[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]





 
         LAUNCHING INTO THE STATE OF THE SATELLITE MARKETPLACE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

             SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                            FEBRUARY 2, 2023

                               __________

                            Serial No. 118-5
                            
       [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]                     


     Published for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce

                   govinfo.gov/committee/house-energy
                        energycommerce.house.gov
                        
                        
                           ______

             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 52-102             WASHINGTON : 2023                
                        
                        
                        
                        
                        
                        
                    COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

                   CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
                                  Chair
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas            FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio                  Ranking Member
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky              ANNA G. ESHOO, California
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia         DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida            JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio                   DORIS O. MATSUI, California
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana               KATHY CASTOR, Florida
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina       JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
TIM WALBERG, Michigan                PAUL TONKO, New York
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia    YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina          TONY CARDENAS, California
GARY J. PALMER, Alabama              RAUL RUIZ, California
NEAL P. DUNN, Florida                SCOTT H. PETERS, California
JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah                 DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
DEBBBIE LESKO, Arizona               MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
GREG PENCE, Indiana                  ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
DAN CRENSHAW, Texas                  ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania             NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota, Vice  LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
    Chair                            DARREN SOTO, Florida
RANDY K. WEBER, Sr., Texas           ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia               KIM SCHRIER, Washington
TROY BALDERSON, Ohio                 LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts
RUSS FULCHER, Idaho                  LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas
DIANA HARSHBARGER, Tennessee
MARIANNETTE MILLER-MEEKS, Iowa
KAT CAMMACK, Florida
JAY OBERNOLTE, California
                                 ------                                

                           Professional Staff

                      NATE HODSON, Staff Director
                   SARAH BURKE, Deputy Staff Director
               TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Minority Staff Director
             Subcommittee on Communications and Technology

                         ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
                                 Chairman
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida            DORIS O. MATSUI, California
TIM WALBERG, Michigan                  Ranking Member
EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia,   YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York
    Vice Chair                       MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
NEAL P. DUNN, Florida                DARREN SOTO, Florida
JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah                 ANNA G. ESHOO, California
JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania             TONY CARDENAS, California
RANDY K. WEBER, Sr., Texas           ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota
RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia               LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
TROY BALDERSON, Ohio                 DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
RUSS FULCHER, Idaho                  ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas                ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
DIANA HARSHBARGER, Tennessee         FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex 
KAT CAMMACK, Florida                     officio)
JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 
    (ex officio)
                             C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hon. Robert E. Latta, a Representative in Congress from the State 
  of Ohio, opening statement.....................................     2
    Prepared statement...........................................     3
Hon. Doris O. Matsui, a Representative in Congress from the State 
  of California, opening statement...............................     9
    Prepared statement...........................................    11
Hon. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Representative in Congress from 
  the State of Washington, opening statement.....................    13
    Prepared statement...........................................    15
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 
  State of New Jersey, opening statement.........................    21
    Prepared statement...........................................    23

                               Witnesses

Tom Stroup, President, Satellite Industry Association............    25
    Prepared statement \1\
    Answers to submitted questions \2\...........................   112
Julie Zoller, Head of Global Regulatory Affairs, Project Kuiper, 
  Amazon.........................................................    27
    Prepared statement...........................................    29
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   116
Jennifer A. Manner, Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, 
  EchoStar Corporation...........................................    32
    Prepared statement...........................................    34
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   118
Margo R. Deckard, Cofounder and Chief Operating Officer, Lynk 
  Global, Inc....................................................    45
    Prepared statement...........................................    47
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   120
Kari A. Bingen, Director, Aerospace Security Project, Center for 
  Strategic and International Studies............................    53
    Prepared statement...........................................    55
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   124

                           Submitted Material

Inclusion of the following was approved by unanimous consent.
Letter of February 2, 2023, from Meredith Attwell Baker, 
  President and Chief Executive Officer, to Mr. Latta and Ms. 
  Matsui, submitted by Mr. Latta.................................   111

----------

\1\ Mr. Stroup's statement has been retained in committee files and is 
available at https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF16/20230202/115336/
HHRG-118-IF16-Wstate-StroupT-20230202-U1.pdf.
\1\ The 2022 report ``Start-Up Space: Update on Investment in 
Commercial Space Ventures,'' which Mr. Stroup submitted with his 
answers to submitted questions, has been retained in committee files 
and is included with his responses at https://docs.house.gov/meetings/
IF/IF16/20230202/115336/HHRG-118-IF16-Wstate-StroupT-20230202.pdf.


         LAUNCHING INTO THE STATE OF THE SATELLITE MARKETPLACE

                              ----------                              


                       THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2023

                  House of Representatives,
     Subcommittee on Communications and Technology,
                          Committee on Energy and Commerce,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in 
the John D. Dingell Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, 
Hon. Robert E. Latta (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Latta, Bilirakis, Walberg, 
Carter, Dunn, Curtis, Joyce, Weber, Allen, Balderson, Fulcher, 
Pfluger, Harshbarger, Cammack, Obernolte, Rodgers (ex officio), 
Matsui (subcommittee ranking member), Clarke, Veasey, Soto, 
Eshoo, Cardenas, Craig, Fletcher, Dingell, Kuster, Kelly, and 
Pallone (ex officio).
    Also present: Representative Johnson.
    Staff present: Sarah Burke, Deputy Staff Director; Michael 
Cameron, Professional Staff Member, Innovation, Data, and 
Commerce; Nate Hodson, Staff Director; Tara Hupman, Chief 
Counsel; Noah Jackson, Clerk, Communications and Technology; 
Peter Kielty, General Counsel; Emily King, Member Services 
Director; Giulia Leganski, Professional Staff Member, 
Communications and Technology; John Lin, Senior Counsel, 
Communications and Technology; Kate O'Connor, Chief Counsel, 
Communications and Technology; Michael Taggart, Policy 
Director; Evan Viau, Professional Staff Member, Communications 
and Technology; Jennifer Epperson, Minority Chief Counsel, 
Communications and Technology; Waverly Gordon, Minority Deputy 
Staff Director and General Counsel; Tiffany Guarascio, Minority 
Staff Director; Perry Hamilton, Minority Member Services and 
Outreach Manager; Dan Miller, Minority Professional Staff 
Member; Joe Orlando, Minority Senior Policy Analyst; Greg Pugh, 
Minority Staff Assistant; Michael Scurato, Minority FCC 
Detailee; and Johanna Thomas, Minority Counsel.
    Mr. Latta. Well, good morning. I would like to welcome you 
all to the Energy and Commerce Communication and Technology 
Subcommittee, and appreciate you all being here and look 
forward to a good hearing today.
    Before I begin, first of all, I would like to congratulate 
our ranking member, the gentlelady from California. And I look 
forward to working with you this year, and I know it is going 
to be a good relationship. And I just think that we can get a 
lot done this Congress and, as I said, I am looking forward to 
a lot of good things.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT E. LATTA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
                CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO

    But as I said, again, good morning to the 118th Congress, 
and it is a privilege, again, to have you all here as our 
witnesses. It has been over a decade since the subcommittee 
held a hearing dedicated to understanding the satellite 
communications marketplace and the FCC's role in licensing 
commercial satellite communication systems. Since then, how 
satellite technology is used has changed drastically.
    Our esteemed panel before us has experience across the full 
range of satellite communication technologies. Satellite 
technology offers a variety of services, spanning high-speed 
broadband and video delivery to data services that enable 
precision agriculture and global financial transactions. 
Today's hearing is the first step this committee is taking as 
we take a close look at these novel issues.
    In recent years, satellite communication capabilities have 
dramatically advanced and satellite operators have identified 
new ways to serve customers with greater speed and reliability. 
Many satellite operators currently operate or are seeking to 
operate different types of satellite constellations. Some 
satellite systems operate in geostationary orbit, while others 
operate closer to Earth in nongeostationary orbit. Satellite 
operations are also global in nature, which adds an additional 
layer of complexity when developing and operating systems. 
Because satellite systems rely on radio spectrum to operate, 
the use of this spectrum raises complex challenges that U.S. 
and international regulators must address.
    In the last few months, satellite operators and cellular 
carriers have announced partnerships to stretch connectivity 
further into rural and remote areas. International standard 
bodies are also making progress in identifying technical 
specifications for greater integration of 5G with satellite 
communications technologies. These are significant developments 
that may provide new or enhanced opportunities to connect 
unserved Americans.
    We must also ensure continued American leadership in 
advanced communication services. In order to do that, our 
regulations must foster an environment of innovation and 
certainty. As countries like China seek to dominate the 
technology of the future, we must make the United States an 
attractive place to invest in cutting-edge developments that 
align with American values and guarantee the availability of 
trusted satellite communications.
    The FCC plays an important role in licensing new or 
enhanced satellite communication systems, and it is important 
we understand the current licensing and regulatory process and 
the impact these rules have on our international 
competitiveness.
    Again, thank you to our witnesses for sharing your 
expertise today and, again, I look forward to today's 
discussion.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Latta follows:]
 [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]   
    
    Mr. Latta. And at this time, the Chair recognizes the 
gentlelady, the subcommittee ranking member from California, 
for 5 minutes for an opening statement.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DORIS O. MATSUI, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
             CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

    Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And it is a 
privilege for me to be sitting on this dais with you, and I 
look forward to working with you on these issues that will 
impact all of America.
    It is an exciting day, and it is no exaggeration to say 
that our subcommittee has more bearing on the United States 
technological leadership in the 21st century than any other. 
From expanding affordable broadband access to developing the 
next generation of communications network, we have a unique 
opportunity to promote innovation and equity in technology. I 
am excited to get to work, continuing the subcommittee's strong 
tradition of bipartisanship.
    Today's hearing on the satellite marketplace is a perfect 
example of that cooperation in action. This hearing is both 
important and timely. As Chairwoman Rosenworcel has said, the 
number of applications for satellites before the FCC has never 
been higher.
    For the United States to remain the pacesetter in satellite 
communication, the number of applications for satellites before 
the FCC has never been higher. For the United States to remain 
the pacesetter in satellite communication, we need to modernize 
satellite governance to keep up with innovation. Thankfully, 
both Congress and the FCC are focusing on modernizing satellite 
regulations to ensure that they are prepared for the next 
generation of innovation.
    Chairwoman McMorris Rodgers and Ranking Member Pallone's 
SAT Streamlining Act will introduce important updates to the 
FCC's satellite laws. For too long, the licensing process at 
the FCC has fallen short of what the market needs, and this 
bill will help.
    Ranking Member Pallone and Chairwoman Rodgers also teamed 
up on the Secure Space Act. As an original cosponsor of the 
rip-and-replace bill, I am glad to see additional bipartisan 
engagement on a vital national security issue. In the same way 
our rip-and-replace bill would remove vulnerable network air 
from companies like Huawei and ZTE, the Secure Space Act would 
extend these protections to the satellite ecosystem.
    And since we are on the topic, I would like to take a 
moment at this hearing to remind everyone that we still have 
urgent work to do on the rip-and-replace effort. The funding 
shortfall is real, it is urgent, and I am ready to get the job 
done with you.
    But back to today's hearing, it is important to note just 
how much progress has been made by the FCC over the past few 
months on satellite issues. Last year, Chairwoman Rosenworcel 
announced a plan to form the Space Bureau to better support the 
needs of the growing satellite industry.
    The Chairwoman is also turning a critical eye toward the 
FCC's processes to keep them modern and effective. She recently 
initiated a rulemaking to request feedback on ways to reduce 
the timelines for satellite and Earth station applications.
    I am glad to see the FCC tackling these issues head-on and 
believe we have a meaningful opportunity to make progress. And 
that is why I sent a letter with my Spectrum Caucus cochair, 
Congressman Guthrie, urging the FCC to take steps that will 
support innovation and consumer choice.
    In our letter, we urge the FCC to develop additional 
coordination requirements for satellite operators. Good-faith 
coordination should include meaningful and continuous 
requirements to ensure the appropriate flow of technical 
information. And as more satellite share operations on limited 
spectrum, finding ways to encourage spectral efficiency will be 
important. Across all forms of wireless communication, we need 
to do more with less, and satellites are no different.
    Finally, we urge the FCC to strike an appropriate balance 
between protecting the investments of incumbent operators while 
allowing new entrants to innovate and compete. I really look 
forward to staying engaged with the FCC as it moves forward 
with this rulemaking and confident it will reinforce American 
leadership.
    Thank you, Chairman Latta, and thank you for the witnesses. 
I look forward to the hearing.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Matsui follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your 
statement.
    And at this time the Chair will recognize the gentlelady 
from Washington, the chair of the full Energy and Commerce 
Committee, for her opening statement for 5 minutes.

      OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, A 
    REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

    Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congratulations on 
leading this committee. I know that you are dedicated and 
experienced on all of these issues, and look forward to your 
leadership on the subcommittee. And Buddy Carter for becoming 
the vice chair, as well as Doris Matsui, Congresswoman Matsui, 
as the ranking leader. We look forward to working with you to 
make sure that we stay the leader. I know that this committee 
is going to be at the forefront of closing the digital divide 
and ensuring America leads a new era of innovation and 
entrepreneurship. So just congratulations to all. I also want 
to welcome our new Members on the committee. They bring great 
experience and passion to these issues.
    We are here today to discuss how America can keep pace with 
the rapidly evolving satellite communications industry. 
Countries like China seek to undermine us in this range of 
advanced communication technologies, including next-gen 
satellite technology. We cannot afford to let this happen.
    The Chinese Communist Party will do whatever it takes to 
embed their authoritarianism into next-generation technologies 
like these. This is a country that spies on its citizens and 
asserts strict government control over businesses and the 
economy. They want to replace the United States as the economic 
and technological power so that they can spread their values 
and vision of the future.
    We need to make sure these technologies are developed in an 
ecosystem that promotes America's values. As this technology 
evolves, we must reevaluate and adapt the regulatory 
environment to make sure that America is winning the future, 
that we are beating China, and continue to push the limits of 
innovation to solidify American dominance.
    Satellite technologies have become vital to the 
communications marketplace, providing services to connect 
millions of America's homes and businesses. To ensure United 
States leadership, we need to foster a regulatory environment 
that encourages innovation and guarantees that the reliable 
services they provide remain available to combat bad actors 
seeking to undermine our national interest.
    This subcommittee is at the forefront of protecting and 
enhancing technological innovation in the United States. We are 
responsible for overseeing the Federal Communications 
Commission, FCC, and the National Telecommunications and 
Information Administration, NTIA.
    In recent years, the satellite marketplace has seen a surge 
of investment because of a combination of lower launch cost to 
innovations that have made satellites more affordable, 
reliable, and available. Some estimates show that the space 
industry could triple to a $1.4 trillion market within a 
decade.
    The FCC has received dozens of applications for new NGSO 
satellite systems, indicating that the industry is ready to 
lead in this space. American satellite operators are providing 
in-home broadband at faster speeds than ever before, as well as 
key voice and data services to these industries and the Federal 
Government.
    Both longstanding operators and newer entrants have made or 
announced significant investments in next-generation systems. 
It has been far too long since Congress reassessed the role of 
satellite technology in the communications marketplace and 
whether or not our regulatory environment encourages investment 
in innovation in the space economy or hampers it.
    Today's hearing is the first step in what will be a robust 
effort to evaluate the state of the satellite marketplace. Many 
existing and proposed satellite systems raise novel questions 
about the use of space and spectrum that the FCC's rules do not 
address.
    For example, large nongeostationary orbit, or NGSO, 
satellite systems use spectrum more intensely than other types 
of satellite systems. These NGSO systems are required to share 
spectrum, and the rules that govern sharing will be a critical 
ingredient to their success.
    Moreover, the satellite marketplace is global. Operators 
from around the world need to be able to license in many 
different regions, including the United States. Because of the 
global nature of the satellite industry, we need to consider 
international considerations of the use of spectrum as well as 
the other resources that are unique to the industry. We must 
lead in this industry, and we must ensure that our regulations 
encourage this innovation rather than stifle it.
    I look forward to hearing more from our witnesses. Thank 
you all for being here, for taking the time to share your 
insights, and I want to hear how this committee can be a 
partner to promote U.S. leadership, competition, and innovation 
in the satellite communications.
    Thank you, and I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mrs. Rodgers follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentlelady yields back.
    And at this time the Chair recognizes the ranking member of 
the full committee, the gentleman from New Jersey, for 5 
minutes.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE 
            IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

    Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Latta. And let me thank 
you and Ranking Member Matsui. This is the first hearing of the 
subcommittee, and I am certainly looking forward to working 
together. We have a long tradition of working in a bipartisan 
fashion to enhance technological innovation in this country, 
and this hearing marks the start of another endeavor.
    Today we begin exploring the next frontier of the 
commercial space industry. Let me say, our committee can and 
should play an important role in shaping how the Federal 
Communications Commission regulates and licenses this sector 
and the airwaves that satellites use.
    I also want to commend Chairwoman Rosenworcel and her 
fellow Commissioners for recognizing the changing dynamics in 
the satellite industry and the need for the FCC to keep up with 
the times.
    The recent unanimous order adopting Chairwoman 
Rosenworcel's proposal to create a Space Bureau is an important 
step in the right direction and reflects the increasing 
importance of this industry in our communications marketplace.
    In the last few years, we have seen significant 
advancements in the ability of satellites to provide broadband 
internet and other critical services to consumers throughout 
the country and the world. And while this is beneficial for 
many reasons, it is especially helpful to those living in areas 
where other types of technologies haven't been built yet to 
reach consumers due to geographic considerations and other 
factors.
    Congress took a historic step forward last year by making a 
$65 billion investment in broadband connectivity as part of the 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. As a result of this new law, 
Americans across the Nation who have lacked connectivity will 
finally be connected to high-speed reliable and affordable 
broadband. And this will make a huge difference for communities 
all across the Nation that have been left behind for far too 
long. Satellites will also continue to play a role in competing 
with and enhancing the redundancy of terrestrial networks, 
including by expanding the coverage of mobile service.
    So I actually expect the consumer use of satellites to grow 
in the future as wireless carriers and phone manufacturers 
continue to build this capability into their networks and 
phones.
    Fortunately, with this technology, mobile consumers can 
rest assured that if they find themselves in an area without 
service, whether it is because of a lack of coverage, a result 
of natural disaster, or some other reason, they will continue 
to have the ability to reach first responders and loved ones 
during their time of need.
    And this additional layer of protection is a welcome sign, 
given that the climate crisis is causing more frequent and more 
severe disasters. Mobile service is essential to receive 
emergency alerts and life-saving information. In fact, a recent 
article detailed the devastating consequences that local 
communities and individual neighborhoods face when they lack 
access to mobile service in times of tragedy. These examples 
and so many others demonstrate that a resilient communications 
network can be the difference between life and death when the 
unexpected strikes, and satellite systems will be crucial in 
helping consumers navigate through these challenging moments.
    Now, the stakes could not be higher for the American 
satellite marketplace. Other countries, including our foreign 
adversaries, are making aggressive moves to dominate this 
industry. Quite simply, failing to ensure that the United 
States remains a market leader in this sector risks our Nation 
falling behind our counterparts across the globe, including 
China, in producing cutting-edge consumer innovations and 
fortifying our public safety and national security 
capabilities.
    It is also imperative that we protect the satellite 
marketplace and its relevant supply chains from threats by 
nontrusted actors. We can't risk having our satellite networks 
face the same challenges we have seen in some of our other 
communication networks, especially given the global nature of 
their operation.
    And it is important that we better understand this 
marketplace so that we can make sure that the American public 
benefits from these technological advancements in a safe and 
secure manner. And since satellite innovation is happening as 
we speak, we must begin examining this industry now so that the 
United States can prepare for the satellite technologies of 
today and tomorrow.
    So it is clear we have a lot to discuss this morning. That 
is why this hearing is important as we continue to explore the 
growing satellite marketplace. And I just welcome our 
panelists, look forward to hearing from all of you. And yield 
back the balance of my time, Chairman Latta.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much. The gentleman yields 
back.
    We have now concluded with Member opening statements. The 
Chair would like to remind Members that, pursuant to committee 
rules, all Members' opening statements will be made part of the 
record.
    Again, we would like to thank all of our witnesses for 
being with us today and, again, taking time to travel to DC to 
be with us and testify before the subcommittee.
    Today's witnesses will each have 5 minutes to provide an 
opening statement, which will be followed by a round of 
questions from our Members. Our witness panel for today's 
hearing will include Mr. Tom Stroup, president of the Satellite 
Industry Association; Ms. Julie Zoller, head of global 
regulatory affairs with Project Kuiper at Amazon; Ms. Jennifer 
Manner, senior vice president of regulatory affairs at EchoStar 
Corporation; Ms. Margo Deckard, cofounder and chief operating 
officer of Lynk Global; and Ms. Kari Bingen, director of 
Aerospace Security Project and senior fellow at the 
International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and 
International Studies.
    And as we begin, just pull that microphone close to you as 
we begin and, hopefully, they got all of the technical 
difficulties taken care of before the committee started, but, 
if not, we will just switch boxes around here real quick.
    But you will notice that there are the three lights there. 
So at 30 seconds, the yellow light will go on, and then at 5 
minutes the red light will go on. So at that point, please 
finish up your statement.
    And, Mr. Stroup, you are recognized for 5 minutes for your 
opening statement. And, again, thanks for being with us.

