our tactile communication from one location to
another, from one device to another. This will make it possible
to move beyond today's online teaching focus of content and
information delivery to the ability to train students in hands-
on skills, what some are calling manual handskill delivery.
Virtual reality (VR) has initially been developed primarily by
the entertainment industry, but with 5G networking in the
Cyberverse VR has tremendous potential and relevance for
education and training. For example, with a VR application,
students could not just learn about the seven wonders of the
world, they could visit them and explore on their own, at their
own pace and direction the sights and sounds that make those
locations especially remarkable. They could stop and examine
those things of greater interest to them, and immediately
access additional information or locations that would further
enhance their understanding and experience. Instead of just
studying about the various systems of the human body, VR
applications can be developed to allow them to virtually enter
a body and follow the bloodflow through the heart and lungs, or
perch themselves inside an ear to watch what happens to the ear
drum when sound waves hit it.
Combining tactile and VR communication, it will be possible for
students to develop hands-on skills by using simulations of
highly sensitive expensive equipment without potentially
damaging the real equipment. And medical students can perfect
the precise hand motions and pressure required to carry out
surgical procedures with applications that even can provide
them virtual but realistic feedback on the damage they can do
if they do not perform correctly. Students in elementary
schools may see the tops of their desks turned into touch-
sensitive screens, able to assess their progress as they
complete assignments and providing them corrections and
directions to increase their success.
One of the populations that has been profoundly impacted by
21st century technology developments are individuals with
disabilities. At present, with the model of assistive
technology that is device-dependent, where applications have to
be within the hardware accessed by the user, many assistive and
adaptive technologies are far too costly to be available in
schools. However, with 5G and the Cyberverse, where the
applications will live in the Cloud and users will access them
via a device in their hands or on their wheelchair, expensive
speech and language technologies, for example, will be made far
more widely available for those children who are unable to
speak without such assistance. The impact on the ability of
those children to participate in a regular educational setting
with their peers will expand exponentially.
Cloud-based robots can be considered as a full-time assistants
for students with disabilities, helping them to interact with
the standard classroom environment and their peers. Rather than
having to call a teacher over for help (which can cost both the
student and the teacher time they could be using more
productively) the students can take care of the issue with the
help of their robot.
At the college level, we look forward to many applications that
can improve today's teaching, learning, and campus experience.
Being automatically logged into the classroom as soon as
entering the classroom, being alerted by a tactile signal as
soon as losing concentration during a lecture, or real-time
feedback to a lecturer about areas that students still have
problem based on the real-time analyses of their notes are all
innovations well within reach with 5G and the Cyberverse.
Dakota State University began as a teacher's college, and its
education degree programs are still central to its mission. In
recent years the university has significantly expanded its
collaborations with K-12 schools in South Dakota, focusing on
two needs in cyber education: a general cyber literacy for all
students, and accelerated education and opportunities for those
who are interested in pursuing cyber careers. These programs
will provide a foundation and structure within which SD5G and
the SD Cyberverse can begin to develop, test, and implement
some of the many exciting teaching/learning innovations that
will be enabled by these new technologies.
b) Agriculture
Agriculture is an industry in every state in the union, and in
many areas remains a key employer. The United States is a net
exporter of food to the world, which has often strengthened
both our economic and national security. South Dakota is
located in the middle of the country's most agriculturally rich
region, and the state's traditional expertise and success in
agriculture has continued to move forward. South Dakota is now
a leader in technology-based precision agriculture. South
Dakota farms are heavily invested in the development and use of
automated driving technology, computer vision, telematics, and
cloud-based mobile applications to help farmers double or
triple their yields--a feat that will be key to keeping up with
global food demands as the Earth's population grows over the
next thirty years.
It is a known fact that food sufficiency plays a major role in
the peace and prosperity of any country. Predictions are that
by 2050 there will be nine billion people on the planet. To
feed all those people, experts believe globally agriculture
will need to increase current production by 70 percent. It is a
race to develop and deploy the technologies to get there, and
certainly the first country to do so will reap enormous
benefits, not only in its ability to feed its own population
but economically to be the preferred marketplace for other
countries.
In the early 1800s, it took about 300 hours of labor to produce
100 bushels of wheat. Today in South Dakota, through the
application of leading-edge technologies, it takes less than an
hour of labor to produce 100 bushels of wheat. However, in the
state as around the world, climate change, soil degradation,
and water shortages are all challenges that are increasing.
Sensors are already available that can be put out in crop
fields to collect information such as soil moisture,
fertilization, and recent weather impacts. With 5G and the
Cyberverse, once the processing is done in the Cloud, these
will be able to be simpler and less expensive. The information
from the sensors will be able to be transmitted to a central
hub, providing farmers real-time access to information and
analysis of their land and crop. This information can then be
used to logistically plan for the most effective use of their
resources like water and machinery.
Cattle farmers in the west to be profitable have to have herds
of thousands of animals distributed over thousands of acres of
land. The growth, health, and location of those herds is
critical information for the rancher. Cattle and sheep often
wander into terrain that is inaccessible by motor vehicles,
still requiring location and monitoring by horseback,
challenging and slow, especially in winter blizzards, when the
livestock often need the most support to survive. GPS devices,
passive systems requiring only small units with little energy
draw, are already available that can be attached to each
animal, which would make it possible for real-time monitoring
of the location of one animal or a thousand. In addition,
biomedical sensors are now available and shrinking in cost and
size that will be able to provide real-time biomedical data on
livestock, such as body temperature, pulse, growth, and even
tissue resistivity, a significant measure of productivity and
market value. Today, neither the bandwidth nor the capacity to
accommodate thousands of simultaneous users make this
application practical. However, with 5G it will be just one of
many that will transform livestock farming.
South Dakota's vigorous agricultural industries, illustrative
of agriculture across the United States, are providing
expertise and enthusiasm toward the development of 5G and the
Cyberverse across the state.
c) Manufacturing
Supplying the needs of the United States through a strong
domestic manufacturing sector protects the country from
international economic and political disruptions. 5G and the
Cyberverse has the responsiveness, concurrency and reach that
will transform manufacturing.
One in every ten jobs in South Dakota is in manufacturing. In
2016 the state's manufacturing industry generated more than
$4.5 billion of output and accounted for 9 percent of South
Dakota's GDP. The state's manufacturing sector has eagerly
sought out technology-based innovations to increase
productivity, expand markets, and develop new products. South
Dakota's Manufacturing and Technology Solutions (MTS)
organization is part of the National Institute of Standards and
Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NIST MEP).
MTS is one of many organizations supporting South Dakota
manufacturing in its drive for what is being called Industry
4.0, or the next industrial revolution. NIST is advancing
`smart manufacturing' as systems that are ``fully-integrated,
collaborative manufacturing systems that respond in real time
to meet changing demands and conditions in the factory, in the
supply network, and in customer needs.'' For example, South
Dakota manufacturers are heavily engaged in deploying
Collaborative Robots (Cobots) and Autonomous Guided Vehicles
(AGVs) on factory floors. South Dakota companies have
discovered that implementing these robotic systems improves
efficiency, reduces errors, increases safety by relieving
humans from dangerous tasks, and reduces machine downtime.
Compared to traditional industrial robots, the latest
collaborative robots are better suited to high mix, low volume
production, meaning they can be used to meet variable demand
and for just-in-time inventory processes. However, they also
require a more sophisticated technological infrastructure, and
large-scale multi-site deployment will require the capabilities
of 5G and the Cyberverse.
South Dakota's manufacturing companies will provide the testing
ground for how 5G and the Cyberverse need to be configured to
support their activities.
d) Health Care
5G and the Cyberverse will have a profound impact on health
care delivery in this country, especially for those populations
who have historically been underserved. A fast, reliable, high-
capacity network will make it possible to truly implement
telemedicine, and enable providers, first responders, and even
civilians to provide medical aid faster, more efficiently and
safely.
The Center for the Advancement of Health Information Technology
(CAHIT) is one of the DSU MadLabs and the home of HealthPoint,
the non-profit federally-designated health information
technology (HIT) resource and support center for all South
Dakota healthcare providers. HealthPoint is part of a national
network of 60 regional extension centers with a pipeline of key
information on health IT. The organization supports medical
practices with technology tools and support needed to improve
quality of care, increase patients' access to information,
utilize health data to determine gaps and interventions, and
spend dollars more wisely. As a result of their work, South
Dakota leads the Nation in percentage (90.4 percent) of office-
based physicians that have adopted certified Electronic Health
Records. SD5G and the SD Cyberverse will use this existing
strong network of already-connected medical practices to
explore how best to configure the new technologies to enhance
and expand medical care delivery.
4) Population clusters and types
South Dakota has a range of population clusters and types and
is committed to economic development improvement through the
use of technology for all of them. From urban to rural, the
state has special focus on making sure the ``last mile'' and
the ``last inch'' are as connected as the first. South Dakota
is also taking the lead in efforts to ``revive main street''
through migration to `smart cities,' harnessing the power of
technological innovation to improve economic health and the
quality of life in our small and medium-sized cities.
South Dakota has the third highest proportion of Native
Americans of any state, behind Alaska and New Mexico. Five of
the state's counties lie entirely within Indian reservations.
South Dakota is also a refugee resettlement state, and its
university system has a significant enrollment from
international students.
South Dakota is the 11th-fastest growing state in the country,
and Sioux Falls is the sixth fastest-growing city in the
country. This growth has been significantly fueled by a young
(the median age in the state is 36) entrepreneurial culture
that is highly tech savvy.
At the same time, the state has a vast land mass and much of
the population is distributed in rural areas. In this regard
South Dakota is representative of much of the center of the
United States, which is often resource-rich but connectivity
poor. 5G and the Cyberverse must include innovative ways to
connect every U.S. citizen, regardless of their location in the
country. SD5G and the SD Cyberverse will develop models to do
so.
5) Governmental organizational structures and concerns--city,
county, state
The smaller population of South Dakota, and the distributed
population, have required that cities, counties, and the state
work together collaboratively to meet the needs of the state's
citizens. One of the challenges in deploying 5G and the
Cyberverse is the complicated, interwoven, and often mutually
exclusive regulations, policies, practices, and laws of
different municipalities.
One of the greatest needs at the Federal level is for new radio
spectrum bands to be made available for 5G and the Cyberverse.
Senator Thune took the lead toward action on this almost two
years ago in the Mobile Now Act proposing reforms that would
ensure more spectrum is made available for commercial use and
by reducing the red tape associated with building wireless
networks. His leadership and interest in moving U.S. technology
and networking forward is matched by leadership across South
Dakota, and thus the state is a receptive area for developing,
deploying, and creating best practices for leading edge
technologies.
6) Geographies and climates
The United States is a country which, because of its size, has
a vast assortment of geographic configurations and climates. A
range of 5G and Cyberverse hardware must be developed and
deployed that can accommodate the differences in geographic
configurations (e.g., mountains) and extremes of temperature
(e.g., hot summers and sub-zero winters), wind, and
precipitation. Because of its considerable size--the state is
380 miles long and 210 miles wide--it covers several geographic
areas, each with a different weather pattern. The eastern half
of the state has a humid continental climate while the western
half of the state falls into the semiarid steppe category.
South Dakotans face extremes in temperature: blazing heat waves
in the summer and bitter Arctic incursions in winter. In July
and August, the mercury can soar above 100 degrees Fahrenheit,
while in winter, it regularly dips below zero. Record-setting
temperatures in the state include readings above 115 degrees
and colder than minus 40. This makes it an ideal setting to
test the weatherability of various technologies, and most
especially the ability to maintain the network of connectivity
under extreme conditions.
CONCLUSION
It is exceedingly important to do what we can to remove the
existing barriers to broadband deployment on the horizon of next
generation wireless technology deployment, to encourage investment in
next generation communications services, and find ways to streamline
broadband deployment siting.