    STATEMENTS OF TOM STROUP, PRESIDENT, SATELLITE INDUSTRY 
 ASSOCIATION; JULIE ZOLLER, HEAD OF GLOBAL REGULATORY AFFAIRS, 
    PROJECT KUIPER, AMAZON; JENNIFER A. MANNER, SENIOR VICE 
 PRESIDENT, REGULATORY AFFAIRS, ECHOSTAR CORPORATION; MARGO R. 
 DECKARD, COFOUNDER AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, LYNK GLOBAL, 
INC.; AND KARI A. BINGEN, DIRECTOR, AEROSPACE SECURITY PROJECT, 
         CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

                    STATEMENT OF TOM STROUP

    Mr. Stroup. Chairman Latta, Ranking Member Matsui, Chair 
Rodgers, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank 
you for inviting me to testify before you today. I am Tom 
Stroup, president of the Satellite Industry Association.
    Satellites are the backbone of modern technology. We rely 
on them for communications, position navigation and timing, and 
remote sensing across the globe. In addition to the vast range 
of services offered by the industry today, the companies 
represented by SIA are poised to lead the U.S. into an 
interconnected and data-driven future.
    We are at a time of tremendous innovation in the space 
industry, with over 7,000 active satellites on orbit today and 
plans of tens of thousands more through the end of the decade. 
Americans have long relied upon satellites to provide direct-
to-home TV, satellite radio, and distribution of programming to 
cable companies as well as to TV and radio broadcasters.
    The satellite industry provides FCC-defined broadband 
service across the globe and is prepared to bring the furthest 
corners of America into the 21st century by serving as the most 
viable technology capable of bridging the digital divide into 
rural areas.
    The industry is also working to bring the Nation into an 
interconnected future as a backbone for 5G, IoT, and AI 
technologies. Satellites today provide anytime, anywhere global 
connectivity to consumers, utilities, the maritime industry, 
airlines, and unmanned aerial vehicles.
    Geospatial satellite data has not only transformed 
environmental monitoring but also provides essential business 
analytics from monitoring remote infrastructure to analyzing 
supply chain performance.
    In addition, satellites play a critical role in 
preparation, response, and recovery from national disasters. 
Unlike terrestrial communication counterparts, satellite 
networks are not susceptible to damage from such catastrophes 
because the primary repeaters are onboard the spacecraft and 
not part of the ground infrastructure.
    Remote sensing data and analytics can also help pinpoint 
where damage has occurred and what routes to the location are 
still accessible. Furthermore, synthetic aperture radar 
satellites can see through clouds and allow the mapping of 
damaged regions when storms are still overhead.
    Satellite technology is transforming agriculture across 
America as well. Satellite broadband enables remote farms with 
livestock sensors, soil monitors, and autonomous farming 
equipment in rural America far beyond where terrestrial 
wireless and wireline can reach or make economic sense to 
deploy. Precision GPS technologies allow farmers to increase 
crop yield, and Earth imaging satellites provide high-
resolution imaging that allows them to determine when to plant, 
water, or fertilize crops.
    Satellites are not only a core technology for our domestic 
future but also play a crucial role for advancing our national 
security priorities and partnerships abroad.
    Satellite communications have been a lifeline in Ukraine, 
and Earth imaging satellites have been a game-changer in 
providing near-real-time transparency into the Russian invasion 
of Ukraine.
    While the U.S. has long led the space sector, China trails 
close behind, with similar investments in space technologies 
that not only will be transformative in times of conflict but 
will also undermine international democracy.
    China is investing in navigation, communications, and 
remote sensing systems to rival the U.S. It is critical for 
Congress to support continued domestic innovation and avoid 
regulations that put U.S. providers on an unequal playing field 
internationally.
    The U.S. satellite industry is set to revolutionize daily 
life as we move into a more interconnected world where change 
on Earth is more visible than ever before. In order to ensure 
the success of the U.S. satellite industry, both domestically 
and globally, the industry needs these four things:
    First, assured access to spectrum that enables these 
technologies, from communications frequencies to remote sensing 
data downlinks; second, technology-inclusive policies allowing 
for innovative solutions across domains to address America's 
most challenging needs, including the provision of broadband 
services at the most affordable rates; third, adequate funding 
for Government agencies responsible for oversight and licensing 
of the industry to enable them to keep up with the rapid pace 
of growth in the sector; and finally, a level playing field 
with international competitors, including the removal of 
satellite technologies from restrictive export control 
regulation when international commercial alternatives exist.
    I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, 
and I am happy to answer any questions.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Mr. Stroup's prepared statement has been retained in committee 
files and is available at https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF16/
20230202/115336/HHRG-118-IF16-Wstate-StroupT-20230202-U1.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much for your statement.
    And, Ms. Zoller, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF JULIE ZOLLER

    Ms. Zoller. Thank you, Chair Latta, Ranking Member Matsui, 
Chair McMorris Rodgers, Ranking Member Pallone, and members of 
the subcommittee. I am Julie Zoller, head of global regulatory 
affairs for Amazon's Project Kuiper.
    Project Kuiper is our initiative to increase global 
broadband access through a constellation of 3,236 satellites in 
low Earth orbit, or LEO. Our mission is to deliver fast, 
affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities in 
the United States and around the world.
    We are proud to advance the space and satellite 
capabilities of the United States, and we appreciate the work 
by this committee, the Federal Communications Commission, and 
the whole of government to maintain the strong U.S. leadership 
in these areas.
    Amazon is built around three big ideas: customer obsession, 
long-term thinking, and a willingness to invent. And Kuiper is 
an example of how we bring these principles to life. Amazon 
made a commitment to more than $10 billion to Project Kuiper, 
and we have continued to invest in the infrastructure, people, 
and technology to deliver on that vision.
    Since day one, we have been dedicated to space safety and 
sustainability. These values have influenced the overall 
architecture of our constellation, the design of our 
satellites, and our operations.
    It is an exciting time to be at Kuiper, and the team is 
making incredible progress. We have made major breakthroughs in 
customer terminals, which are high-performing, affordable, and 
smaller and lighter than legacy designs.
    We will soon launch our first two prototype satellites, 
allowing us to prove our technology, including networking and 
subsystems, as we prepare for full-scale deployment.
    We also announced the largest commercial procurement of 
launch vehicles in history to deploy our constellation. These 
launch agreements will support thousands of suppliers and 
skilled jobs across 49 States in the United States and at least 
13 countries in Europe, paving the way for new production and 
launch infrastructure. Importantly, these agreements promote 
American leadership in launch services for the foreseeable 
future.
    U.S. companies are leading the unprecedented growth in the 
satellite industry, and this rapid increase has strained the 
regulatory framework. For its part, on a bipartisan basis, the 
FCC is working to update its rules to promote innovation, 
allocate more spectrum, and provide greater clarity for 
spectrum sharing. Amazon applauds the FCC's response to the 
needs of the satellite industry.
    Additionally, satellite systems are inherently 
international, and many of the international telecommunication 
rules that apply to newer LEO systems like ours favor incumbent 
technologies. That is why, at the upcoming World 
Radiocommunication Conference, it is essential that the U.S. 
set forth priorities to ensure that the rules for LEO systems 
and satellites more generally support the success of this U.S.-
led industry.
    Satellite technology is advancing rapidly, and LEO systems 
will benefit customers across the globe. Congress and the FCC 
can safeguard this progress and ensure American leadership 
within this industry. Congressional attention on these matters, 
like today's hearing, ensures the regulatory process supports 
continued innovation and increases opportunities to provide 
satellite broadband.
    Thank you again to the committee for focusing on satellite 
policy and understanding that it is critical to get U.S. policy 
right. I look forward to your questions and appreciate the 
opportunity to share our views.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Zoller follows:]
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    Mr. Latta. Thank you.
    Ms. Manner, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                STATEMENT OF JENNIFER A. MANNER

    Ms. Manner. Thank you very much.
    Chair Rodgers, Ranking Member Pallone, Chairman Latta, 
Ranking Member Matsui, and members of the subcommittee, thank 
you for inviting me to testify on behalf of EchoStar 
Corporation, where I am senior vice president of regulatory 
affairs.
    I am excited to share my views on a dynamic satellite 
market and what needs to be done to strengthen American 
leadership in this global industry. One area the U.S. satellite 
industry excels is the provision of broadband satellite 
services. This service is critical to having cost-effective and 
timely solutions to solve the digital divide. However, there 
are some hurdles.
    First, the uncertain timeframes associated with the FCC 
licensing process. America cannot lead if applications pile up 
at the FCC. We are hopeful that the FCC's recent hiring of more 
personnel and the creation of the Space Bureau will help, but 
we ask Congress to ensure that adequate funding be made 
available to ensure the FCC has the required resources. There 
should also be FCC guidelines to improve processing times.
    Similarly, it is critical that technology inclusiveness 
govern broadband policies, including grant funding. Satellites 
provide cost-effective broadband services where it is too 
expensive or impossible to deploy terrestrial infrastructure. 
Yet some broadband funding programs are essentially closed to 
satellite operators. Accordingly, in order to ensure all 
Americans have broadband, the Government should ensure that 
grant programs enable the use of satellite broadband 
technology.
    Another area that needs to be addressed is the increased 
need for spectrum and long-term certainty necessary to support 
the large CAPEX and OPEX requirements of satellite networks. 
Increased spectrum sharing is one solution. However, there are 
challenges as we enable more sharing in the fixed satellite 
service bands unless certain principles are adhered to.
    First, there must be good-faith domestic coordination among 
systems. Second, there must be long-term certainty for 
operators for access to spectrum. If these costly systems do 
not have long-term spectrum access, it may be impossible for 
operators to obtain the funding required to support these 
networks, stifling U.S. innovation.
    Further, any sharing solution must consider the full 
operating parameters of these systems, including the aggregate 
interference environment. If such interference environment 
issues are not addressed, systems could face harmful 
interference, degrading service to users.
    It is also important that, before allowing the use of 
terrestrial spectrum by satellite systems, there is proof that 
in-band and adjacent services will not suffer harmful 
interference. Failure to do so could result in a repeat of what 
we saw years ago with garage door openers interfering into 
military communications.
    While some frequency bands can be successfully shared, this 
is not true for mobile satellite service bands. Exciting uses 
of the MSS band, such as IoT and direct-to-device services, are 
happening because of advances in technologies and the 
development of standards. MSS operators like cell phone 
companies that operate an exclusive spectrum are widely 
deployed and utilize omnidirectional antennas. Therefore, it is 
not possible for MSS operators to share spectrum with one 
another without suffering harmful interference.
    Additionally, as demand for satellite services increase, 
additional spectrum must be provided. The Government must 
prioritize this effort as well.
    Of equal importance is including satellite technologies and 
standards developments. It has taken over a decade for 
satellite to be included in 3GPP standards. We are at an 
important juncture now as we further advance the inclusion of 
satellite in 5G and 6G standards at 3GPP and at the ITU. 
Accordingly, the U.S. Government, as a participant, it is 
critical that it support the U.S. satellite industry.
    Finally, I would like to call attention to the upcoming 
2023 World Radio Conference and other IT work. If the U.S. is 
going to prioritize domestically American satellite leadership, 
it must continue the support at the ITU. We are at the most 
exciting time in the satellite industry in our lifetimes. 
Satellite communications is poised to become a day-to-day 
presence. It is critical that the subcommittee takes a 
leadership role in this area and fosters an environment that 
enables the U.S. to continue to revolutionize this very 
important sector.
    EchoStar is committed to working with Congress, the FCC, 
and the administration to advance policies that facilitate U.S. 
leadership in the satellite marketplace. By taking the lead 
now, the U.S. can be sure of continued leadership, not just now 
but also in the future.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I welcome any 
questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Manner follows:]
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    Mr. Latta. Again, thank you very much for your testimony.
    And, Ms. Deckard, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                 STATEMENT OF MARGO R. DECKARD