I believe the best way to address all three of these issues will
start with a coordinated effort to develop widespread understanding and
knowledge of what 5G and the Cyber Universe are and why it is so
important to the economic, security, and quality of life health for the
United States in both the near and far future. To develop and deploy
these new technologies in a manner consistent with the country's
democratic values and concerns, we must engage cyber security
professionals in every aspect of this testbed. I believe the way to
make the greatest progress most rapidly is to create a public/private
partnership to build and deploy a real-world 5G and Cyberverse testbed.
We are eager to do so in South Dakota, as a geographic area in the U.S.
that contains a cross-section of the types of population clusters and
organizations, geography, climate, industries, and existing
technologies, to explore, troubleshoot, and establish best-practice
models for the technology as well as the policies and governance
required to support 5G development and deployment across the country.
5G and the new Cyberverse is a common good whose availability and
operability will be critical to every endeavor across the United
States. As such, it is important that the Federal Government provide
leadership and support for those efforts that will move development and
deployment of this vital national resource.
It is also the case that we will only get one chance to do this
first. The United States was the first country to develop and implement
the comprehensive Internet, initially building on the foundation and
integrating multiple federally-developed networks. The results have
been clear and impressive. Despite all of the concerns about cyber
security issues and technology dependencies, there is no question that
the United States lead in developing and deploying the Internet has had
profound economic and societal impacts. There is a need once again for
the Federal Government to step forward and take the lead in investment
and organizational support for the development and deployment of 5G and
the Cyberverse.
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Griffiths for the great work
that you and Dak State are doing in this space. It's going to
take a lot of very trained, skilled professionals to protect
and safeguard these networks, too, as we develop new
technologies. So it's exciting stuff that you're involved with.
Next up is Mr. Robert Fisher, who, as I said, is Senior
Vice President at Verizon, Senior Vice President of Federal
Government Affairs. He is here today. We welcome him to South
Dakota and hope that Verizon is looking at investing heavily in
these types of technologies in our state. So thank you for
being here, Mr. Fisher.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT FISHER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, VERIZON
Mr. Fisher. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here.
My name is Robert Fisher, and I am Senior Vice President of
Federal Government Affairs for Verizon. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here to discuss 5G and the policies that the
United States needs to adopt to win the global race on 5G.
On a personal note, Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you.
As a former staffer of the Senate Commerce Committee many years
ago under then Chairman John McCain. It's a real honor and a
pleasure for me to be here today.
Earlier this decade, Verizon led the way in deploying the
Nation's first 4G network. Mr. Chairman, here in South Dakota,
from 2013 to 2018, Verizon alone has invested more than $119
million in private capital. Today, our 4G network covers more
than 98 percent of the U.S. population, and now we are leading
the way on 5G. For example, Verizon created the 5G Technology
Forum, led the way with a number of technology firsts on 5G,
built innovation labs to help create next-generation
applications, and we were the first in the world to launch a
commercial 5G service called Verizon 5G Home, which is
currently available in Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and
Sacramento. Verizon plans for rapid expansion of 5G Home and
the launch of 5G mobility service going into 2019 and beyond.
But it's helpful to begin our conversation by looking at what
came before 5G.
The first generation of mobile technology 1G was about
voice. 2G introduced text messaging. The move to 3G provided
the essential network speeds for accessing the Internet through
smartphones. 4G, with faster data transfer rates, gave rise to
many of the connected devices and services that we rely upon
today. Ultimately, 5G will be even faster, allowing greater
network capacity, more opportunities for connectivity, and
improved reliability. 5G also represents the potential for up
to 1,000 times the network capacity of today's 4G LTE network
and 20 times faster download speeds, and the network latency
will become even faster than a blink of an eye.
We believe the economic and social impacts will be
transformative, and 5G will usher in a true ``Fourth Industrial
Revolution,'' which will fundamentally change how we live,
work, and play. It will be the foundation for other
technologies, such as artificial intelligence, autonomous cars,
robotics, and biotechnology. In addition to providing a long-
sought competitive alternative to cable broadband, as Verizon's
5G Home Service does, 5G will provide for an enhanced mobile
broadband, such as new and immersive virtual reality
experiences, mission-critical communications, the connections
that are required for the full capabilities of self-driving
cars, and the connecting of the Internet of Things.
It's critically important for the U.S. to lead the way in
5G. The wireless industry's impact on the State of South Dakota
due to the evolution of 4G technology already accounts for $587
million in gross domestic product and 6,700 related wireless
jobs in the state. We want 5G to build on that success of 4G.
Commissioner Carr said it best earlier this year, ``The
stakes are high. Winning the race to 5G could mean 3 million
new jobs, a half trillion dollars in GDP, $275 billion of
private sector investment, all without a penny of new taxes. We
want that, but our friends and competitors in Europe and Asia
want that, too.''
To underscore the Commissioner's point, all of this is
being done with private investment. Fortunately, the FCC and
Congress have both made great strides to win the race to 5G
with a focus on infrastructure and spectrum policy.
Two weeks ago, under Commissioner Carr's leadership, the
FCC issued a ruling that adopted commonsense guidelines that
reduced the time and cost of deploying next-generation wireless
infrastructure while accounting for legitimate local interests.
The FCC's ruling built on the momentum established over the
past few years in numerous States and communities to reform
infrastructure siting.
In terms of spectrum policy, the FCC has moved fast to open
up more spectrum and frequency bands that not have
traditionally been used for cellular communications but are
critical for 5G. Last week, Commissioner O'Rielly outlined a
plan for moving forward on the 3.5 gigahertz spectrum to be
considered at the FCC's meeting later this month.
Likewise, Mr. Chairman, you have been leading the way to
advance 5G infrastructure policy in Congress. You and Brian
Schatz, a Senator from Hawaii, have introduced the STREAMLINE
Small Cell Deployment Act, or the STREAMLINE Act, to help
promote the deployment of small cell equipment. The STREAMLINE
Act modernizes deployment policies while ensuring states and
localities have the ability to recover their costs. You've led
the way in ensuring to critical mid-band spectrum, which is a
critical component of 5G deployment. Mid-band spectrum provides
a good mix of coverage and capacity and is essential for a
broad nationwide rollout of 5G technologies.
Verizon has always worked well with policymakers at all
levels and hope to do that around the country, and ensure that
we are building our country's biggest and best network is
accomplished with the cooperation and support of our government
partners. While some municipalities have expressed concern
about having a standardized framework for governing antenna
siting, I can assure you that Verizon believes in dialogue and
compromises between providers and localities are more important
than ever, and we remain committed to that goal.
The U.S. needs to win the race to 5G, and while Verizon is
investing and innovating to help us get there, it is critical
for Federal, State, local governments all to be rowing in the
same direction. We have to get this policy framework right.
With your leadership, Mr. Chairman, and working with the
members of the Senate Commerce Committee, the FCC, and other
policymakers, we're making great progress, and I have high
hopes the U.S. will lead the world on 5G network deployment.
I thank you again for being here today and look forward to
answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fisher follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert Fisher, Senior Vice President,
Federal Government Relations, Verizon
My name is Robert Fisher, and I am Senior Vice President, Federal
Government Relations for Verizon. Thank you for inviting me to discuss
5G--the fifth generation of wireless networks--and the policies that
the United States needs to adopt to win the global race to 5G.
What 5G Means
To understand 5G, it's helpful to understand what came before it.
Broadly, the first generation of mobile technology, 1G, was about
voice. 2G introduced short-messaging (i.e., text messaging) and the
move to 3G provided the essential network speeds for accessing the
Internet through smartphones. Then 4G, with faster data-transfer rates,
gave rise to many of the connected devices and services that we rely on
today. According to CTIA, the wireless industry's impact on the state
of South Dakota, due largely to the roll out of 4G, accounts for $587
million in GDP and 6,761 wireless-related jobs. Verizon has invested
more than $119 million in private capital in the state of South Dakota
since 2013.
Ultimately, 5G will be even faster, with an exponential growth in
network capacity, greater opportunities for connectivity and improved
network reliability. 5G presents the potential for up to 1000 times the
network capacity of today's 4G LTE network and 20 times faster download
speeds than 4G. Additionally, network latency--or lag--of less than 10
milliseconds is many times faster than the blink of an eye. The
economic and social impacts of this next generation will be
transformative.
With 5G, we are on the cusp of the ``Fourth Industrial
Revolution,'' which will fundamentally change how we live, work and
play. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is blurring the lines between
the physical and digital worlds. Everything that can be connected will
be. Some call it the ``Cyber Physical'' era, building on such
technologies as artificial intelligence, autonomous cars, robotics and
biotechnology to prime a fresh wave of innovation--all of it enabled by
the low latency, lightning-fast speeds, and continuous connectivity of
5G wireless technology. And Verizon is leading the way in deploying 5G.
Verizon's 5G Leadership
Verizon's 4G LTE network covers more than 98 percent of the U.S.
population today, and we plan to quickly expand our 5G service, using a
wide variety of spectrum frequencies--low band; mid-band; and Ultra
Wideband (which is what we're using first for Verizon 5G Home). We have
been the leader in 5G from the start. This has required a lot of
important steps to get us to where we are today and where we are going.
We created the 5G Technology Forum (5GTF) in 2015, with partners like
Ericsson, Intel, Samsung and Qualcomm. As a result of these efforts,
the first international technical standard for 5G debuted in December
2017--ahead of expectations. Verizon also lead the way with a number of
technology firsts on 5G, including the first ``in the wild 5G data
transmission,'' and we have built 5G innovation labs to help create the
5G applications that will change how we live, work and play. We were
also proud to recently announce the world's first commercial 5G
service, Verizon 5G Home, which launched on October 1st and is
available for order in Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and
Sacramento. Moving forward, Verizon plans for rapid expansion of 5G
Home and the launch of 5G mobility service going into 2019 and beyond.
What 5G Will Enable
What capabilities will 5G enable? Ed Chan, Verizon Senior Vice
President and Chief Technology Architect, recently said at CTIA's Race
to the 5G Summit, ``5G will only be limited by our imagination.''
Looking back at the predictions of how 4G LTE would be used, no one
predicted the smartphone and app economy revolution, and it may be that
the most earth-shattering uses of 5G are things that no one is thinking
of today--or maybe some young entrepreneur is inventing in her garage
in Silicon Valley or right here in Sioux Falls?
Nevertheless, CTIA has described some of the ways that 5G will
impact the U.S. economy: ``Entire industries, from agriculture to
transportation, will be transformed to be more capable, efficient, and
intelligent. That's the promise of 5G.'' In addition to providing a
long-sought competitive alternative to cable broadband--as Verizon's 5G
Home service does--5G also will provide for Enhanced Mobile Broadband,
such as new immersive virtual reality experiences; Mission-Critical
communications, such as the connections needed for the full
capabilities of self-driving cars; and connecting the ``Internet of
Things.''
Policies to Win the Global Race to 5G
The U.S. winning the race to 5G is not a guarantee. Research by
CTIA earlier this year found China has a narrow lead over the U.S. and
South Korea in the race to 5G. It is imperative that we take the lead
as we did with 4G. Why is it so important? Commissioner Carr said it
best earlier this year: ``The stakes are high. Winning the race to 5G
could mean three million new jobs, half a trillion dollars in GDP, and
$275 billion of private sector investment, all without a penny of new
taxes. We want that. But our friends and competitors in Europe and Asia
what that too.'' To underscore the Commissioner's point, all of this is
being done with private capital. Fortunately, we know what needs to be
done. Commissioner Carr hit on the winning playbook: focus on spectrum
and infrastructure. Congress and the FCC have made great strides on
both parts of this playbook.
Under Commissioner Carr's leadership, the FCC recently issued a
ruling that adopted common-sense guidelines that reduce the time and
cost of deploying next generation wireless infrastructure while
accounting for legitimate local interests. This ruling built on the
momentum established over the past few years in numerous states and
communities to reform infrastructure siting policies. In terms of
spectrum policy, the FCC has moved fast to open up more spectrum in
frequency bands that have not traditionally been used for cellular
communications but are critical for 5G.
But FCC and state action is not enough. We need help from Congress,
too, and that effort has been led by Chairman Thune, who, together with
Senator Brian Schatz, introduced the ``Streamline Small Cell Deployment
Act'' to help promote the deployment of small cell equipment. This
bipartisan legislation is an important and thoughtful kickoff to a
conversation about how best to modernize small cell deployment policy.
The Streamline Act would add significant provisions to the national
policy framework that the FCC's recent decision just could not cover.
As just one example, the Streamline Act would provide that small cell
applications are ``deemed granted'' at the end of the allowed timetable
for state and municipal authorities to act on an application. The FCC
found that the remedy for inaction on an application is in the judicial
system, and decided not to apply a ``deemed granted'' remedy, though it
provided substantial guidance that should expedite judicial review.
However, even expedited judicial review involves delay and uncertainly,
so a ``deemed granted'' remedy is a critical component to promote
investment.
In addition, while the FCC correctly noted that state and local
governments are entitled to recover all reasonable costs related to the
building of small cell antennas, this provision of the FCC's new rules
is opposed by some jurisdictions and likely will be challenged in
court. Codifying the cost-based fee standard--as the Streamline Act
would do--provides additional certainty and legitimacy behind this
important principle, which simply ensures that states and localities
have the ability to recover their costs, but not to tax infrastructure
investment for additional revenues and for spending on unrelated
purposes.
Chairman Thune also has led the way on ensuring access to critical
``mid-band'' spectrum, which is a crucial component of 5G deployment.
Mid-band spectrum provides a good mix of coverage and capacity and is
essential for a broad, nationwide roll-out of 5G technologies. And
there are other bipartisan efforts underway to ensure adequate spectrum
resources. Of particular note is the Airwaves Act, which would help to
create a spectrum pipeline, encourage rural wireless deployment, and
reallocate underused spectrum. The Airwaves Act will help to encourage
rural wireless investment by setting aside 10 percent of proceeds from
the spectrum auctions required by the Act to deploy wireless in
underserved, often rural areas. The Act also requires the FCC to study
the impact of unlicensed spectrum on rural healthcare, education,
agriculture, and broadband access. In addition, FCC Commissioner
O'Rielly recently outlined a plan for moving forward on 3.5 GHz
spectrum to be considered at the FCC's October meeting. We encourage
the FCC to ensure the 3.5 GHz band plays a critical role in delivering
5G services to American consumers.
Verizon has always worked with policymakers at all levels to ensure
that the building of our country's biggest and best network is
accomplished with the cooperation and support of our government
partners. While there are some municipalities that have expressed
concerns about having a standardized framework governing antenna
siting, I can assure you that Verizon believes that dialogue and
compromises between providers and localities are more important than
ever. Under the FCC's new rules and the provisions of the Streamline
Act, there is still a great deal of leeway and oversight for localities
to manage their rights of way. It will be most productive if providers
work together with localities on comprehensive plans for small cell
deployment. Verizon remains committed to that goal.
Conclusion
To sum up: the U.S. needs to win the race to 5G, and while Verizon
is investing and innovating to help get us there, it is critical for
the federal, state, and local governments to all be rowing in the same
direction to get to the right policy framework. With the leadership of
Chairman Thune and Commissioner Carr, and many other policymakers, we
are making great progress, and I have high hopes that the U.S. will
lead the world on 5G network deployment.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Fisher.
Mr. Fisher. Oh, yes, sure. Here's a--I won't say what
company it is, but it's a----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Fisher.--it's a sample of a 5G small cell. This is
approximately the size of things that we're looking at
deploying in places all around the United States.
The Chairman. Compared to fourth generation technology,
which is much larger.
Mr. Fisher. Much larger. 200-foot macro cells, yes.
The Chairman. So that's the next generation, and what
cities like Sioux Falls and other cities around the country
will need to deploy to benefit from this.
So thank you, sir, for being here and for your comments.
Mr. Fisher. Thank you.
The Chairman. Next up is Mr. Justin Forde, who is the
Senior Director of Government Relations for Midcontinent
Communications, which has a big footprint here in South Dakota
and all across this region of the country.
So thank you and look forward to hearing from you.
STATEMENT OF JUSTIN FORDE, SENIOR DIRECTOR,
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS,
MIDCONTINENT COMMUNICATIONS
Mr. Forde. Thank you. There's a lot of talk about how to
address the digital divide in rural America, but at Midco, we
are currently solving and closing the digital divide through
our fiber and fixed wireless broadband solutions. And 5G
technology will continue to expand Midco's opportunities to
provide more fiber and fixed wireless here in South Dakota and
across our footprint.
Chairman Thune, thank you again for inviting me here today
to discuss Midco's view on 5G from the field in the Upper
Midwest.
Midco is the leading provider of Internet, networking,
cable TV, phone, data center, home security, and advertising
services in the Upper Midwest. We serve more than 400,000
residential and business customers in South Dakota, North
Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas, and Wisconsin, and communities
ranging in size from less than 100 people to more than 180,000.
Midco has almost 10,000 miles of fiber, and in 2017, we
launched our Midco Gig Initiative, a commitment to bring
gigabit Internet speeds to our entire service area. To date, we
have invested over $56 million in our Gig Initiative, and
that's over and above the millions of dollars we invest in our
network annually. Today, Midco Gig is available to more than 80
percent of our customers, and it's affordable and accessible at
every address here in Sioux Falls and communities large and
small with more to come in 2018.
We also recognize that fiber is not the only solution to
solve the digital divide. Many of our most rural and remote
residents do not have access to broadband or have access to
speeds that are so slow that the service is essentially
nonexistent. This digital divide is devastating to our friends
and rural residents and businesses and in smart agriculture. So
in 2018, Midco acquired InvisiMax, and we have begun to expand
broadband wireless service more broadly in most rural areas
within our footprint. Fixed wireless allows us to reach rural
areas that are up to 50 miles away from our fiber network.
I myself am a Midco fixed wireless customer. I get my
Internet from the top of a grain elevator 8 miles away to my
small farmstead. On a normal day, my three kids are streaming
video, and my wife is using that Internet to run a small
business. The service has been a great asset to our family.
My fixed wireless broadband ultimately connects to Midco's
fiber backbone, and fiber will continue to be the backbone of
any connectivity solution, including small cell 5G technology
for urban areas like Sioux Falls or Fargo. And given our deep
fiber network, we are able to partner with the mobile carriers
to provide the necessary connectivity link from small cell
towers to the Internet.
The discussion about emerging small cell technology for
urban areas is continuing to gain momentum, and Midco is here
to support mobile carriers by providing that connectivity.
Small cell will create deeper fiber penetration in our
communities, and we are excited for that possibility.
Small cell technology, however, is not the likely solution
to close the digital divide due to the density of towers
needed. For example, we estimate that 350 small cell towers
would be needed to provide 5G service to Sioux Falls with an
area of only 74 square miles. While technology requires end
users to be in such close proximity to a tower as a possibility
in our more urban areas, it is not realistic in some of our
more rural areas. But fixed wireless has been, and will
continue to be, a solution. Instead of hundreds of feet between
a tower and a consumer, our fixed wireless network can beam
speeds, high-speed broadband, 5 to 28 miles between a tower and
consumer.
Midco currently provides fixed wireless broadband to large
portions of the Red River Valley, with approximately 14,000
square miles using 140 cell towers, water towers, and grain
elevators. Fixed wireless is closing the digital divide today.
As Congress and the FCC continue to support emerging 5G
technology, we, at Midco, are excited for the possibilities
that that next generation of technology spectrum will bring for
our fixed wireless network.
In the race to 5G, Midco has two suggestions for Congress
and the FCC to ensure that 5G discussions include opportunities
for rural America.
First is Congress and the FCC work to free up additional
spectrum and drive the use of that spectrum in rural America.
It's vital that fixed wireless providers, like Midco, have both
access to the spectrum and the financial ability to purchase
licensed spectrum. As more spectrum is made available, we ask
that the rules regarding spectrum also consider the technology
needs for fixed wireless, such as higher power allowances.
Large rural providers that desire to purchase licensed spectrum
should have the ability to compete with large mobile carriers
in spectrum auctions. To that end, the FCC and Congress should
revise the rural bidding credits to allow larger rural
companies, like Midco, to take advantage of such credits to
build out their networks.
Second, it is vital that fixed wireless providers have
access to new laws and to advancing small cell technology so we
can also benefit from those reduced regulations. This
Committee's STREAMLINE Act contains similar provisions to the
FCC's recent ruling on small cells, and we encourage lawmakers
to continue considering fixed wireless when revising rules at
the request of small cell operators.
Chairman Thune, thank you again for inviting me here today.
And we look forward to working with you all to continue
advancing 5G technology while also closing the digital divide.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Forde follows:]
Prepared Statement of Justin Forde, Senior Director,
Government Relations, Midcontinent Communications
Chairman Thune and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting
me here today to discuss Midco's view from the field on the impact of
5G in our footprint. We at Midco have developed innovative approaches
to help us get high speed and reliable broadband to all of our
customers, and I'm excited to share them with you today and our
thoughts on the impact of mobile 5G technology.
My name is Justin Forde, and I am the Senior Director of Government
Relations for Midcontinent Communications (``Midco''). Midco is the
leading provider of Internet and connectivity, cable TV, phone, data
center, home security and advertising services in the Upper Midwest. We
also operate a regional sports network, Midco Sports Network, which
broadcasts live, local high school and regional college sports.
Over 400,000 residential and business customers count on Midco
services in 342 communities in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota,
Kansas, and Wisconsin. Midco community populations range from less than
100 in places like Dodge, North Dakota, to our largest community, Sioux
Falls, South Dakota, which has a population of approximately 180,000.
Innovation and foresight have shaped Midco's course for more than
85 years. In particular, we have made it our mission to ensure that our
most rural communities are at the leading edge of technology. Our goal
throughout our footprint is to continue to find ways not only to meet,
but to exceed, the communications needs of our customers.
Midco's History of Innovation
Midco has a history of innovation in the Upper Midwest. Founded in
1931, Midco began by operating movie theatres, with a vision of always
staying one-step ahead of ever-changing technology. Midco then entered
the radio business, and in 1954, became the owners of the first
television station in South Dakota. We continued to innovate with the
introduction of cable television and phone service, and on April 15,
1996, in Aberdeen, South Dakota, launched our broadband Internet
service, which today is the largest portion of our business.
Our commitment to innovation continues to motivate our business
initiatives today. We own and operate four data centers in North Dakota
and South Dakota to give local businesses a cost-effective way to
secure critical data and their IT infrastructure. We provide solutions
for regional and national banking, healthcare, energy, and government
customers, among many other industries. We combine our data center
services with powerful network solutions through our wholly-owned,
operated and engineered Midco fiber network. Our data centers are
directly connected to our fiber backbone, giving businesses access to
some of the fastest Internet speeds in the country.
In 2017, we launched the Midco Gig Initiative--a commitment to
bring Gigabit Internet speeds to our entire service area--from the
region's smallest towns to its largest cities. Today, Midco Gig is now
available to more than 80 percent of our customers--with more
communities to come in 2018--while the rest of our customers have a
choice to receive speeds anywhere from 50 Mbps to 250 Mbps. It is
important to remember that the majority of the communities we serve are
very rural -nearly all of the 342 communities we serve have less than
50,000 people, with most having a population closer to 500 than to
5,000.
To date, we have invested over $56 million to upgrade our network
to deliver Gigabit speeds to some of the most rural areas in America--
in addition to the millions of dollars we invest in our network
annually. In 2017 alone, we invested more than $125 million in capital
projects in our service area.
Our continuing investment and almost 10,000 miles of fiber also
serve as the connectivity source for mobile operators to connect their
mobile customers to the internet. As mobile carriers advance their 5G
initiative, local fiber and cable companies, like Midco, will continue
to be an indispensable partner to connect consumers from small cell
towers to the Internet.