    Ms. Deckard. Good morning.
    Mr. Latta. You want to pull your microphone right up to you 
there? There you go. Thank you.
    Ms. Deckard. Thank you.
    Good morning, Chair McMorris Rodgers, Ranking Member 
Pallone, Chairman Latta, and Ranking Member Matsui, and members 
of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to join this 
important conversation.
    My name is Margo Deckard, and I am a cofounder and chief 
operating officer of Lynk Global. I am a systems engineer and a 
retired first responder, and I have spent the past three 
decades working in the humanitarian, defense, and space 
sectors.
    I am pleased to share Lynk's story with you, not only 
because our story highlights the new space revolution, but it 
also highlights the need for our Government to support this 
revolution in order for America to lead.
    Lynk was born from the work that I did in the 2014 Ebola 
pandemic crisis response in Liberia and Sierra Leone. While 
looking at BGAN terminals that were deployed to forward field 
hospitals, I noticed that most of these video sat terminals 
were only utilized for texting.
    Think about the information that can be conveyed in a text: 
infection rates, fatalities, supply requests. Think about the 
time saved if a team just has to grab their phone and their go 
bag and respond to a crisis. It is very clear that the terminal 
is the problem. It has to be the device already in everybody's 
pocket, the one they can afford.
    So together with my fellow cofounders, we invented cell 
towers in space that connect to that device already in your 
pocket. We are the world's only patented, proven from orbit, 
and commercially licensed by the FCC satellite direct-to-phone 
system.
    As of January 3, we have three cell towers in space, 
including the first 5G-enabled payload. We are testing in 18 
countries on all seven continents. With $2.5 billion in 
contracts, we are going to begin international, intermittent 
commercial service in April.
    Lynk partners with mobile network operators. They bring the 
spectrum and the customers, and we bring the infrastructure to 
fill in their coverage gaps, extend their coverage, or provide 
their network resiliency. We do this by taking the terrestrial 
base station and moving it onto our small satellites in low 
Earth orbit and solving for Doppler shift and the extended 
range time delay. That is our patented secret sauce.
    We are a proud American company. We were invented and built 
in the United States. Companies like Lynk need a responsive and 
timely regulatory process in order to succeed and in order to 
keep America at the forefront. Satellite direct-to-phone is now 
a category, and it is a category that it is imperative for the 
United States to own.
    Like many new space companies, Lynk is fundamentally 
different than old space companies. We are leaner and more 
agile. In fact, our first payload went from a drawing on a 
napkin to flying in space in 6 months.
    Supporting new space companies, protecting their 
intellectual property and speed to market is absolutely 
critical for American leadership, because foreign governments 
will not slow down their companies. We can end digital poverty 
with this technology. Just like the printing press brought 
knowledge to the masses, so does connectivity provide quality 
of life, education, participation in a global society and 
economy and resiliency.
    I would like to share with you a personal story that really 
highlights the potential benefits of this technology. When I 
was a paramedic, I ran in a rural area near Xenia, Ohio. In 
2000, my community got hit by a tornado, and my neighbor 
tragically was in his barn when the tornado demolished it. My 
neighbor's wife and I dug him out of the barn with our bare 
hands. And miraculously, some kid in a red pickup truck showed 
up and offered to take him to the nearest hospital.
    Now when you get to that end of that street, you can turn 
right to Green Memorial Hospital or you can turn left to Miami 
Valley Hospital. Which way to turn? I was about to guess at a 
life-and-death decision. What I would have given for a 
satellite to fly overhead and transmit a text to first 
responders--Green not accepting patients, highway 35 open to 
the Valley--to the device that is always with me. Lynk can do 
that today.
    Thank you so much for your time, and I look forward to the 
dialogue.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Deckard follows:]
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    Mr. Latta. And thank you very much for your testimony.
    And, Ms. Bingen, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                  STATEMENT OF KARI A. BINGEN