Midco's innovation and continuing capital investment in our fiber
stems from our desire to serve the communities where we live and raise
our families. While the national push for 5G technology may yield a
benefit to urban areas within our footprint, such as Sioux Falls or
Rapid City, fiber and fixed wireless companies will continue to be the
primary source of broadband in the more rural and remote areas. For
example, last year, we extended our fiber-optic network to Littlefork,
Canby, Porter, Tauton, Minneota and Ghent, Minnesota--six small
communities that now have access to Midco's fiber network, Gig speeds,
and our data centers. Not only do we invest in our fiber and fixed
wireless infrastructures, but we are also a Midwestern company and are
deeply committed to giving back to the communities we serve. To date,
the Midco Foundation has contributed more than $3.8 million in grants
to the work of non-profits, local governments, and schools.
Midco's Innovative Use of Fixed Wireless to Reach More Communities with
Broadband
While extending the Midco network and bringing our service to rural
communities has always been part of Midco's culture and priorities,
there are still folks out there who lack access to our network, or to
any reliable and affordable Internet source. There are challenges and
high costs associated with building fiber in many communities in our
area, due to difficult terrain or sparse population in the vast
farmland of the Upper Midwest.
Fixed wireless services can be part of the solution for rural
America. In March of 2018, we acquired InvisiMax, Inc., a fixed
wireless company operating in the Red River Valley with more than 10
years of innovative spectrum use.
I can personally speak to the benefits of the fixed wireless
approach, as I myself am a Midco fixed wireless customer. I get my
Internet from the top of the grain elevator in Prosper, North Dakota to
my small farmstead six miles west of Argusville, North Dakota. On a
normal day, my three kids are streaming video or other content, while
my wife is using the Internet to run a small business, so this service
has been a great asset for our family.
Our extensive fiber network is the connectivity backbone for our
fixed wireless business and other fixed wireless businesses through
bandwidth wholesale agreements. We use our fiber network as the
backbone and edge out our broadband services by using fixed wireless to
reach more remote locations.
A fixed wireless option is a huge benefit to our friends and
neighbors who are not on Midco's wired network. Fixed wireless allows
us to reach remote, rural areas that are up to 50 miles away from our
fiber network, and we can implement this solution relatively quickly
and without the effort or expense of constructing fiber networks. We
can also deploy new fixed wireless networks during the winter months,
when harsh weather makes fiber construction impossible.
Through innovative spectrum use, Midco is currently testing
residential fixed wireless speeds of 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps
upload using our 3.65 GHz nationwide non-exclusive and 3.5 GHz Citizens
Broadband Radio Service band licenses. Once Midco is able to access
spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band, we can offer 100/20 speeds more widely in
our fixed wireless footprint.
Midco's fixed wireless innovation extends to the millimeter wave,
where we are beginning testing. Using shorter distances from towers to
consumers, we can use the 70 and 80 GHz bands for our point-to-point
connections and the 50 and 60 GHz bands for our point-to-multipoint
connections. A new meshing technology will increase redundancy and
reliability, and we will be testing Gigabit fixed wireless services.
Millimeter wave technology can be an additional tool in the toolbox to
offer high-speed and reliable broadband to rural America.
How Congress Can Support Broadband Deployment in Rural America
Midco supports your efforts to ensure all Americans have access to
broadband services, and we have invested many millions of dollars to
help make that goal a reality. We greatly appreciate the bipartisan
commitment of this Committee to produce bills that include and reflect
the key components of a broadband deployment-friendly atmosphere--
prioritizing unserved areas, instituting competitive principles for
awarding broadband dollars, and embracing technological neutrality.
Your efforts in the RAY BAUM'S Act and MOBILE NOW Act to include
broadband deployment provisions like the Dig Once policy and a spectrum
policy balancing licensed and unlicensed uses, and your thoughtful
consideration of the ACCESS Broadband Act, have contributed to an
environment in which we are able to more easily invest, expand, and
deploy. This Committee is leading the way in Congressional efforts to
close the Digital Divide and should be commended for its efforts.
Midco also respects your efforts to identify barriers to broadband
deployment, including in the STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act,
introduced by Chairman Thune and Senator Schatz. As broadband providers
develop new ways to deliver connectivity to their customers, it is
appropriate to examine the regulatory landscape to ensure that
obligations placed on providers--whether they offer wireless or
wireline service--are reasonable, lawful, competitively neutral, and
not unduly burdensome, while respecting legitimate interests of local
communities. Fortunately, given Midco's deep connections to the
communities we serve, we have been able to work effectively and
collaboratively with the great majority of our local officials to
advance our shared interest in extending the benefits of broadband to
our customers.
We recognize that there is a great deal of interest these days in
5G, which is expected to enhance competition in cities like Sioux Falls
and Rapid City. Like other fiber and cable providers, given our deep
fiber network and partnership with municipalities across our footprint,
we are able to partner with these mobile carriers to provide the
necessary connectivity link from their small cell towers to the
Internet.
In the race to 5G, which will benefit more highly populated areas
with dense networks, Midco hopes that Congress and the Federal
Communications Commission (``FCC'') will not neglect rural America.
Therefore, today, I would like to offer three suggestions for how you
might help us further advance rural broadband.
First, as Congress and the FCC work to free up additional spectrum,
it is vital that companies like Midco that provide high-speed and
reliable broadband to the most rural areas of our country have equal
access to spectrum.
It would be detrimental to rural America if valuable and limited
spectrum was allocated only to 5G, especially as 5G requires a high
concentration of small cells to operate. Using current mobile 5G
technology, it would take an estimated 350 small cell towers to provide
5G to Sioux Falls, with a square footage of only 74 miles. While
technology that requires end users to be in such close proximity to a
tower is a possibility in Sioux Falls, Rapid City, and other urban
areas, mobile 5G it is not currently a realistic solution to close the
Digital Divide in rural areas.
But fixed wireless has been and will continue to be a solution.
South Dakota is the fourth least densely populated state in the
country, with about 11 people per square mile; and we all know that
there is far less population density in our rural and farming
communities. Instead of hundreds of feet between a tower and a
consumer, our fixed wireless system can beam high-speed broadband 5-28
miles between a tower and a consumer. For example, Midco currently
provides fixed wireless broadband to large portions of the Red River
Valley with a square footage of approximately 14,000 miles using 140
cell towers, water towers and grain elevators. This partnership of
fiber and fixed wireless is a viable, and long-term, solution to
closing the Digital Divide.
On behalf of our friends and neighbors who still lack access to
broadband, we ask that Congress and the FCC allow fixed wireless
providers like Midco to have equal access to spectrum as that valuable
resource is freed up for commercial use. We know from field testing
that the 3.5 GHz band is key spectrum for us to provide speeds of 100/
20 and higher to homes that are over 8 miles away from the tower. The
FCC is currently changing the rules for the 3.5 GHz band. However,
under those rules, after 2020, we will lose our interference protection
in the 3.65 GHz band, and we will then need to either use general
authorized access spectrum, in which case our operations would not be
entitled to interference protection, or bid on priority access licenses
in the 3550-3650 MHz range that will be auctioned. Moreover, only 70
MHz of spectrum will be auctioned, and there is no guarantee Midco will
be able to gain access to that spectrum.
In addition, the FCC's priority access licenses in the 3.5 GHz
range will only be truly effective in helping rural areas if they are
offered in small enough geographic areas that companies like Midco that
want to provide broadband via fixed wireless in rural markets can
compete for their purchase. Midco supports the FCC's adoption of
county-sized priority access licenses in the draft order released last
week. County-sized licenses strike the right balance to enable auction
participation by new entrants, including rural providers, and Midco
urges the FCC to adopt this aspect of the order at its October open
meeting. Midco also encourages the FCC to expand its definition of
rural provider for rural bidding credits to be any provider with
250,000 broadband subscribers or less in each state in which the
provider seeks a priority access license for the 3.5 GHz band. By
measuring and limiting the number of broadband subscribers on a state-
by-state basis, mid-sized regional companies that focus their service
on rural communities can benefit from the rural bidding credits and the
FCC's ultimate purpose for the credits remains intact. Given the push
for 5G and need for spectrum for mobile carriers, robust rural bidding
credits would allow long-standing rural community providers like Midco
to have the ability to compete for priority access licenses.
Beyond the 3.5 GHz band, the FCC is also considering how to more
effectively use the 2.5 GHz, or Educational Broadband Spectrum, band.
The licensed spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band is attractive because the
propagation characteristics and high power allowance allows the
broadband signal to penetrate through multiple shelter belts and
forests to provide broadband and an Internet solution for precision
agriculture and cutting-edge farm technology. Currently, however, the
2.5 GHz band can only be licensed to educational institutions or other
entities dedicated to educational purposes, who may then lease the
spectrum to others. This is true even though much of the spectrum
remains unused. Indeed, the FCC estimates that current licensees only
cover about half of the geographic area of the United States today,
with significant amounts of spectrum going unused in rural areas.
Opening the 2.5 GHz band for licensing by other, non-educational
entities would allow Midco to provide fixed wireless service to even
more rural residents.
Specifically, we encourage the FCC to open as much of the 2.5 GHz
band for commercial auction as possible by doing the following:
rationalizing the current, 35-mile wide circular licensees (Government
Service Area or GSA) to county-sized licenses if the GSA covers at
least 75 percent of the county's geography; instituting the performance
requirements contemplated by the FCC in its May 10, 2018 Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking;\1\ auctioning all remaining 2.5 GHz whitespace in
county-sized licenses through a competitive auction with a defined
channel plan and a limit on the amount of spectrum that one competitor
could acquire;\2\ and creating robust rural bidding credits as
suggested by Midco in the 3.5 GHz band.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``For mobile and fixed point-to-multipoint services, we propose
an interim benchmark of 50 percent population coverage and a final
benchmark of 80 percent population coverage. . .For educational
broadcast services, we seek comment on an interim benchmark of 50
percent population coverage and a final benchmark of 80 percent
population coverage.'' Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, WT Docket No. 18-
120 (May 10, 2018) at 54.
\2\ ``Midco also discussed and endorsed the channel plan and
associated spectrum limitation of no more than 63 MHz advanced . . .
specifically: A1-A3 and B1-B3--33 MHz of contiguous spectrum in lower
band segment; C1-C3 and D1-D3--33 MHz of contiguous spectrum in lower
band segment; A4, B4, C4, D4, and G4--30 MHz of contiguous spectrum in
middle band segment; and G1-G3--16.5 MHz of contiguous spectrum in
upper band segment[.]'' Midco Ex Parte to Wireless Telecommunications
Bureau, WT Docket No. 18-120 (Sept. 26, 2018) at 1-2 (adopting the
proposal from the Wireless Internet Service Provider Association).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is important that rural Americans have access to broadband of a
sufficient speed, so that they can stream video on multiple devices,
attend webinars and virtual meetings, operate a home security system,
and, importantly in Midco's service areas, use the Internet for a
variety of precision agriculture needs. We need access to more spectrum
so that our customers can engage in all of these activities.
Second, we recognize that government help may be needed to bring
broadband to areas that are beyond the reach of private risk capital.
In areas where it is not financially viable to build--because they are
too difficult to reach, geographically remote, or are otherwise very
hard to serve--broadband deployment grants can alter the financial
calculation, making serving an area possible. It is critical, however,
that such help and government resources used for this purpose are
directed to bring service only to areas that are truly unserved and not
to overbuild existing networks.
In the past, some government broadband funding programs have
allowed funding to be used in places that already have broadband
service. Midco has been overbuilt with our own tax dollars in places
like Mitchell and Yankton, South Dakota, as have others in our region.
In Yankton, South Dakota, for example, government dollars were used by
a fiber company to overbuild two existing providers; and the new
provider used those government funds to ``cherry pick'' a few business
customers. We believe that scarce government resources should be
targeted to those who will build out areas that do not yet have any
access to broadband.
We were a participant in the Connect America Fund Phase II Auction
hosted by the FCC this year. This was a competitive, reverse auction,
and we believe a fair and economical method to fund those last mile
technologies. Midco was awarded approximately $38.9 million in the
auction, and we will use the proceeds to extend our fiber and fixed
wireless services deeper into rural areas in our service area. We were
also encouraged to see that the pilot broadband funding program in the
Omnibus Appropriations Act directed that funds be used in areas that
are at least 90 percent unserved, and that the Senate Farm Bill
similarly limits funding to areas that are at least 90 percent
unserved. These approaches, implemented in a technology-neutral manner
and with appropriate guardrails to ensure areas targeted are truly
unserved, can complement the work of this Committee to make a
meaningful impact in reducing the number of Americans lacking broadband
access.
Third, it is vital that fixed wireless--a service squarely aimed at
rural areas--has access to new laws and orders designed to advance 5G
technology, as fixed wireless, not mobile 5G, is the solution here and
now to solve the Digital Divide. We were encouraged, therefore, to see
the definition of ``Small Wireless Facilities'' in the FCC's recent
Declaratory Ruling and Third Report & Order on Small Cells as being
structures that are 50 feet or less in height with antennas no more
than three cubic feet in volume. This Committee's STREAMLINE Act
contains similar provisions, and we encourage this Committee, Congress,
and the FCC to not neglect fixed wireless in revising rules and
regulations at the request of 5G operators. We ask only for equal
access to benefit from new laws and regulations.
I commend the Committee for its focus on ensuring that all
Americans--including those in rural America--receive the full potential
of America's broadband networks. Thank you again for inviting me here
today, and we look forward to working with all of you on these
important issues.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Forde. We appreciate you being
here and look forward to have the opportunity to ask some
questions about the things that your company is involved with
here in South Dakota and across the region as well.
Mr. Forde. Thank you.
The Chairman. So last up is Mr. Mark Shlanta, who is the
Chief Executive Officer of SDN Communications here in South
Dakota. He has been at this for a long time, and has a lot of
perspective and background I think that can be very useful as
we head into this new frontier.
So, Mark, welcome. It's good to have you here.
STATEMENT OF MARK SHLANTA, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, SDN
COMMUNICATIONS
Mr. Shlanta. Chairman Thune, thank you. And thank you for
inviting SDN to participate in today's hearing.
The prospect of 5G in South Dakota excites me. South Dakota
has long been at the leading edge of broadband, especially in
rural markets, thanks to the progressive approach of SDN's
owner companies, the independent telephone companies of South
Dakota. Our companies cover 80 percent of South Dakota's
geography, and they aggressively combat the digital divide. In
fact, SDN and the South Dakota Telecommunications Association
recently commissioned a broadband benchmark report.
Three things I wanted to highlight. First, 65 percent of
the SDTA members, their customers are connected by fiber. 76
percent of their customers have high-speed broadband speeds
that meet or exceed the FCC's broadband definition. And third,
in the 5 years from 2013 to 2017, our members have invested
over $400 million in networks that now total 45,000 miles of
fiber in South Dakota. That's enough to circle--enough fiber to
circle the Earth twice.
This leads me to my primary point: small cells and five
generation networks, fifth generation networks. In the end,
it's still all about the wires, that I will refer to as the 6G
fiber optic networks that support such advances.
When I use my smartphone to send a message to my mother
across town or to my sister, who lives in South Korea, nearly
all of that communication will travel through the fiber in the
ground or under the ocean. It's only the very last part of the
connection, from the handset to the tower, that is wireless.
Today's 4G and tomorrow's 5G wireless do not exist without the
6G fiber that empowers them.
SDN has extensive experience in the field. We partner with
all the wireless providers in the region to provide backhaul
from the towers and fronthaul to the small cells.
SDN played a key role in deploying some of the first small
cells in the region. We helped deploy dozens of small cells in
places like Aberdeen, Brookings, Sioux Falls, Sioux City,
Sturgis, and Yankton. One of the best examples is the new SDSU
Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium in Brookings, which holds 19,000
people. Even a--even a few thousand fans had previously
overloaded the mobile data capacity, making it impossible to
text and pull up a web page or post to social media. That could
paralyze a university and drive away fans, especially younger
ones. SDN worked with a wireless carrier to secure locations,
permit, and construct the poles. Fans now have a better digital
experience there.
More importantly, these and other small cells will play a
role in public safety. These small cells represent the
precursor to 5G. We will need many of these to make 5G work,
and all of them will have to connect to our 6G fiber.
Chairman Thune and Commissioner Carr, I want to thank you
for the lighter regulatory touches that you've allowed,
especially the shot clocks encouraging local governments to
act. In the past, it could take months, and in some cases, the
regulatory and siting expenses exceeded $25,000 per pole. This
did not include the monthly fees to cities, campuses, and other
property owners.
I encourage continued streamlining; however, I also believe
the Federal and State governments should find a balance for
local control. We work cooperatively with the governments in
Aberdeen, Brookings, and Sioux Falls to make positive local
ordinance changes. I am pleased to say the South Dakota
Municipal League is aggressively working to create model
ordinances for cities large and small to attract 5G services to
South Dakota.
An additional reminder, network security is critical as we
advance faster wireless services. 5G will expand the Internet
of Things and the IoT devices we all use, but network security
should not be overlooked. Our state's academic resources can
assist to discover vulnerabilities and develop security
measures.
In conclusion, our fiber assets run deep into the rural
landscape, and our early experience in small cells, along with
the combination of local--local governments ready to embrace
5G, not to mention Dakota State University's technical
expertise, make South Dakota the perfect test site for
everything from driverless vehicles to wearable devices, which
are the applications of 5G. All of it will improve rural
quality of life and offer our strikingly independent South
Dakotans the opportunity to live, work, and create wherever
they please. The diverse weather, culture, and geographic
conditions will offer the best test of 5G and leverage the
promise of our 6G fiber optic services.
Thank you, Chairman Thune.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shlanta follows:]
Summary of Testimony of Mark Shlanta, Chief Executive Officer,
SDN Communications
SDN Communications (``SDN'') is a leading provider of Internet and
other networking services in the Upper Midwest. SDN is owned by 17
ILECs in South Dakota and works with dozens of additional ILECs, which
collectively serve over 200,000 residential and business customers in
over 400 communities in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. SDN has a
history of centralizing services for ILECs and supporting complex
solutions for large enterprise customers.
Nearly a decade ago, SDN's members started delivering fiber to the
premise and, in doing so, moved into the Gig era. SDN's Members have
invested nearly $500 million into the fiber projects since 2013. That
includes 2018's investment of $100 million in fiber and other capital
projects by SDN and the ILECs that own SDN. These efforts have also
included expanding service into unserved and underserved communities.
There are challenges and high costs associated with building fiber in
some rural communities. However, the schools, clinics, businesses, and
consumers all benefit when our 6G fiber optic networks are deployed at
the core of the broadband infrastructure.
SDN supports the efforts of the wireless carriers, local
governments, and the FCC to bring next generation 5G wireless services
to the population centers. Larger communities in South Dakota can be
outstanding test beds as this technology develops. Consumers will
benefit from the enhanced access to faster wireless services and
computing power being deployed to support new applications in the
Internet of Things (IOT) era. Network security will play an ever-
increasing role for consumers and SDN encourages all governments to
encourage the development and deployment of secure network assets and
services during the growth and deployment of the new 5G wireless
networks.
______
Prepared Statement of Mark Shlanta, Chief Executive Officer,
SDN Communications
Thank you, Chairman Thune, for inviting SDN to participate in
today's hearing.
The prospect of 5G in South Dakota excites me. We have long been
the leading edge of broadband, especially in rural markets, thanks to
the progressive approach of SDN's owner companies, the independent
telephone companies of South Dakota.
Our companies cover 80 percent of South Dakota's geography, and
we're not talking about the population centers. Yet they aggressively
combat the digital divide. In fact, SDN and the South Dakota
Telecommunications Association recently commissioned a benchmark
report. Three things to highlight:
1. 65 percent of SDTA Members' customers are connected by fiber.
2. 76 percent of them have high-speed broadband that meets or
exceeds the FCC's broadband definition.
3. In the five years from 2013 to 2017, our members have invested
$400 million in networks that now total 45,000 miles of fiber
in South Dakota--enough fiber to circle Earth twice!
That leads me to my primary point: Small cells or 5G--it's still
all about the wires and what I refer to as the 6G fiber optic networks
that support such advances.
If I'm going to use my smart phone to send a message to my mother
across town or my sister, who lives in South Korea, nearly all that
communication will travel fiber in the ground or under the ocean; it's
only the very last part of the connection--from the handset to the
tower--that is wireless. Today's 4G and tomorrow's 5G wireless do not
exist without the 6G fiber that empowers them.
SDN has extensive experience in this field. We partner with all the
wireless providers here to provide backhaul from the towers and
fronthaul to the small cells. SDN played a key role in deploying some
of the first small cells in the region. We helped deploy dozens of
small cells in places like Aberdeen, Brookings, Sioux City, Sioux
Falls, Sturgis and Yankton.
One of best examples is the new SDSU Dana J Dykhouse Stadium in
Brookings, which holds 19,000 people. Even a few thousand fans
overloaded the mobile data capacity making it impossible to text, pull
up a web page, or post to social media. That paralyzes a university and
drives away fans, especially younger ones.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
SDN worked with a wireless carrier to secure locations, permit and
construct the poles. Fans now have a better digital experience there.
More importantly, these and other small cells will play a role in
public safety.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
These small cells represent the pre-cursor to 5G. We will need many
of these to make 5G work. And all of them will have to connect to our
6G fiber.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
I want to thank you for a lighter regulatory touch, especially shot
clocks encouraging local governments to act. In the past, it could take
months, and in some cases, the regulatory expenses exceeded $25,000 per
pole. That does not include the monthly fees to cities, campuses or
other property owners.
I encourage continued streamlining. However, I also believe the
Federal and state governments should find balance for local control.
We worked cooperatively with governments in Aberdeen, Brookings,
and Sioux Falls to make positive local ordinance changes. I'm pleased
to say South Dakota Municipal League is aggressively working to create
model ordinances for cities, large and small, to attract 5G services to
South Dakota.
One reminder: network security is critical as we advance faster
wireless services. 5G will expand the Internet of Things and the IOT
devices we will all use, but network security should not be overlooked.
Our state's academic resources can assist to discovery vulnerabilities
and develop security measures.
In conclusion, our fiber assets run deep into the rural landscape
and our early experience in small cells, along with the combination of
local governments ready to embrace 5G not to mention Dakota State
University's technical expertise, make South Dakota the perfect test
site for everything from driverless vehicles to wearable devices--the
applications of 5G. All of it will improve rural quality of life and
offer our strikingly independent South Dakotans the opportunity to
live, work, and create wherever they please. The diverse weather,
culture, and geographic conditions will offer the best test of 5G and
leverage the promise of our 6G fiber optic network services.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Shlanta.
Let me just follow up with you while it's fresh in my mind
here, but with the passage of the MOBILE NOW Act, we did make a
downpayment on the spectrum and infrastructure needs to secure
American leadership in 5G, and the STREAMLINE Small Cell
Deployment Act represents sort of the next step on that
infrastructure list. We recently held a hearing focused on
ensuring that we have the additional spectrum necessary for 5G.
From your perspective, as a provider of services to
wireless carriers, what else should we be doing to support the
deployment of 5G, particularly in states like South Dakota?
Mr. Shlanta. Thank you. You know, states like South Dakota
in the--I'll say in the urban centers, you know, we all have
reasonable fiber optic networks to help with the deployment.
Coordination at the local effort in terms of working with the
local governments for placement of fiber optic facilities will
be key. But in the rural markets, if 5G were to ever long term
extend into those rural markets, we must maintain I'll say the
support aspects of developing more fiber optic networks across
the rural networks. The cost to deploy a rural network far
exceed the cost per mile to--and the cost per customer to
support--that is used to support an urban customer. So I would
just make sure the Federal Government doesn't overlook the
needs of rural as we deploy 5G across the urban environments
and extend those into the neighboring rural environments.
The Chairman. In your experience, do you think that the
siting policies for small cells should be different than
policies for larger sort of macro towers, like what we see
today?
Mr. Shlanta. Well, I do because they are far less
intrusive. I think some of the pictures that were showing
during my testimony, you know, indicate they are really similar
to a municipal light pole, and I know that's many of the
collocation efforts that the wireless carriers are looking to
work with the communities on, is to collocate on those types of
infrastructure.