    Ms. Bingen. All right. Thank you.
    Chairman Latta, Ranking Member Matsui, Chairwoman Rodgers, 
and Ranking Member Pallone, subcommittee members as well, thank 
you for the opportunity to appear before you today. CSIS does 
not take policy positions, so the views here are my own.
    Let me start with three main points. One, we are witnessing 
technology and economic trends in the satellite marketplace 
that make this time different than before and leave me bullish 
on the viability of the commercial space sector and its impact.
    Two, foreign competition, especially from China, is 
intensifying. China is coming after our lead, and they don't 
play by our rules.
    Three, our leadership in space isn't guaranteed, nor is it 
a lost cause. I believe there are steps the Government can take 
with urgency and purpose to keep that lead, including in 
regulatory and export policy reforms.
    It is an exciting time to be in the space community. The 
commercial space sector is flourishing with new technology, 
innovative solutions, and talented entrepreneurs.
    A few to highlight. The diffusion of space technology is 
lowering the barrier to entry. Seeing the proliferation of 
small satellites once the size of buses, now the size of 
shoeboxes that can be developed and launched for a few million 
dollars.
    The commercialization of space capabilities that were once 
reserved for nation states is enabling a wider range of uses 
and greater transparency. For example, commercial satellite 
data is being used to detect illegal fishing, to understand the 
impacts of Arctic icecap melt, and to monitor gas pipelines and 
oil storage inventories.
    The convergence of space sensor data, artificial 
intelligence, and global networks is enabling the fusion of 
large datasets with analytic insights that can be delivered 
anywhere on the globe.
    Private capital: 2021 was a record-setting year for private 
capital invested in the commercial space sector. This presents 
an opportunity for government users to leverage space services 
developed with private capital to help meet their mission 
needs.
    Speed. I spent my career in national security space, and I 
was conditioned to expect satellites to be delivered and 
fielded in about 10 years or more. In contrast, there is one 
commercial satellite operator today that is outputting six to 
seven satellites per day off its production line.
    While all of these trends benefit U.S. space companies, 
they also apply to the foreign space landscape. The global 
space ambitions of Beijing in particular are the most 
consequential to our national and economic security. Chinese 
President Xi Jinping has articulated a space dream to make 
China the foremost space power by 2045.
    China's increasingly robust space capabilities include 
advanced navigation, communications, intelligence, missile 
warning, in-space logistics, and space situational awareness. 
It is also pursuing an arsenal of counterspace weapons that 
would deny our use of space assets.
    We can no longer assume that we lead in all areas of space. 
For example, in 2021, the National Geospatial-Intelligence 
Agency assessed that China was the global leader in three of 
nine categories of commercial space-based imagery capabilities. 
U.S. commercial providers maintained the lead in only three.
    A particularly acute area of space competition is in 
commercial SATCOM, which CSIS recently examined in a study on 
low Earth orbit broadband networks that I commend to your 
reading. These constellations offer a compelling solution for 
bridging the digital divide, specifically for rural and 
underserved communities, as nearly 40 percent of the world's 
population and 28 percent of rural households in America remain 
unconnected.
    China's global space objectives, including a planned LEO 
broadband network, have been incorporated into its digital Silk 
Road Initiative. However, this expanding space network comes at 
a price. Foreign customers of Chinese LEO broadband services 
should assume that their data will be sent to Beijing and that 
Beijing will surveil users and block internet access at will. 
After all, China has a national intelligence law that requires 
organizations and citizens to support intelligence work and to 
keep it secret.
    So let me offer a few recommendations that can help 
maintain U.S. leadership in space and position U.S. companies 
to retain their competitive advantage: Make simple changes in 
regulatory licensing processes, such as establishing defined 
timelines and opening communication channels with companies; 
revisit technology export control policies, ITAR specifically, 
that are hindering space cooperation with our allies and 
partners, who we will need to successfully compete; take a 
leadership role in key international coordination bodies--a 
U.S. person is taking on leadership of the ITU after 8 years of 
Chinese leadership; seek greater adoption and integration of 
commercial space capabilities and services to support mission 
needs.
    Finally, the Department of Commerce in 2018 was given a 
responsibility to provide basic safety services to commercial 
space operators and the public. I would encourage commerce to 
be forward-leaning in executing and resourcing these efforts 
within their Office of Space Commerce.
    Thank you again for the time today, and I look forward to 
your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Bingen follows:]
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    Mr. Latta. And, again, thank you to all of our witnesses 
today for your statements. We really appreciate it here on the 
Energy and Commerce Committee and hearing what you are saying 
today. We look over the horizon 5 to 10 years, because that is 
where you all are. And so to get the right legislation and the 
regulations in place, we need to hear from you. So we 
appreciate you being here today.
    This begins our questions from our Members, and I will 
begin the questioning and recognize myself for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Stroup, in your statement, you speak of the state of 
the satellite industry. What do you see as some of the greatest 
challenges of the industry that is facing you at this time?
    Mr. Stroup. Thank you for the question. I think that the 
four primary challenges that the industry is facing are 
continued access to spectrum. All of the services that we have 
talked about rely on spectrum. It is an increasingly shortage 
resource, but we cannot continue to grow without access to 
spectrum.
    The next is a stable regulatory environment and sufficient 
resources for those organizations that oversee the industry. 
Geostationary satellites are expected to have a lifespan of 15 
to 20 years. Nongeostationary constellations often cost 5 to 10 
billion dollars to deploy. And so having a stable regulatory 
environment to ensure that the rules don't change during the 
lifespan of a satellite or a constellation is important.
    We commend the FCC for their plans to create a Space Bureau 
and the increased resources that have been made available to 
address the tremendous number of applications that have been 
filed, but continued resources for the FCC and other oversight 
organizations is important.
    Space sustainability is important. Given the tremendous 
increase in the number of satellites, knowledge of where they 
are and other objects in space is important, and we are happy 
to see the Office of Space Commerce funded to be able to put 
together a space situational awareness capability.
    And then finally, something that I think that most of the 
speakers today have touched upon is international competition, 
especially as potential restrictions on U.S. companies that 
might not apply to our international competitors.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Manner, you have extensive experience working with the 
FCC to authorize the various systems and services that Hughes/
EchoStar provides. What is the FCC's current role in licensing 
satellite systems and what information do they consider when 
approving a license request?
    Ms. Manner. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Latta. Oh, if you would turn your speaker on. Thank 
you.
    Ms. Manner. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the 
question.
    So the FCC process--and I am focused not on small sats, we 
are not a small sat provider today--but generally is 
information about ITU filings, information on spectrum, 
technical characteristics and operational parameters, an 
orbital debris plan, showing compliance with the rules and 
waivers. But I wanted to bring up three areas that I wanted to 
highlight which I think do hurt American competitiveness in the 
FCC's application process.
    The first is the limits on the number of ITU filings and 
the timing for ITU filings that U.S. systems can be made 
through the FCC. Unfortunately, today most countries allow 
unfettered ITU filings or with very little limits. The FCC has 
very strict restrictions. This often causes U.S. operators to 
go forum shopping for other nations in which to file their 
systems to.
    Another area of concern is bonds. The FCC in the early 
2000s came up with a concept to reduce speculation to impose a 
bond requirement on satellite systems. Unfortunately, that does 
hamper the ability of operators to go through the U.S. for 
licensing.
    And the third area I would like to highlight, which is an 
area under consideration in an FCC rulemaking right now, is the 
number of unbuilt systems that one operator could have.
    So I think improvements in the licensing process in these 
three areas would be particularly helpful as well to encourage 
U.S. leadership in satellite licensing and satellite systems.
    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much.
    Ms. Deckard, it is important this Congress examine its laws 
and conducts oversight of agency regulations to understand 
where the market is heading. Could you describe some of the 
services that Lynk offers right now or plans to offer the 
United States? And I have like about a minute left. So thank 
you.
    Ms. Deckard. Thank you. So Lynk currently offers texting 
and emergency cell broadcast services internationally. We are 
licensed internationally, so we don't currently offer those 
services in the U.S., but we do test them here.
    We are on a path to provide broadband by 2025 as we build 
out our constellation from the initial 10 satellites which are 
authorized under the small sat authorization to our full 
constellation, which will be about 5,000 satellites.
    Mr. Latta. And what is the timeline again on that, please?
    Ms. Deckard. 2025, we will be able to support broadband. 
And we are actually launching international service in April. 
So as soon as we have an M&O partner here in the U.S. and we 
can go back to the FCC and ask for market access, then we will 
be able to provide those services here in the U.S.
    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much.
    And, again, thanks to our witnesses.
    And at this time, I will yield back and recognize the 
ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentlelady from 
California, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Matsui. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The global satellite marketplace is growing increasingly 
competitive. For the U.S. to remain the pacesetter in this 
technology, it is vital that our rules provide incentives for 
U.S. companies to seek licenses here. As we review the rules 
for U.S. licenses and requests for market access, we have a 
chance to reinforce U.S. leadership.
    Ms. Zoller and Ms. Bingen, just a quick yes or no. Do you 
believe FCC rules should incentivize operators to seek a U.S. 
license rather than choosing a foreign government certification 
with lower requirements whenever appropriate? Just yes or no, 
Ms. Zoller and Ms. Bingen.
    Ms. Zoller. Yes.
    Ms. Bingen. Yes.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. To keep the satellite marketplace dynamic, 
we need to strike the right balance between protecting 
incumbent operations and creating room for new entrants to 
compete. To this end, I sent a letter to Chairwoman Rosenworcel 
urging her to balance the goals of the new-entry market with 
certain protections of existing operators.
    Ms. Zoller, do you think it is possible to strike this 
balance, and what regulatory tools could be used to keep the 
market innovative?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you for that question. Yes, I do think it 
is possible to achieve that balance. One of the most important 
things in that regard is to have clear sharing rules for 
spectrum, sharing between nongeostationary systems as well as 
between nongeostationary and other satellite systems.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Matsui. Thank you. The FCC has made important progress 
on increasing technical coordination between system operators. 
I recently sent Chairwoman Rosenworcel a letter urging her to 
institute continuous and flexible information-sharing 
requirements to help achieve cooperation.
    Ms. Zoller again, can you describe the role of coordination 
between operators and the specific type of technical 
information that could support satellite coexistence?
    Ms. Zoller. Coordination between operators involves sharing 
information about their satellite network design, the 
constellation design, the plans for service areas, and the 
plans for when they are going to transmit to where.
    So that kind of information sharing, so that you know the 
difference, especially if you are a low Earth orbiting system 
like Kuiper, you know when a satellite is going to transmit to 
a particular point on the Earth. You are able to know if there 
is really a potential for interference or not a potential for 
interference. So information sharing is important.
    Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much.
    My new district now includes areas with a rich tradition of 
agriculture stretching back generations. Like any other small 
business, these family farms are always looking for ways to 
innovate and improve their yields.
    Ms. Manner, can you describe the role of IoT in precision 
agriculture and how satellite service could support this 
technology?
    Ms. Manner. Thank you very much for the question. So first 
off, satellite is one of a solution, one of many solutions. You 
have, of course, fiber, terrestrial wireless, fixed wireless. 
Satellite is particularly good in rural areas which are part of 
your district, where you can use satellites for everything from 
monitoring, you know, the level of moisture in the ground to 
working with your tractors and other farm equipment to either 
ensure navigation if you need broadband. You could download 
maps and other information. So it has a wide variety of uses. 
It can also connect all the devices in a farm. And when you are 
talking about larger farms that are a conglomerate of different 
farms, you can also share information among each other, which 
is something that we have seen been done.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. Thank you.
    As a cochair of the Spectrum Caucus, I understand the 
increasing demand for spectrum across all industries. As we 
look to the future, the satellite industry, like other wireless 
communication industries, will need to find ways to be more 
efficient with the spectrum it has to accommodate more users.
    Ms. Zoller, what technologies are available today to 
improve spectrum efficiency, and what could be done in the 
future?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you for the question. LEO systems are 
uniquely suited for spectrum efficiency, because many 
satellites are visible to a given point on the Earth, and also 
the ability to use small beams enables LEO systems to reuse 
spectrum intensively.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. Thank you very much.
    And I would like to thank the witnesses for being here 
today, and I am sure we will be speaking with you more often. 
Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. The gentlelady yields back.
    And at this time, the Chair recognizes the gentlelady from 
Washington, the chair of the full committee, for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Energy and Commerce Committee has been a long leader in 
advancing 5G, autonomous vehicles, and other advanced 
technologies. In each of these areas, competitors like China 
have sought to undermine U.S. leadership in developing and 
deploying these services, like the planned 13,000-satellite 
StarNet constellation.
    Ms. Bingen--there you are--what are the greatest threats to 
the United States in space and how should we be thinking about 
these national security issues in the satellite communications 
industry?
    Ms. Bingen. Thank you for that question, Madam Chair. So I 
look at threats to U.S. space capabilities in two ways. One is 
security and one is economic.
    So on the security front, our adversaries know how 
important space is not just to our daily lives, to our 
financial transactions, but to how our military fights wars. We 
cannot project power overseas without relying on space 
capabilities, navigation, communications, et cetera.