The early poles that we deployed largely were a standalone
facility, and those could be used in places where maybe a light
pole or just the traffic volumes really wouldn't allow us to
get that type of infrastructure close to the communications or
to the transportation systems, but they have that separate
facility. So a lighter touch on those smaller facilities is
important.
The Chairman. Yes. Thanks.
Mr. Forde, Midco has been particularly resourceful in
deploying both fixed and wireless services to the people of
South Dakota; for example, as you point out, deploying antennas
on grain silos to provide wireless broadband. Could you discuss
maybe how Midco has overcome some of the challenges to
deployment in rural areas and some of the lessons that you have
learned?
Mr. Forde. Absolutely, yes. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. And we were also lucky to have Chairman Carr with us
earlier this week as we climbed some elevators across the
footprint. So it was very exciting to be up there.
Obviously, when you look at, you know, deploying those
networks, as Mr. Shlanta said, that cost can be very high. And
when you look at our highly rural areas, and obviously as the
temperatures dip, there's only a limited amount of time when
you can deploy some of those--those fiber networks. The fixed
wireless solution, the speed, reliability, and throughput, that
has continued to improve with the improvement of technology. So
deploying that fixed wireless from our rich, you know, fiber
networks in the cities that we do serve really allows us to
reach those rural farmsteads and allows us to reach that 25 to
30 miles around there for precision ag, all those tough-to-
reach places.
Also, we have a very diverse geography here in our state
and across the region, whether it's badlands, granite cliffs,
you know, lakes, you just can't get the fiber through that. So
this is a really unique way to continue to close the digital
divide and reach those hard-to-reach areas. And it can be
deployed relatively quickly. I mean, you can call and just
within a few hours in some of those rural areas we can have
that technology out to you at very high speeds.
The Chairman. You talked about the need for spectrum being
available to fixed--people who are providing fixed wireless
services, too. So what else do you think we could be doing to
make it easier for you and others that are serving rural
America to get access to that spectrum? You talked about it
needed to be accessible and affordable.
Mr. Forde. Yes. I think obviously as spectrum is made
available, it needs to be available in a way that we can have
access to it. We like county size license sizes for spectrum,
so that's something that we can feel is a good fit for us to
afford. Access to some of the bands of spectrum. The 2.5
gigahertz can get through some trees and get through some
denser areas, which allows us to ultimately serve that customer
better. So, you know, making sure that we have access to that
will be helpful. Of course, we also provide video services as
well through satellite, and we've got to make sure that there
isn't any interference with some of that spectrum as that's
made available for more fixed wireless. So there's a good
balance that needs to be found there as we make more spectrum
available.
The Chairman. I understand 5G is going to require different
types of infrastructure in rural areas, some of which may be
impractical in rural areas. But what other connectivity
solutions can Midco offer?
Mr. Forde. Well, it's, you know, that advancement of 5G
technology, you know, the fixed wireless is a way--is similar
to that, and some of those technology advancements are also
advancing that fixed wireless technology. So obviously, you
know, working with both in advancing those technologies will
allow us to continue to have better 5G technology in our cities
and also reach some of those hard-to-reach last areas.
The Chairman. OK. Mayor, I think we're all well aware that
you understand what's at stake here and are working hard to
make it easier to build out some of these networks in the City
of Sioux Falls. But could you talk a little bit about maybe
what the implications are for economic growth and job creation
if 5G deployment is slowed down by a delay in the approval by
local, you know, zoning and siting applications?
Mr. TenHaken. Yes. You know, I--me and my administration
look at 5G as much as an economic driver and a workforce driver
as anything. And in South Dakota, like a lot of places, we have
a workforce challenge. We have a hard time recruiting people to
come to Sioux Falls to put down roots here and work, even
though we know the secret of this place, and it's a great place
to be. And so being able to offer advanced technology, like 5G,
as a point of differentiation to whether that's new college
grads or whether that's people pivoting in their career, and
using 5G as a point of differentiation for Sioux Falls in
addition to our favorable tax climate and our safe community
and our great quality of life, it would be a tremendous win for
us in helping to fill the workforce shortage that we have and
helping to recruit businesses here.
We recently invested in a biotech research park called the
USD Discovery District, which we hope will someday house a
couple thousand jobs centered around ag, pharma, and biotech,
and those jobs are going to require 5G connectivity to be done.
They're going to be jobs that rely on a good--good access. And
so a slowed down 5G rollout is only going to slow down some of
those advancements we want to make as a city in terms of
looking at biopharma jobs and bringing in new jobs to our city.
The Chairman. In your experiences, do you think Sioux Falls
is properly equipped right now to be a leader in 5G adoption?
Mr. TenHaken. I think there's--you know, this is one topic,
just because of my background, that I am really passionate
about, and I've talked a lot about this. And there is a hunger
and an appetite in this city to be a leader in this space. And
so we've seen that in our negotiations with the carriers. When
we're talking with them, we're saying, ``Listen, we're not
trying to make money on the deployment of these cells. We want
to cover our costs, and that's it, because we don't see this as
a revenue source for the city, and we're not looking at it that
way. We're looking at it the win is going to happen once we
have the network, that's when the money will come in, through
those jobs, through the economic development, and so forth.''
So most of our community leaders are thinking that way as well.
So the time is really right in terms of the mindset in Sioux
Falls to be a real early adopter in this and a leader in this.
The Chairman. Dr. Griffiths, I was interested in listening
to your testimony and then reading it earlier, too. You talked
about an interesting comparison. It's not a super highway, it's
more of a super ocean in terms of the way that the connectivity
that will exist as a result of this when it's deployed. But
could you talk about how 5G will improve education tools both
for students and faculty at a university like Dakota State?
Dr. Griffiths. Yes, certainly. It will do a lot of things.
First of all, it's--it's like the Mayor said, if you have the
advanced technologies, the advanced infrastructure, people will
come to work in it because we'll have it and other places
won't, so that's one thing that will help.
In terms of our ability to reach out to work with K-12
education and with our own remote students--half our students
are remote--we will be able to extend out virtual--virtual
reality experiences for our students. We can train them in what
we call hand skills. The ability to convey tactile information
with a 5G network is going to be very strong so that we'll be
able to train them to do certain things.
On Friday, I had an interesting conversation about
robotic--a robotic dairy farm, which I happen to know about,
which is strange, you know, self-milking cows. And we were
talking about--they were talking about potentially locating
this dairy outside Madison, South Dakota, and they were very
interested in Dakota State because they were interested in the
students and the graduates we have because a robotic farm is
going to need people who can take care of the robots as well as
taking care of the cows. I mean, it's not just the cows
anymore, the robots also need certain care and feeding as well.
So--but I think the biggest thing that 5G in this area
would do is to keep many of our graduates in this State. As you
know, we are very technologically advanced with our graduates.
57 percent of our high-tech graduates leave the state. We want
to provide them opportunities to stay in-state. Many of them
would prefer to stay in-state. And so I think with--by putting
the infrastructure in place that will enable 5G services, we
will attract the industries and the jobs and the innovation and
entrepreneurship to occur within South Dakota to bring people
in, to bring people back, and to keep our graduates here.
The Chairman. And among the subjects that you've studied is
how the digital revolution has affected research.
Dr. Griffiths. Yes.
The Chairman. So what do you see as the impact of 5G on the
ability to collect and use information and what that might mean
for the economy and for how we live our lives?
Dr. Griffiths. Well, information is power, so, you know,
there is this ability to collect a lot of information about how
technology is used, how people are mobilizing, new
applications, and all of that data can be gathered and analyzed
in interesting ways. So, for example, we are looking now at law
enforcement information, the number of cyber attacks that
people have seen. Analyzing the data on who is attacked, where,
by whom, what kind of attacks, et cetera, where the
vulnerabilities lie, allow us to take those patterns and
project out into industries so that we can be more proactive in
preventing those kinds of attacks.
So there's a tremendous opportunity. If you have the
information and you gather the information, that pool of
information gives you the ability to know more than anyone else
and to go out and help people fix the kinds of problems that
they're having. So it's a huge advantage. And we believe that,
plus the specialized resources that we're building in Madison,
South Dakota, at DSU will attract people in so that we'll be
able to attract new faculty who might not otherwise be
attracted, we'll be able to attract students who might not
otherwise come, and we'll be able to attract partners to come
and work alongside us in this part of the country rather than
staying out on the fringes, as it were.
The Chairman. Yes. Good. A magnet. Yes.
Commissioner Carr, I mentioned earlier some of the things
the FCC is doing, which I give you great credit, you and your
fellow Commissioners, because I think you're very forward-
looking, and many of the ideas that are incorporated I think as
has been pointed out by several of the panelists in the
STREAMLINE Act legislation, the FCC has been moving forward
with, or at least moving forward in areas that are consistent
with the goals that are outlined in the legislation. And so I
just think you guys are really, really hitting it, and hitting
it on all cylinders, in terms of what we need to be doing. But
could you speak a little bit further to some of these recent
FCC rulings, and particularly about wireless infrastructure and
what it means for 5G deployment?
Commissioner Carr. Sure. And thank you, Senator, for your
leadership on these issues. We benefited a lot at the FCC from
the legislation that you've introduced, the ideas that you've
put together, as well as local leaders, including the mayor.
There have been 20 states around the country that adopted
updated procedures to account for these new small cell
deployments. And if you think back, a lot of our regulations
were written in an era of almost exclusively 200-foot towers
with a large footprint. There were environmental reviews,
historic reviews, costs, timelines, that maybe made sense given
that massive construction project. But when you have a small
cell the size of a backpack or smaller, like the one we have
now, when it can go on an existing light pole, those outdated
approaches didn't make sense and were holding us back.
So in March, we reached a decision that excluded these
small cells, but only the small cells, from the environmental
and historic reviews that apply to those 200-foot towers, and
there's an economic study put into the record that showed that
the March decision cut about $1.5 billion in red tape. And we
saw situations, for instance, where you can put a 30-foot tower
in a parking lot where the ground was disturbed, new pavement
put down, but nonetheless, you had to get a historic
preservation review as if you were turning the ground over
anew, and you could have a deployment costing $30,000, where
the environmental review would cost $27,000. So it was out of
step with the technology, and that's why we reached the
decision in March.
And then two weeks ago, we reached another decision that
really builds on a lot of the ideas that we heard the mayor
just talk about. Cities absolutely need to be compensated for
their costs in reviewing these deployments. They can't be going
underwater reviewing the private sector's investments. They
need to be made whole, as the mayor made clear. And that's what
we did in our decision. We made sure that cities get their
reasonable costs compensated, but that this is not a revenue-
generating opportunity, as the Mayor said, because we need to
move forward on a scope and scale of small cells that we've
never done before. So we have to clear out the red tape that
has been holding it back.
The Chairman. Yes. I'm glad that South Dakota is leading
the way on that, too and you heard earlier that the South
Dakota Municipal League here in South Dakota is coming up with
a draft ordinance for cities to adopt that would enable these
infrastructures to be in place and to be built out. What you
and the Commissioner are doing I think dovetail nicely with all
of those activities. So we want to continue to encourage that.
And, honestly, as we look at these issues, obviously we want to
be respectful of the prerogatives of local governments and
authorities and do it in a way that strikes a balance, but also
in a way that's reasonable and doesn't stand in the way of what
I think is going to be an enormous economic opportunity for our
cities and our states and our country.
What are the implications, to follow up on your point about
siting policies, that go beyond cost-based recovery?
Commissioner Carr. We saw evidence in our record that small
cells are particularly sensitive to excessive regulatory fees,
and we saw in the record where providers were looking to deploy
in relatively small communities across the Midwest, and
excessive fees resulted in pulling back and investing that
deployment in the areas where the fees were a lot more
reasonable. We saw record evidence of excessive fees in big
coastal cities that would suck up the capital needed to deploy
small cells in surrounding communities. So we saw real impacts
in terms of the regulatory fees impacting where deployment
takes place and whether deployment is going to take place.
The Chairman. Yes. Thank you.
Mr. Fisher, we had Meredith Baker, who is the CEO of the
CTIA, testify before the Commerce Committee earlier this year,
and she said, and I quote, a small cell often can be installed
in about an hour. The challenge we face is that governmental
approval processes can take more than a year, and the
application and fee structures are often mismatched with the
smaller footprint of tomorrow's networks, end quote.
So could you kind of expand on this concept for us and
explain how we can remove red tape and get infrastructure
deployed to spur jobs and growth and get broadband competition
more quickly?
Mr. Fisher. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I agree a
lot with what Commissioner Carr just kind of pointed out, which
is I think historically when you've looked at the way that
we've had red tape around expanding cell coverage, we thought
of cell coverage, especially in 2G all the way up to 4G about
large macro towers and, you know, historical preservation
reviews and NEPA regulations. There are a lot of things that
went into that process. And I'm not saying that that wasn't
incorrect maybe at the time given the size of some of those
things. But as we move to really taking 5G--and the way I like
to describe it to folks like I think about my parents and
trying to explain what we're doing on 5G, when you're taking
the network out closer to the consumer and trying to make a
service that is going to be, 1,000 times faster than we have
today, you need to realize that when we're deploying something
like this, the same things that Commissioner Carr pointed out
and the regulations that surrounded large towers applying to
this really don't make sense. And the time, the amount of
money, that go to that definitely do get more exercise towards
that process and really take away, you know, potential
investment in other surrounding areas.
So I think continuing to encourage, and I hope that the
Senate will take up the STREAMLINE Act and pass it because I
think it's a perfect complement to what Commissioner Carr and
the rest of the FCC have done, which is really getting some of
that underburden out so that we can get out there and quickly
deploy because I think it's crucial that we do it because we
know that China and others are working very fast to do this,
and I think it's critical that, just as we led the world in 4G
deployment, the U.S. should lead in 5G deployment.
The Chairman. I want to follow up on the point you made
about the steps. What steps do we need to take to win the 5G
race when you have other countries like China, South Korea,
Japan and Europe heading in the same direction here, but are
deploying communications networks at a faster rate? And in a
lot of cases they don't have to deal with, the regulatory
issues that we have in our country.
So say we want to win that race, what are the steps that we
need to be taking, that you think are necessary?
Mr. Fisher. Well, I think we've taken a critical first step
with what the FCC has done, and I think that's good. I think
building upon what they have done in passing the STREAMLINE Act
would be critical. I do agree with what Mr. Forde said, too,
you know, we need to identify mid-band spectrum, which is
critically important. I agree with a lot of what he said on the
mid-band side. It's important to get more spectrum out there as
quickly as possible. A lot of other countries have been doing
that for many years and have been rushing to do that.
The Chairman. Can you talk just a minute and follow up why
mid-band spectrum is important?
Mr. Fisher. Yes. Well, I think as we move to--as we've
thought about cell service, cell service was always about big
towers, low-band frequencies that can penetrate through walls,
really cover big distances. As we move into 5G we're looking
and deploying right now using what they call millimeter-wave
spectrum, which is high frequency. And the higher you go up,
the shorter distance it travels, but it has the ability to
carry massive amounts of data.
But in order to have all these things work, mid-band
spectrum is going to be very complementary with high-frequency
spectrum and low-frequency spectrum, quite frankly, because as
you push the network out further distances, you're going to
need a combination of short-travel-distance spectrum to longer
distance traveled spectrum to be able to cover larger areas.
So all of those things are going to be very complementary
to one another, and it's going to be very critical for those
things to happen, I think, in a very thoughtful but speedy way
so that we don't fall behind the rest of the world, because I--
I think the most--the most damaging thing that we could do is
take longer--take a longer amount of time to do this because we
would be missing out on billions and billions of dollars of
global economic cost to the U.S. because we've led in 4G, and
we saw the benefits from it. It's how the app economy exploded
in this country.
And probably a lot to what the mayor and the businesses
that he ran, that--that was--that was really largely because of
the--of the way we did networks here in the United States. If
we continue to do that here in 5G, we will continue to develop
things that we can't even know or understand, things that
students at Dakota State are trying to develop today.
So it's just vitally important that we--that we move
forward quickly.
The Chairman. And with all--it sounds like all the various
bands of spectrum play into that.
Mr. Fisher. Correct.
The Chairman. But mid-band is especially valuable in terms
of----
Mr. Fisher. Very valuable, yes.
The Chairman. OK. Dr. Griffiths, I would be remiss if I
didn't ask this question because it's kind of what you and your
folks do. But 5G does offer the ability to connect many more
devices to the Internet than we currently have at a higher
level of connectivity, lower latency, tremendous increases in
speed. But what challenges does this raise for cybersecurity?
Dr. Griffiths. Oh, I think, as I mentioned, every time you
connect a new device to the network, you create potential for
new vulnerabilities, not just in the devices--in hardware,
coded in hardware is particular a problem. In software, it's a
little bit easier to detect.
The other challenge I think that we have in this
environment, as it moves so rapidly, is--is making sure we pay
attention to the privacy concerns of the public that, you know,
now people are becoming more aware of devices that are actually
recording them, and they--you know, we take it for granted that
things will work the way we think they're going to work, but,
again, bad actors are always in play, and we need to always be
mindful of that.
So we do--we do educate some of our young people to--to
think like that. It's a different way of thinking, to be more
proactive in looking at the cybersecurity environment to
actually test things out in a proactive way to ensure that they
can find potential vulnerabilities.
And I think it's a concern as we shift generations. So I'm
afraid I'm a generation that saw the birth of the modern
Internet, so, you know, my mind works in certain ways, and I'm
glad I won't have to deal with the waves of innovation that
will come. But young people today have a totally different
approach to the way they interact with technology, the way they
think about privacy, the way they deal with data, et cetera. So
it's a totally different world.
So I think there are going to be some social strains and
stresses on the system that are going to actually eventually
have to be worked out through governance structures and policy,
et cetera.
The Chairman. OK. I'm glad you're training people to
understand the bad guys, but getting them to work for the good
guys. That's what we want to have.
Dr. Griffiths. And make sure they put their white hats on.
The Chairman. Right. And I would just say, too, if anybody
else on any of these questions wants to jump in, feel free to
do that.
Mr. Fisher. Mr. Chairman, I was actually just going to
follow up on something that Dr. Griffiths said because I think
it's important on the privacy front. And I agree, there's a lot
of work being done on the cybersecurity front as it relates to
5G and privacy. But in particular, this Committee has been very
engaged in the privacy debate. You've held a series of hearings
over the last couple weeks on privacy and what we should do,
and as you know, Verizon has been pushing for comprehensive
privacy reform for the last 6 years, and we believe it's well
past our time to update those laws, primarily for some of the
reasons that Dr. Griffiths brought up. But it's critically
important that consumers have a sense of their privacy, and I
think a lot of what we've seen over the last couple of years is
certainly putting a lot of pause into people and the Americans
across the country who are trying to figure out how their data
is being used. So while I know it's somewhat relevant to this
hearing, I think it's an important topic and something that the
Committee hopefully and that the Senate and the House can pass
legislation in 2019 to update our Nation's privacy laws.
The Chairman. I couldn't agree more with that.
Mr. Shlanta, obviously we're all talking about swift action
on 5G spectrum and deployment and how critical that is, but
much of that massive amount of data is going to travel over 5G
networks that will travel over SDN and the thousands of miles
of fiber that you and your members currently operate. How is
this increase in data traffic going to affect your business?
Mr. Shlanta. Well, first of all, thank you. You know, I
would say the change in consumer behavior that we've seen
especially in the 4G world is things really moved to the
handset in terms of how transactions started to take place. You
know, we'll see that double, triple, 10 times, in terms of the
number of transactions that will take place over the next
decade across those--those handsets. All of that, of course,
gets gathered up across those wireless networks and then
transmitted across the fiber networks.
You know, one of the things that we are planning for and
have been continuing to invest in is the expansion, not just
the reach of our fiber network, but the capacity of the fiber
network, the optical network behind the glass that not every
one sees. And so we're already laying the, I'll say, groundwork
to upgrade those aspects of our network. Some of those are
already in place as we're seeing the deployments that the
wireless carriers are bringing forward. But the, I'll say,
opportunities and challenges it brings, some of the
opportunities are I'll say staying current with the technology
and finding the right workforce and being able to hire them and
attract them to a state like South Dakota. And, you know,
that's one of the--I'll say one of the challenges, one of
opportunities, is just being able to meet those challenges. It
may be somewhat cliche, but those are the kind of things that
drive I know largely my technical team to the office every day
that work and discover on those types of activities.
But if I could, I'd like to build on one other statement
that--or a couple of statements that were made here today, and
I wanted to build on one that the mayor was speaking earlier,
that it was hitting me. And I think if you go back and look at
the record today, you're going to find people who talk about
all of us, in terms of witnesses, talk about, you know, 5G and
what's coming and what's coming to South Dakota.
But, you know, I want to make sure the carriers and the
people who are here recognize that South Dakota has, first of
all, a willing government environment. You've heard the mayor
talk about that. You've heard the Municipal League talk about
that. You know, we want to attract the 5G deployments to our
state. You've heard different speakers talk about really the
diversity of our climate, the diversity of our populations, the
diversity of our environment. So there are great testbed
opportunities to come here. And we talk about really the
technical resources that not only SDN, but Mr. Forde, at
Midcontinent, offer to the carriers as we come.
And I would say, last, and it's the thing that I think
people overlook at times, it's the network security. We want to
push this forward, but we cannot overlook the network security
aspects.
I ran into you earlier this week in Washington. You were
headed to the White House, and I was headed to a cybersecurity
briefing, and just to hear those business leaders talk about
the needs for security in their transmissions, you know, was
driving the point home. So I just want to make sure that as a
government official who helps drive legislation, that you don't
overlook the security aspects, so we bring that along at the
same time we bring along all the other aspects of our--of our
networks.
The Chairman. OK. Good.
Mr. TenHaken. Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Yes, sir.
Mr. TenHaken. Somewhat of a pivot from what Mark just
talked about, but I want to make sure we get this out before
the hearing ends. And, you know, the one ``wet blanket'' piece
of this that I feel we need to also address is what health
impacts micro-millimeter waves have because it's so new. And as
a mayor, and as a mayor who is sitting on this panel, and the
media is here, I'm going to get asked this 20 times yet this
evening about the health ramifications of 5G and small cell
deployment and mmW. And I've been getting asked it a lot
already.
And I know there are no documented studies because the
technology is so new. And it reminds me a little bit of when
microwaves came into our home, and people were concerned about
the microwaves, and holding a cell phone to your head is going
to fry your brain, and these things, and I'm hearing this more
and more.
And so while the concern I think is very inflated, it is
something that we, as municipalities, are going to need help
addressing. If we want to be excited and push this forward,
which we are, we also need to have very clear direction,
talking points, studies that have been done that show that
there is no harm to our constituents and to the taxpayers on
putting these small cells on towers close to libraries, close
to schools, close to their homes.
And so I, for one, have been researching this and have not
seen any damaging effects of this, but I do think it's
something that this group, you know, will have to just consider
to look at and continue to study so that as we push the
legislation forward, we can do so with not only a clear
conscience, but also have the right answers for people who
express that concern.
The Chairman. Yes. Good point, that is something that you
do hear. We hear about it and I'm sure the FCC hears about it,
too.
Commissioner Carr. Yes, I'm happy to step in real quick on
that. So the FCC, as well as other agencies that are experts in
health and safety issues, are always looking very closely at
these issues, staying up to date on the latest science. They've
looked at all of the studies and all of the information, and
they've reached the determination that these are safe, and
that's a determination that is constantly undergoing review,
and any new information that comes up is taken into account.
And, in fact, given the position of the Federal agencies on
this, Federal law actually says that State and local
governments can't take RF concerns into account given how much
work has already gone into this issue at the Federal level. And
that's not to say that you don't hear about these concerns. And
we have community meetings where people raise the concerns. All
I can say is that both the FCC and other expert health agencies
in Washington, they stay very much up to speed on these issues
and have reached the determination that these are safe.