    They know how valuable that is, and they are developing 
weapons to deny our use of that. We have actually seen it in 
Ukraine, so this is not a hypothetical, where Russia early in 
the conflict sought to target commercial communication 
satellites, sought to deny GPS as well.
    On the economic front, we are clearly in a technology and a 
space race with China, and President Xi has made it very clear 
with top-down direction. He has prioritized aerospace as a 
technology area. There are massive private- and public-sector 
investments, and they have given their companies quite a bit of 
leeway.
    So what I think is interesting here is, in the past, our 
Government has led in this area, and now it is really the 
commercial sector leading the way. And where that economic and 
that security piece come together for me is our military has 
long relied on a technology advantage. As that advantage is 
starting to close, I am concerned about our military advantage 
eroding as well.
    Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you. I appreciate that.
    Ms. Zoller, the satellite industry has seen significant 
growth and change in the last several years. Amazon Kuiper is 
one example of a company that is innovative and saw an 
opportunity to enter the marketplace as a new operator.
    Would you speak to us about your experience getting Project 
Kuiper licensed, and what have been some of the biggest 
challenges you have faced through the process?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you for the question. Our experience has 
been positive. We received our license to launch and operate 
the Kuiper constellation in July of 2020. And just in December 
of 2022, we received our experimental license to launch the two 
prototype satellites that are going up in the coming months.
    The issues are really complex, but the FCC is helping with 
that by initiating spectrum-sharing procedures and procedures 
to make more spectrum available to nongeostationary satellite 
systems like ours.
    Mrs. Rodgers. Thank you.
    Ms. Manner, you offer many different services, from fixed 
satellite service that provides in-home broadband to mobile 
satellite service that provides highly reliable voice or data 
services to utilities or the transportation sector.
    Given that these services transcend national borders, can 
you speak to us about how these services are coordinated 
globally?
    Ms. Manner. Thank you. It is complex. We start with having 
the required ITU filings--that is where everything starts--and 
having to coordinate our systems internationally, and then we 
go down to market access. And market access will include 
different rules for different services, and it may also result 
in conflicting coordination requirements.
    Just yesterday we announced a new LEO system, MSS. And just 
looking at the three largest markets in the Americas--the U.S., 
Brazil, and Canada--we will be subject possibly to three 
different coordination requirements of our system. So not only 
do we have the ITU coordination requirements, we have those of 
individual countries. So one thing that would be helpful is if 
we had a single international regime that all countries used as 
opposed to a patchwork, but we still have the patchwork with 
the market access.
    And then standards is the third portion of this. And one of 
the things we are very proud of was being a leader of 3GPP and 
then getting satellite included in the 3GPP standards, which 
creates global ecosystems and gives signals to countries on 
where to allow certain technology. So we think that helps our 
market access as well.
    Thank you.
    Mrs. Rodgers. I appreciate that. And thank you again, 
everyone, for being here, sharing your insights.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much. The gentlelady yields 
back.
    And at this time, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
New Jersey, the ranking member of the full committee, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Chairman Latta.
    I mentioned earlier that I am interested in how new and 
novel satellite technologies can bridge the connectivity gap 
during natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires, as 
these events have a strong track record of bringing down our 
communications infrastructure for extended periods. And we have 
to consider how innovation in this area can help reduce the 
number and lengths of outages that our communities have to deal 
with at the time they are perhaps most in need of a connection 
to call a first responder or a loved one or to get life-saving 
emergency items.
    So I wanted to get one question into Ms. Deckard and 
another to Ms. Bingen. Let me start with Ms. Deckard.
    Can you describe how satellite-based services like those 
offered by Lynk can ensure that our ability to reach emergency 
services in times of disaster are not interrupted even if our 
traditional communications infrastructure is offline, and what 
has changed to make the service possible? And in your 
experience as a first responder, how can lives be saved by 
having this kind of network redundancy in place during 
emergencies?
    Ms. Deckard. Thank you for the question.
    So Lynk is a fundamental change in the way we deliver 
communications. First of all, by using UHF bands from space, we 
connect to that unmodified phone already in everyone's pocket.
    Because we move the terrestrial base station onto our small 
satellites in orbit, we aren't subject to the same 
perturbations that a terrestrial cell tower is subject to in a 
natural disaster or a fire. We don't melt, and we don't get 
blown down.
    So we are that instantaneous backup. As long as our cell 
tower in space is overhead, we provide that seamless 
connectivity.
    In fact, during normal operations, the Lynk cell tower is 
the weakest signal in the sky, and then when a customer moves 
out of their terrestrial coverage, our signal becomes the 
strongest, and they seamlessly roam onto our network. That is 
true whether it is in normal operations or if our terrestrial 
partner's network goes down.
    In terms of the lifesaving capabilities, I feel this is a 
sea change, not only for first responders but for the 
communities that they serve. Communications is the most 
critical part in the chain of survival.
    I think about the Gerrish-Chung family every day. They 
perished in Sierra National Forest. Jonathan, Ellen, their baby 
girl, and their dog died of heat exhaustion with texts queued 
up in their phone.
    With the Lynk cell towers, that just won't happen. If you 
have a phone in your pocket, you will be able to initiate that 
chain of survival and help yourself to be rescued.
    Mr. Pallone. All right. Well, thank you.
    These last several years there has been an ongoing 
conversation in Congress and across the Government about how to 
support American innovation, particularly in the technology 
sector, and also to ensure that our communications networks and 
technology are not used by bad actors and our foreign 
adversaries to do harm.
    So, Ms. Bingen, in your testimony you note that in the 
aerospace sector, and I quote, ``Beijing's economic and 
industrial espionage against the U.S. continues to represent a 
significant threat to America's prosperity, security, and 
competitive advantage.''
    So can you describe in greater detail why satellite 
technology poses that threat? And do you think it is important 
to ensure that satellite systems that are owned and operated by 
bad actors and foreign adversaries are prevented from either 
being licensed here in the U.S. or gaining access to U.S. 
markets?
    Ms. Bingen. Thank you, sir.
    I would say that Chinese vendors--and I would use ZTE and 
Huawei as examples--they do pose a significant risk to our 
security. They are subject to Chinese Government controls. And 
China has made it very clear they are out to steal our 
technology and apply it to their military and to advancing 
their own technology sector.
    Whether we are talking satellites or we are talking 
terrestrial communications infrastructure, if it is a Chinese 
system, if China built it, if they operated it, they now have 
the means and the access. They can build in backdoors. They 
have the means and access to block users' access to that 
network, to potentially censor content, to exfiltrate sensitive 
data, personal information, and bring that back to Beijing. 
Plus the ability, as you said, sir, to conduct espionage or 
possibly even sabotage.
    An example of that is the African Union headquarters. 
Beijing funded it, their state-owned enterprises built it, and 
they operate the network. It was reported that, for 5 years, 
that data from the African Union headquarters was being 
siphoned off and sent back to Beijing.
    So that is why I say, as a user of Chinese networks, you 
would have to assume that that was a possibility.
    Mr. Pallone. All right. Thank you so much.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back.
    And at this time, the Chair will recognize Members as they 
came in at the gavel. And at this time, the Chair will 
recognize the gentleman from the Second District of Florida for 
5 minutes.
    Mr. Dunn. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to thank the panelists as well for their testimony.
    The United States literally must remain a global leader in 
innovative satellite technologies and communications. The 
Federal Government should play a supportive role in this by 
ensuring that the regulatory process does not inhibit 
innovation with overly burdensome regulations.
    This is why I reintroduced the LAUNCHES Act with my 
esteemed colleague from Florida, Congressman Soto. The LAUNCHES 
Act streamlines the bureaucratic elements of the rocket-
launching process and makes it easier for private companies to 
obtain the spectrum necessary for launches.
    I look forward to working with Congressman Soto, the 
members of the committee, and the entire House on the passage 
of this bill this session.
    Another goal that is particularly important to me is 
bringing rural broadband access to every square foot of the 
Florida Panhandle. The ability to maintain internet access 
during and after natural disasters is vitally important to 
saving lives. We witnessed that firsthand after Hurricane 
Michael devastated the panhandle in 2018, taking out our 
communications.
    Satellite communications can play a really important role 
in that mission. So we need to ensure that the regulatory 
process supports the innovations happening at companies like 
yours and throughout the entire satellite industry.
    Mr. Stroup, I am interested in hearing what the industry 
considers its most pressing issue right now.
    Mr. Stroup. I believe the most pressing issue today, as it 
has been for some period of time, is access to spectrum, 
continued access to spectrum.
    Mr. Dunn. Spectrum. Very good. Good. Underline it. That is 
good.
    Is there a feeling of uncertainty or hesitancy when your 
members are working with government? Is that an inhibition to 
innovation?
    Mr. Stroup. I am sorry. Could you repeat the question?
    Mr. Dunn. When your members are working with all the 
different government regulators that you have to work with, I 
mean, do they have a feeling that they don't know exactly what 
it is the regulators want, and does that inhibit them?
    Mr. Stroup. So certainly regulatory uncertainty is an 
issue. I mean, for example, a few years ago we went through a 
Spectrum Frontiers proceeding where we had to start sharing 
spectrum with the terrestrial industry. That kind of 
uncertainty creates issues because they have launched 
satellites with certain capacity, operating on certain 
frequencies that are no longer restricted.
    So that was one of the reasons for noting stability of 
regulation as an important issue for our members, because it 
does continue to be an issue.
    Mr. Dunn. I understand that. I just wanted to hear you say 
it because I know how important that is. We talk about spectrum 
a lot up here, but we don't seem to actually get to the goal 
line very often.
    Ms. Zoller, from the perspective of the average consumer in 
rural America, what practical difference would a robust low 
Earth orbit satellite communication system that is broadly 
deployed, what are they going to see different on the ground?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you for that question.
    Kuiper is designed specifically to meet the needs of rural 
and remote citizens by providing high-speed, affordable 
broadband access to communities that don't have the 
availability of traditional wired and wireless solutions.
    Mr. Dunn. That just sort of describes the Second District 
of Florida in a lot of locations. So we would love to see that. 
I can't tell you how many calls we get on that.
    Quick followup. In your testimony, you provided some 
comments on proposed rules and initiatives that the FCC is 
working on. Which of those items helps you to deploy faster?
    Ms. Zoller. The rules on spectrum sharing between 
nongeostationary systems and understanding how later licensees 
need to protect earlier licensees. Greater clarity on that 
point. Thank you.
    Mr. Dunn. So I am detecting a common thread here: spectrum, 
spectrum, spectrum. So I hope that we can actually solve this 
problem for you during this very productive congressional 
session that we plan to have.
    Chairman Latta, I yield back the remainder of my time. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back 
the remainder of his time.
    And at this time, the chairman will recognize the gentleman 
from Florida for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    In Florida's Ninth Congressional District, looking from my 
backyard in Kissimmee, it is quite a fascinating world. We get 
to see rockets launch multiple times a week from Cape Canaveral 
in my colleague Bill Posey's district.
    Cape Canaveral has become the busiest spaceport in the 
world, and 57 launches in 2022, and we are looking at 86 to 92 
launches in 2023, according to the Space Force. A very exciting 
area. My constituents get on that beachline every day and drive 
out to work for NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, and many 
others.
    And I am proud to have launched the bipartisan LAUNCHES 
Communications Act with Dr. Dunn that we just filed yesterday.
    Right now, you need a license for every launch. I applaud 
the FCC for establishing a new rule for the 2200 to 2290 
megahertz band, but it feels like it is still going a little 
slow compared to what we need.
    Mr. Stroup, how critical is it to streamline FCC 
applications for launches, including satellite launches?
    Mr. Stroup. Streamlining is an extremely important issue to 
the industry, and as a matter of fact, we had a working group 
meeting yesterday to talk about additional recommendations that 
we can make to the Commission for further streamlining.
    So in terms of access to spectrum, whether it is for launch 
or whether it is for the operation of the satellites, it is 
extremely important. The Commission has taken some steps to 
further streamline the process. But we are looking forward to 
making additional recommendations on how they can further 
streamline it.
    Mr. Soto. Space flight, it literally is rocket science. So 
have you seen delays before because of not getting an 
application on time, combined with weather and other factors, 
as a result of having to do an individual license?
    Mr. Stroup. My understanding from some of our members is 
sometimes just before launch they finally are able to get an 
application granted.
    Again, the chairwoman noted the number of applications that 
they have received, the backlog of applications, which I 
believe is one of the reasons for restructuring the FCC to be 
able to address some of those issues.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you.
    And Ms. Zoller, we know that satellite internet is one of 
the keys to the future in our Nation. I know the NTIA recently 
had made a ruling about the reliability threshold and that we 
need to get up there in a hurry with these satellites.
    And so achieving scale and competition is critical. We see 
Starlink has 3,500 satellites and counting. You all plan to 
start with 3,200 but are going to go beyond that too.
    So how do we help make sure we have multiple companies and 
maintain competition so that we could get to that threshold 
with the 65 billion that we already have through the 
infrastructure law to make sure that satellite can also 
qualify?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you for that question.
    It is important that the rules foster innovation and 
competition. We received our license to launch Kuiper in 2020, 
and we have really made incredible progress with the $10 
billion investment. We have continued to invest in 
infrastructure. We have employees in Washington building our 
satellites right now. We announced the largest launch contract 
deals in history in April of last year, and we will be 
launching our satellites in the near future.
    There will be multiple winners in low Earth orbit to 
connect the unconnected. And I think you asked a really 
important question. Getting the rules set so that spectrum is 
available, it is reliably available, we have consistency across 
the globe on spectrum access because satellite systems are 
inherently global in nature, and that we have clear spectrum-
sharing rules, because we are not up there alone.
    Mr. Soto. That is very helpful, Ms. Zoller. We know we want 
you all to get to the level like others. The 65 billion in the 
infrastructure law was technology neutral, but there is some 
work with the NTIA. And we wish you all the best of luck in 
scaling up so we could have multiple different ways for our 
constituents, particularly in rural areas of Florida, to be 
able to access internet.
    And I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back.
    And at this time, the Chair will recognize the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Joyce. Thank you, Chairman Latta and Ranking Member 
Matsui, for hosting today's hearing on the satellite 
marketplace and providing us with an opportunity to highlight 
the importance of this specific technology and its role for 
closing the digital divide and ensuring that all Americans have 
access to fast and reliable broadband.
    The topography of my congressional district calls for an 
all-of-the-above approach for getting my constituents 
connected, from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to Johnstown, 
Pennsylvania. Satellite technology has the ability to reach 
those who are and were previously unreachable.
    I am interested to learn more about how members of this 
subcommittee can help to bolster the satellite industry and 
keep the United States as a leader and an innovator in this 
technology. We can't afford to fall behind our adversaries as 
we move further into the 21st century.
    My first question is for both Ms. Bingen and Mr. Stroup. 
Ms. Bingen first.
    Who do you see as our biggest adversarial competitor when 
it comes to the satellite industry? And what can we be doing to 
ensure that the United States remains that leader, that 
innovator for this technology?
    Ms. Bingen. Thank you, sir.
    China. China, China, China.
    And then I would say, in terms of U.S. leadership, our 
commercial space sector is phenomenal. It is incredibly 
innovative. We have entrepreneurs that are really pushing the 
envelope. They are taking risks in areas that the Government 
wouldn't.
    What I would say there is we need to be able to get them on 
the playing field. So the regulatory issues that some of my 
colleagues here have highlighted, having a more enabling 
regulatory environment to get them on the field, I think, is 
really important.
    The other piece here is the technology export control 
policies. We are at a point where these companies, these 
American businesses, are offering a tremendous capability in 
data imagery, et cetera, to our allies and partners who want to 
work with the U.S. The problem is, is those partners now have a 
choice. It is not just an American company going in there. It 
is a European competimate. It is China.
    When our companies are hampered by long ITAR processes, 
ITAR processes that don't account for how quickly technology is 
moving, they are not as competitive internationally. And the 
result of that is now the U.S. Government has to be that anchor 
tenant and fund them as opposed to them getting diverse revenue 
from other sources.
    Mr. Joyce. And I thank you. I share those concerns that our 
biggest adversary is China.
    Mr. Stroup, would you weigh on this as well, please?
    Mr. Stroup. I agree with Ms. Bingen's comments. China.
    And one recommendation that I would make to help ensure a 
strong broadband industry in the United States is the 
application of technology-neutral funding rules.
    So, for example, Congress has made a substantial amount of 
funding available to bring broadband to the country. Across the 
country there are areas where satellite is the most cost-
effective means of being able to provide that service, and 
ensuring that satellite companies are eligible for that funding 
is a way of ensuring not only that Americans get access to that 
service, but also the health of the industry.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Joyce. Ms. Deckard, you mentioned how currently you are 
planning to provide text services. Can you go into a bit of 
detail? Once those text services have been established and 
continue to evolve, what are the next expansions? What are the 
next steps that you are looking to take?
    Ms. Deckard. Thank you for the question.
    So we are on a path to provide broadband, and along that 
path, as we build out the constellation and add satellites, we 
add services.
    So from texting and emergency cell broadcast, we move to 
supporting things like IP messaging, digital money, and all 
those things that especially our international market needs in 
order to thrive. And then we move to broadband in 2025 and 
support almost all the traditional services that you enjoy on 
your phone today.
    Mr. Joyce. Thank you.
    My final question is for you, Ms. Zoller.
    How do you anticipate that Kuiper can help get rural 
Americans, like those who live in my district, connected? Do 
you anticipate offering home broadband services?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you for that question.
    Yes, we do. We anticipate serving households, businesses, 
schools, hospitals, Government agencies, and other 
organizations in rural and underserved areas.
    Mr. Joyce. I thank all of the witnesses for testifying here 
today. Your message is not lost on this subcommittee.
    And I yield the remainder of my time.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back.
    And at this time, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Veasey. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I think this 
is great that we are having this hearing today on next-
generation satellites.
    I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today.
    And one of my top priorities here is obviously being able 
to increase access to the internet and the affordability gap, 
which, quite frankly, impacts all of our constituents in some 
form or fashion.
    And now, as new technology develops and promises greater 
capabilities, there is optimism and opportunity to capitalize 
on these developments to help us reach the connectivity goals 
that so many of us, if not all of us, want to see happen in the 
21st century.
    Mr. Stroup, in your testimony, you mentioned the need for 
technology-inclusive policies to address America's challenges 
regarding connectivity. Can you explain how the satellite 
industry is helping identify the parts of the country that can 
benefit the most from a robust investment in infrastructure and 
advanced technologies to help close a lot of these gaps when it 
comes to accessibility to things like broadband?
    Mr. Stroup. So we have here with me two companies that are 
providing broadband services, and there are several others. And 
a lot of the market opportunity is for those areas of the 
country that cannot receive any other signal.
    One of the other things that I would note, in addition to 
providing service to those otherwise unserved areas is the 
ability to provide competition for every other area where there 
is broadband service. There are multiple companies providing 
broadband service, satellite broadband service today, now in 
competition with, whether they are fiber companies or other 
means of providing broadband service.
    So they are looking at every one of the opportunities to 
take advantage of the funding. As I have noted, one of the 
concerns is that it is not being applied in a technology-
neutral basis. So the fact that we are deploying these 
technologies, we have multiple companies deploying the 
technologies, I think is going to be one of the drivers in 
ensuring that the services are available.
    Mr. Veasey. Thank you very much.
    I was hoping that someone could provide me--Ms. Zoller or 
Mr. Stroup, can you provide an example of an industry that is 
partnering with local organizations and schools to raise 
awareness about opportunities, particularly in this space?
    I know that that also is something that a lot of us are 
concerned about as we look at these achievement gaps, we look 
at diversity in the workforce and people being able to deploy 
these.
    Can you talk about that a little bit, either one of you?
    Mr. Stroup. Thank you for the question.
    In terms of partnering with global organizations to make 
them aware of opportunities, just as an example today, we are 
hosting, SIA is hosting a delegation from the Bahamas on how we 
can help provide 5G infrastructure for the country.
    So that is an example of the global nature of the industry 
and things that we are doing to help ensure opportunities 
across the globe.
    Mr. Veasey. Ms. Zoller?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you.
    Diversity and inclusion is an extremely important goal, 
both from the perspective of how we are building the company 
but also from the perspective of connectivity.
    One of the things that is important is STEM education and 
an emphasis on STEM education in early elementary school so 
that we can build that engineering talent to work on satellites 
like Project Kuiper.
    Mr. Veasey. OK. Do you believe that there is a lack of 
interest when it comes to STEM, particularly when we talk about 
engineering and math, just because a lot of kids are 
intimidated? My son is 16 years old, and I know the one thing 
that his physics teacher said at the very beginning of the year 
is that he doesn't want kids to see this as another 
intimidating math course. And so he strives to really be 
creative in the curriculum.
    Do you think that there is an issue there when it comes to 
interest among children when it comes to STEM and math-related 
subject matters?
    Ms. Zoller. I can only speak from my own experience as an 
engineer, and having seen fewer women enter the field, I think 
there is an issue there. I have done tutoring for a number of 
years, and my focus area in my tutoring work has always been 
math and science and helping kids connect to the possibilities 
that those careers provide and to be a real-life example of 
that.
    Mr. Veasey. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields 
backthe balance of his time.
    And at this time, the Chair will recognize the gentleman 
from Texas' 14th District for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Weber. Thank you very much.
    And thank you, panel, for being here.
    I guess I am going to address this first one--is it 
``Stroop''? Is that how you say your name?
    Mr. Stroup. ``Strowp.''
    Mr. Weber. ``Strowp.'' That was my next guess.
    How is the access to spectrum--which was a major concern 
pretty much everybody voiced--how is that protected?
    Mr. Stroup. Frequency bands are allocated for specific 
purposes.
    Mr. Weber. Right. And I realize there is a part of the 
spectrum that is low frequency and there is ultra-high 
frequency. There is very high frequency. But what prevents 
somebody like China from using all that up?
    Mr. Stroup. There is an international coordination 
organization that is responsible for that. Certainly there is a 
desire to avoid interference because, ultimately, if you are 
interfering with one country's allocation, you are potentially 
going to have distorted service, I guess would be the best 
example. But there is an international--the ITU is responsible 
for international coordination.
    Mr. Weber. So whoever wins the widest bandwidth and that 
allocation wins the satellite war?
    Mr. Stroup. I think it would certainly provide an 
advantage. And there are other issues associated with success 
in the industry. But having access to more spectrum than a 
competitor would provide you an advantage.
    Mr. Weber. How do we prevent that?
    Mr. Stroup. I am sorry?
    Mr. Weber. How do we prevent that?
    Mr. Stroup. I think that the United States taking a unified 
position before the WRC is one of the strongest ways to----
    Mr. Weber. And I don't mean to sound--I guess, well, maybe 
I do--pessimistic, but do we really expect China to play by 
those rules?
    Mr. Stroup. Does China play by the rules? Certainly, we 
have seen that they do not play by the rules in many areas.
    Mr. Weber. So, again, how do we protect that?
    Mr. Stroup. Again, I am sorry to come back to the same 
answer, but ensuring that the United States has a unified 
position promoting the satellite industry is part of the 
objective.
    Mr. Weber. It is a real problem, isn't it? Would the rest 
of the panel agree? Making sure that China abides by those 
rules would be a real problem.
    Does the FCC monitor that closely, what China is doing in 
the spectrum--or any other country for that matter? Do we know?
    They do not monitor that. That is encouraging.
    And I am going to move over to Lynk now, if I can, with a 
question for you.
    When you have got phone service that go into different 
countries and stuff--it looks like, from your website, you have 
about 100,000 customers currently?
    Ms. Deckard. No. We have deals with 26 mobile network 
operators around the world that represent billions of----
    Mr. Weber. Oh, is that right? OK. Well, I must have not 
read closely enough or deeply enough.
    Does the caller ID come across international around the 
world?
    Ms. Deckard. I am sorry, sir?
    Mr. Weber. When somebody calls, do they see the caller ID?
    Ms. Deckard. What do you mean by caller ID? The network 
that they----
    Mr. Weber. Well, in other words, I need to know when my 
wife is calling because I have got to pick up eggs.
    Ms. Deckard. Yes.
    Mr. Weber. So does that caller ID show up no matter what 
country I am in?
    Ms. Deckard. Absolutely. In fact, core to the way Lynk 
operates, it is seamless for the user and it is seamless for 
our M&O partner. There's no changes to our M&O partner network. 
It is just like if you were in Europe and you roamed your--your 
AT&T phone roamed onto an EE British network and your call came 
back here to the States and she received the call, it would be 
absolutely no difference in her experience.
    Mr. Weber. And you may not want to answer this question, 
but do you all have any plans to be able to monitor the same 
kind of service out of countries like China?
    Ms. Deckard. That is a delicate question.
    What I would say, as a focus of this hearing, is that the 
day before Apple announced their SOS feature on the i14, Huawei 
announced they were going to use BeiDou for texting.
    So as we address spectrum sharing and spectrum rules, I 
would share that Lynk feels that speed to market is one of the 
critical ways that the U.S. can maintain leadership. So not 
slowing down our innovative companies so they get market share 
so that they are the ones in the nations of Africa supplying 
that connectivity, and that we beat China to that market space.
    Mr. Weber. OK. The last question is for Mr. Stroup. Back to 
you.
    Can we identify attack satellites in space, those who are 
capable of shooting beyond the satellites?
    Mr. Stroup. I am not aware of that technology, but--I will 
leave it at that. I am not aware of that technology being able 
to identify a satellite that would be used for that purpose.
    Mr. Weber. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back.
    And at this time, the gentlelady from California's 18th 
District is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The number of my 
district has changed due to redistricting, so it is now sweet 
16. How is that?
    Mr. Latta. I will go to my friend.
    Ms. Eshoo. Yes. Congratulations to you on becoming the 
chairman of this all-important subcommittee.
    And from our side of the aisle, we are very, very proud of 
Ms. Matsui. She has been the leader on this subcommittee for 
years. Many of her bills have been signed into law by more than 
one President relating to issues coming out of this 
subcommittee.
    So bravo to you, Doris.
    And thank you to everyone that testified today.
    As I just spoke to, what we are really very proud of, 
especially on this side of the aisle, is the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law. It is the biggest commitment in terms of 
policy and dollars since the Eisenhower administration.
    So if we are going to play catchup in this country on these 
issues, the tank has been filled. Now we have to make sure that 
those dollars are used very, very well.
    A $65 billion investment in broadband. There have been 
references to that, certainly, in the exchange that Congressman 
Soto had with some of the witnesses. I think that this 
subcommittee really needs to look to NTIA and what they are 
doing because, while satellite was not left out of this, there 
has to be--let's put it this way: I would like to see you have 
a share in those funds. And anything that--however we can 
assist in that, I think it is a very important role for this 
subcommittee, but it certainly is a responsibility of those of 
you in the satellite industry to help move the needle on that. 
I am pleased that the Commission has established a Space 
Bureau, but that has to have wings to it.