The Chairman. I appreciate that. And you're right Mayor,
there is a lot of research that has been done, but it's always
important that efforts be made to educate your constituents, my
constituents, the people across this country, who have that
concern, and make sure we understand exactly what, if any,
those health risks are. But as I have studied the literature
that you and the FCC have, most of it comes to the same
conclusion in terms of the impacts, but it's something
certainly that we need to be able to explain and be aware of.
Between the auctions that are scheduled for this year and
next, there will be a lot of new high-band spectrum coming into
the market, but we were talking about mid-band spectrum and how
desirable that is. I want to ask Commissioner Carr, are the
FCC's allocations of mid-band spectrum keeping pace with such
allocations for high-band spectrum? Can you talk a little bit
about the auctions and what you guys are doing over there?
Commissioner Carr. Happy to do so, Senator. Thanks for the
question.
I think to start, obviously the MOBILE NOW Act, which you
got across the finish line, has put a lot more spectrum on the
table, which is going to be key for deploying 5G networks.
We've heard a lot about what we call at the FCC high-band
spectrum, and that's going to be a key part of some of the
initial 5G deployments, but ultimately, we need to push 5G down
the spectrum band, including mid-band. And if you look at all
the spectrum globally, the U.S. is leading the world in terms
of allocating and freeing up more spectrum for mobile, but a
lot of that is in the high-millimeter-wave band. So right now,
we are turning our focus very closely to what we call ``mid-
band spectrum.'' We have a number of proceedings underway, and
we need to keep pushing forward, to your point, to get that
mid-band spectrum out there.
The Chairman. OK. We're kind of getting to the time when we
need to wrap up, but I just wanted, for any of our panelists
today, to respond to kind of a couple of wrap-up questions or
any closing remarks that you would like to make, or anything
that you feel we didn't touch on that we need to touch on.
But just one question to think about, and that is, What can
we do at the Federal level to help speed up deployment in South
Dakota and around the country? My goal is to have South Dakota
have the fasted Internet speeds in the Nation, in the world,
for that matter. But, so, obviously I'm greatly interested in
that as it pertains to our state here.
And then how is this next-generation technology that we
talked about today going to change what you do every day, and
how is it going to change what we all do? I mean, I know it's
kind of a broad question, but if--and maybe it gets to a little
bit some of the benefits and potential attributes and virtues
of this technology.
But what can the Federal Government be doing to speed it
up? And, second, how does it change what we do every day and
how is it going to change how we all live every day? Think
about that for a minute. Anybody who wants to chime in, feel
free.
Mayor.
Mr. TenHaken. Yes. You know, I think there is still so much
unknown because it's--it's going to be the ``Wild West'' again.
And so there's--there are innovations that haven't even been
thought of yet which will bubble up as a result of 5G
deployment. So I think that's why it's so important to keep the
foot on the gas on this, because there are things we haven't
even thought of yet, but--and there are things we have thought
of.
For instance, I--I was talking with our police force today
and was sharing with them the fact that with 5G, we would be
able to have HD live feed body camera footage going back to
Metro, so rather than them having to call in when an officer is
down or a shot's been fired, they're seeing it in real time in
HD, and the response times would improve, and they hadn't even
thought of that as an application to what would help them
better serve the public.
So I think there are so many things and so many doors that
would be opened, which is why I think most of us up here are
really excited at the opportunity. With Dr. Griffiths, we've
talked about between a partnership with Madison and Dakota
State and Sioux Falls, they are, you know, the ``Cadillac'' of
cybersecurity colleges, and they're cranking out amazing grads.
But they also know they have challenges being in Madison, South
Dakota, and--or in Sioux Falls. And if we can create a 5G
network and a 5G kind of pathway between Madison and Sioux
Falls, we could really be known as a cybersecurity--it could be
the next industry that this state is known for. But it's going
to take that technology before we can--we can make that a
reality.
So I guess my closing statement is just things like the
STREAMLINE Act and MOBILE NOW, keep the foot on the gas on it.
I think you have a lot of municipalities that want to be
supportive and want to help. They also want to make sure it's
fair to the taxpayer on the deployment. But there's a lot of
excitement and energy for what could be.
The Chairman. OK. Great.
Dr. Griffiths. If I could just add to that, it's--it's
ultimately going to be all about the services and applications,
but you can't get them until you've got the infrastructure in
place. And if you delay on putting the basic infrastructure in
place when the services come out, it will take you longer to
get that infrastructure there.
It reminds me very much of Internet 1 to Internet 2, and a
group of academic institutions wanted to put in the next
generation of Internet so that we can experiment with it and
see how it worked. We didn't switch our regular Internet use to
that Internet 2, it was purely a research network, and a number
of my colleagues at the time were reluctant to sign up. So I
was the first one to sign up for Internet 2. We're now talking
academically about Internet 3. But it's the same--it's the same
environment.
My feeling was, how could I sit and not have my faculty and
students have access to the best resources available to them?
I'm sure you think the same about your constituents. How can we
not make available the potential of all this capability once
those services come available? We can't think of what those
services would be. I don't think anyone would have imagined
Amazon to have grown to be the behemoth that it is in all the
different areas it's doing business, but, you know, the
business, the applications, the innovations will come, but if
the infrastructure is not in place, then you're behind, and
once you're behind, it's hard to catch up.
Mr. Fisher. And, Mr. Chairman, I think that this discussion
today has been extremely helpful. I think all the work that's
being done at all levels of government there's a real effort by
a lot of folks at the Federal side and legislation that you are
championing that we remain committed to hopefully try to get
that--that bill passed. I think the mayor brings up, you know,
excellent points.
I mentioned in my testimony, I'd like to underscore it
again, we're working very hard at a local level to talk to
cities all across the country and have these discussions about
getting our--our investment, you know, out there as quickly as
possible. So I think just keeping a foot on the gas pedal is
the theme that we're using here on the Federal side.
And I would say to your last question, the capabilities of
5G right now is basically wherever your mind can take you at
this point. And I think that whether it's students that are
currently enrolled at Dakota State or universities across the
country. I bet if we sat here even 10, 15 years ago and talked
about the app economy today and what it blew up to, none of us
would have ever guessed what would have happened, and 4G took
us there.
I think 5G leads us to a whole different level of virtual
reality, augmented reality, and even applications that we don't
know of. The latency--one thing that we didn't talk about that
I'll just mention quickly, the latency as we go to 5G, that is
the time, that devices can talk back and forth on the network.
Just an example would be that today if you take an
autonomous car, and it's traveling at 60 miles an hour, and
it's communicating over a 4G network, and it has to signal that
it's about to break, the processing time right today on a 4G
network is about 4 feet. When it's going 60 miles an hour,
about 4 feet is the processing time to go back and forth. I
think as we have autonomous vehicles, we can all safely assume
that we want to make sure that things are happening very
quickly and very rapidly. In a 5G world latency, the same
example, a car traveling 60--it goes from 4 feet to 1 inch of
compute power, and the latency will be quicker than a blink of
an eye.
And so that really gives us unlimited potential as it
relates to robotic surgery. You know, think about the things
that we can do to take STEM education to the next level. You
know, here, I think in many parts of South Dakota, what that
means to ag tech and farmers across the country.
So let our imaginations take us where 5G is possible, but I
think maybe 10 years from now, we could be sitting around here
imagining all these things that we couldn't believe here today.
At Verizon, we're very excited about this. We have five
labs, 5G labs, that we're opening across the country. We have
one open in New York right now. We're going to have some open
in Palo Alto and Washington, D.C., Boston, and L.A. by the end
of 2018. So these will really be testbeds for people to come
and test out technologies.
The Chairman. The mayor was waiting to hear you say ``Sioux
Falls.''
Mr. Shlanta. I was ready to chime in----
Mr. Fisher. My understanding is that we've had some initial
discussions and conversations continue, so we look forward to
that.
The Chairman. Great.
Mr. Forde. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for bringing
this hearing to South Dakota and for your leadership and your
staff and all the hard work they've put in to keeping us a
technology leader here in South Dakota. You know, we're just so
blessed to have all these companies together working so hard on
this issue, and I think that are fiber networks and our data
center, our Gig Initiative, our fixed wireless, just making all
these things a part of this process leads to the great
environment that we have here in this community. And we're
blessed to be able to work with everyone here at the table and
to continue move things forward in our state.
Mr. Shlanta. One last thing I'd just like to say is we've
heard a lot today about 5G wireless. So much will happen,
especially in the--probably the urban centers as we get
started. But I just wanted to also say thank you, Chairman
Thune and Commissioner Carr, for all the work that you do in
the rural networks as well. The needs of rural are different
than we see in the urban areas. So I just wanted to say thank
you for all your efforts there as well.
Commissioner Carr. Also, real quick, I think there are
still a number of great ideas in the STREAMLINE Small Cell
Deployment Act that's in Congress right now. And I'll also say
today we were with the really talented crews of Sioux Falls
Tower, and if you think about having about 15- to 20,000 cell
sites in the country going up a year, well, next year we need
to see about 60,000 a year increasing from there. So it's
actually a good jobs story, but we're at a point where we need
to make sure we have the trained workforce that can do that
massive increase in infrastructure deployment. I think there's
work we can do on the apprenticeship side. I think there's work
we can do on the community college side as well to get very
quickly the skill sets into the community.
The Chairman. All right. Thank you.
Well, listen, thanks to all of you. Appreciate your input,
your thoughts, your suggestions. And I think it's really
exciting. And we've had a number of hearings in the Commerce
Committee dealing with some of these new technologies, like
artificial intelligence and quantum computing and blockchain
and other things, all of which I think become increasingly more
possible.
And I've used the example, Mr. Fisher, that you use with
autonomous vehicles because, you know, one of the things that
we--and the reason I'm interested in autonomous vehicles is
that we lose 37,000 people every year on America's highways. 94
percent of those accidents are human error. And if we can
eliminate just some of that, we can save a lot of lives. It
needs to be done in a safe way, and obviously it's much safer
if an autonomous vehicle can stop at an inch rather than in--
what was it? 4 feet? Yes. So, you know, these are the
dimensions of difference and dimensions of benefit that happen
when this kind of technology and the infrastructure and
everything that supports it is put into place.
So we want to encourage that investment. I'm excited to see
the things that are happening already here in South Dakota and
the great work that's already being done. But I really do
believe the sky is the limit, and so we want to continue to
partner and work with everybody here at the table as we, as a
State and a country, win this race.
So thank you all very much. With that, this hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:38 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
NTCA--The Rural Broadband Association
Arlington, VA, September 27, 2018
Hon. John Thune,
United States Senate,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Brian Schatz,
United States Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Thune and Senator Schatz,
On behalf of NTCA--The Rural Broadband Association, I write to
reinforce our support for S. 3157, The Rapid Evolution And
Modernization of Leading-edge Infrastructure Necessary to Enhance Small
Cell Deployment (the STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment) Act, and our
gratitude for your ongoing interest in improving conditions for
broadband deployment throughout the United States.
Having served on several of the FCC's Broadband Deployment Advisory
Committee working groups, after reviewing many of the infrastructure
questions and challenges presented there, and knowing well the
obstacles NTCA members often face in seeking to build broadband
networks across rural America, NTCA appreciates your bipartisan effort
to reduce barriers to deployment of communications networks that are
needed to meet the growing demands of consumers.
Applications based on objective engineering standards, reasonable
shot clocks, and more transparent permitting processes are common sense
solutions that continue to respect local authority while also seeking
to modernize infrastructure rules and promote both advanced wireless
services and the robust wireline networks that serve as their essential
foundation.
NTCA looks forward to continuing to work with Congress to identify
and address barriers to deployment and expansion of broadband
facilities of all technologies. Thank you for your bipartisan efforts
and we look forward to working with you on this important bill.
Sincerely,
Shirley Bloomfield,
Chief Executive Officer.
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