    To Ms. Bingen, in your written testimony you mention the 
convergence of technologies as one of your five noteworthy 
trends, specifically the use of AI, artificial intelligence. We 
have a bipartisan AI Caucus in the House, and I am proud to be 
one of the cochairs of that effort. So I am interested in 
learning more about how AI is being deployed across the 
country.
    Can you expand further on it relative to the satellite 
industry? And maybe specifically, how is AI helping to produce 
faster, more effective use of space data?
    Ms. Bingen. Thank you very much for that question.
    AI, it is incredible what is happening. And when I was in 
the Department of Defense, I had the good fortune of having an 
AI pathfinder under me called Project Maven. We were trying to 
bring in these innovative commercial companies to look at full-
motion video applying AI techniques.
    There is so much satellite--I will start with satellite 
imagery. There are so much satellite imagery data out there.
    Part of the challenge up until recently is you have 
analysts that are sitting at screens manually marking objects 
from a military perspective: That is a tank, that is an 
aircraft, that is a car. On the civilian front, if you were 
trying to map humanitarian corridors, you would be doing that 
manually.
    The beauty of AI is we now have the technology in reach 
that has been matured and has been deployed to people who do 
that----
    Ms. Eshoo. I think I need to interrupt you and follow up 
with some more specific questions for written responses.
    Ms. Bingen. Absolutely. I would be happy to.
    Ms. Eshoo. And look forward to you working with the 
congressional AI Caucus.
    To Ms. Zoller, in your exchange with Congressman Soto, what 
specific regulations do you think that you need, tying it to 
that conversation you had with him?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you for that question.
    We are looking for adoption of rules that provide more 
spectrum for nongeostationary satellite systems and to clarify 
the rules for sharing spectrum.
    Ms. Eshoo. I see. OK. Thank you.
    Yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentlelady yields back.
    And at this time, the Chair will recognize the gentleman 
from Ohio's 12th District for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Balderson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you all for being here. And this first question 
is for the whole panel.
    Congress needs to continue to promote innovative ways to 
get Americans connected. I often experience myself and hear 
from my constituents in Ohio, especially throughout Appalachia, 
about a lack of reliable connectivity. This hearing is a great 
opportunity to learn more about the progress that satellite 
technologies have made toward closing the digital divide.
    Without reliable connectivity, rural Americans face 
significant disadvantages that impact their daily lives, 
including work, education, and quality healthcare services.
    The BEAD Program has the opportunity to provide reliable, 
fast, and affordable internet to my constituents. However, I am 
worried many of my rural constituents that cannot be reached 
through fiber could still be left behind.
    Satellites can play a role in closing the digital divide 
and have the potential to increase competition in the industry, 
but it still seems like there are barriers to adoption in rural 
communities, one of the primary barriers being cost.
    Can you all discuss what innovations are happening in the 
industry that could bring the cost of satellite broadband 
service down for consumers?
    And, Ms. Bingen, we will start with you, and we will just 
go down. Thank you.
    Ms. Bingen. One area we haven't talked about as much is the 
terminal end. We are going from large satellite dishes to--if 
you were to go to Ukraine today, you would have--dishes that 
folks are lugging around are literally no bigger than the size 
of this paper.
    Ms. Deckard here talked about you only need your phone. So 
you don't need to rely on cable. You don't need to rely on 
large towers to access those rural areas. But to your point, 
you have got to get the production numbers up to be able to 
drive down those costs.
    So that would be one example.
    Ms. Deckard. With respect to satellite direct to phone, as 
we are seeing the market unfold, we are seeing that mobile 
network operators in this country, in order to keep customers, 
like T-Mobile for example, are going to offer it at no 
additional cost.
    Because for Lynk, we have to be able to supply connectivity 
for someone in the Central African Republic who makes 60 bucks 
a month. That is why we build cheap, small satellites, because 
you can't provide that cost-effective connectivity with large, 
expensive constellations.
    So I think you will see with satellite direct-to-phone that 
that is affordable for the consumer here in the United States, 
and I think you will see the M&Os who want to provide that 
connectivity and want to keep the subscriber and not lose them 
to churn supply that connectivity at a cost-effective price to 
their consumer.
    Mr. Balderson. Ms. Manner?
    Ms. Manner. HughesNet today, a subsidiary of our company, 
provides 25/3 broadband service across the country,We are 
launching later this year a satellite that will provide 120 
speeds to consumers throughout the United States. So that is 
very exciting.
    In terms of costs, as Ms. Bingen noticed, the cost of 
devices have gone down. We are actually a U.S. manufacturer 
today of satellite ground equipment. And you are seeing cheaper 
and cheaper devices, home units, coming on the market.
    And then I do want to praise the Affordable Connectivity 
Act. I thought that was a wonderful piece of legislation. And 
we have seen in terms of an uptake in use on broadband on our 
system, and I know other companies in other areas, whether 
fiber or wireless, have seen an uptake because of that subsidy 
for those users who are more poor, unable to afford traditional 
broadband, are making important choices on how to spend their 
money.
    So I would urge Congress and this subcommittee to consider 
renewing affordable care as that gets--when that lapses.
    Mr. Balderson. Thank you.
    Ms. Zoller?
    Ms. Zoller. Invention is part of our DNA, and the place 
where we see that first and foremost is in our customer 
terminal, a small, lightweight, affordable customer terminal, 
with an antenna about the size of a small pizza box.
    So we are focusing on affordability to the consumer.
    Mr. Stroup. I would just add that, in addition to the 
terminal technology and the ever-increasing capacity and speeds 
of the satellites, satellite broadband service today starts at 
49.99, and there are multiple plans for less than $100. So I 
would say that it is pretty cost competitive already.
    Mr. Balderson. OK. Thank you all.
    I want to try to get this last question in, Ms. Deckard, 
and I want you to know that we are down to 25 seconds. It was 
great to hear your perspective on the work being done by your 
company to help provide cell service.
    My question for you is, what regulatory barriers, be it the 
licensing process or anything else, have you run into that 
could prevent other startups from breaking into the industry?
    Ms. Deckard. Thank you for that question.
    So for startups that use streamlined processes, like the 
small sat authorization, which were inherently designed to be 
low risk--in the small sat authorization you are only allowed 
10 satellites, they have to be small, and they have a limited 
lifetime of 6 years--we urge the FCC, when it is low risk, go 
faster. That is the only way America is going to keep its 
competitive edge.
    Mr. Balderson. Thank you very much.
    I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back.
    At this time the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California's 29th District for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Cardenas. Thank you, Chairman Latta. It has always been 
a joy working with you. Congratulations on your chairmanship.
    And also, Ranking Member Eshoo--I am sorry. Matsui. I was 
thinking I was in the health committee. Ranking Member Matsui. 
Looking forward to all the wonderful work that we are going to 
do in this committee together.
    Satellites affect Americans' lives every single day--and I 
think most of us Americans, if not all of us, take that for 
granted--every single day, whether it comes from communication 
or transportation or even helping out to save lives in 
emergencies.
    But what we have got to stop taking for granted is that 
satellites just don't make it up there by themselves. There is 
a process.
    And I heard earlier today, what I am gathering from what 
many of you mentioned, is we do have a rigorous process in the 
United States. It just needs to be faster. But there are other 
processes around the world where it is a little bit less 
rigorous, yet at the same time it attracts perhaps maybe folks 
who maybe shouldn't be putting up satellites so easily.
    So I just want to say that I am proud of the fact that I 
live in a country where we do have rigorous regulations. But it 
is about rightsizing it. It is about making sure that we don't 
overburden industries and individuals to the point where they 
throw up their hands and say, ``Forget it, I am going to go 
elsewhere.''
    So this committee has an opportunity to help in that 
process. We are not regulators. We are lawmakers here. Yet at 
the same time, together, that is what makes our system what it 
is: the laws that we create and the regulators that are 
supposed to implement those laws.
    So hopefully today not only are the people of America 
listening to how important this issue is, but also we are 
sending the message to the regulators that we want them, we 
need them to do a better job and to be more efficient and 
effective at what they do to make sure that all of you are able 
to continue to do the wonderful work that you do every single 
day.
    So thank you for your testimony, and I do appreciate your 
expertise.
    My first question is to Ms. Deckard.
    You had an impressive career serving the public as a first 
responder before cofounding Lynk. In California, we were 
constantly dealing with increasing severities of wildfires and 
storms. In your testimony, you note Lynk's mission to 
revolutionize emergency disaster response.
    From an emergency response perspective, can you talk about 
how having redundancy of networks benefits the public, 
especially when mobile networks are unavailable?
    As an engineer myself, redundancy is something that people 
think is a bad thing, but when it comes to saving lives and 
systems, redundancy is critical.
    Ms. Deckard. Absolutely, sir. Thank you for the question.
    So in California, as you well know, in order to combat the 
wildfire situation and reduce the risk, they employed rolling 
blackouts, which took down their cell towers. So you can't even 
alert your public of the proper evacuation route.
    Technologies like Lynk can actually draw a polygon around a 
certain set of users driving north on a highway and tell them, 
``Your evacuation route is cut, we need you to go south now.'' 
And in that way we can avoid bottlenecks when people need to 
evacuate.
    And it is also the coordination for the wildland 
firefighter. It is not only their safety when they are in the 
field. On average, we lose 15 wildland firefighters per year. I 
am hoping that this year's fire season will not be that bad, 
but as all the California Representatives know, you have seen 
gigafires in the last few years.
    So being able to support that local firefighter, who is 
most often a volunteer, while they do their job, while they are 
out on the front line and their family needs proper evacuation 
orders, being able to provide that for those communities is 
absolutely critical to emergency response, especially when we 
are no longer in a season. We are almost fighting fires year 
round.
    Mr. Cardenas. Yes. Well, thank you for--I just want to 
compliment you on your journey. Here you are in a very 
technical field, but yet you provide the practicality and the 
reality of how this is actually so important to us in everyday 
life. So congratulations on being one of the cofounders of 
Lynk.
    In your testimony--I have read it--you are very proud of 
the fact that you can actually connect to standard phone 
systems anywhere in the world where they choose to connect with 
you.
    How would that be beneficial to the American who is not 
high income, the American who works every day for a living and 
really doesn't have enough money to buy a thousand-dollar phone 
or a $1,200 phone? How is that going to help them by having you 
be more successful in linking them?
    Ms. Deckard. Absolutely. And that is why Lynk supports 2G, 
4G, and 5G. You know, 46 percent of the mobile phone users in 
our world still connect using 2G. We connect $5 feature phones 
on the Lynk system all the way up to the high-end smartphone. 
And that is absolutely critical because you aren't actually 
solving the digital divide if the person can't afford the 
terminal without a subsidy.
    Mr. Cardenas. Thank you very much. I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. The gentleman's time is expired and yields back.
    And our next questioner will be the gentleman from Idaho 
for 5 minutes.
    And if I could just mention real quick, you probably have 
all seen that the 11 o'clock votes are now between 12 and 
12:30. So if we keep our time within 5 minutes, we might be 
able to make it before we all have to go to vote.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Fulcher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    A question for Ms. Bingen.
    Ms. Bingen, you talked about permitting as being one of the 
challenges, specifically ITAR. And I want to just ask you to go 
a little bit deeper on that.
    What is specifically the struggle there? Is it the time 
that it takes? Is it unreasonable demands? Talk to me about the 
struggles you have with permitting.
    Ms. Bingen. No, absolutely.
    I would touch on it in a couple of different areas and 
start by saying we want our industrial base to be healthy, to 
be successful. It is very attractive to many of our allies and 
partners that want to work with us on our space capability. And 
those allies and partners, they have a choice between American 
business and other, foreign companies, including China.
    I think the challenge with the ITAR process, I would like 
to see us go back and look at what were the original 
assumptions in the context driving the way the policy exists 
today.
    Because I would argue that the technology has evolved so 
much that certain satellite technologies are still controlled 
under ITAR, despite it being out in the commercial marketplace 
for others to be able to leverage. The time, the process is 
still very timely. It is opaque to commercial companies.
    And then, back to the foreign competition, I don't think it 
fully accounts for the explosion of foreign competition that 
our U.S. businesses are up against.
    Mr. Fulcher. OK. Thank you.
    That segues into another concern that you brought up that, 
frankly, I didn't fully understand: counterspace weapons. Talk 
to me about what you meant by that phrase and what the concern 
is.
    Ms. Bingen. Absolutely. Our adversaries know how reliant we 
are on space. So their objective is, ``How do I figure out how 
to interfere with that or deny American or other partners that 
have space capabilities, how do I deny their use?''
    And that can be a range of--a spectrum of different 
options. So everything from, ``I can employ something to jam 
your communication satellite, I can employ a cyber attack 
against your ground station''--which we saw happen in Ukraine 
to a commercial satellite operator--to dazzling, using a laser, 
an optical system, to at the higher end a more kinetic, and 
launching a missile, a direct descent antisatellite missile 
that would hit a satellite.
    Mr. Fulcher. OK. I think I get the picture of that. So, in 
your opinion, what is the appropriate action there? Is it to 
enable the private sector to address those? Is it to fund U.S. 
resources to try to take that challenge on? What is the answer?
    Ms. Bingen. I think it is both. The Government has a role 
to play because they understand the threats, and they have 
invested in certain kinds of protection technologies and 
concepts. But on the commercial side, the best thing the 
Government can do for them is to share information.
    Mr. Fulcher. Got it. OK. Thank you.
    I want to shift to Mr. Stroup for just a second.
    Mr. Stroup, in your list of industry needs, you had five of 
them. The third one was funding for oversight. Specifically, 
oversight for what?
    Mr. Stroup. So, for example, the FCC is responsible for 
licensing and ensuring that interference issues are addressed. 
So that is what I am referring to in terms of oversight.
    Mr. Fulcher. FCC. OK. Got it.
    Mr. Stroup. In addition, the space sustainability issue 
that I mentioned. The Department of Space Commerce at the 
Department of Commerce is responsible for putting in place a 
space situational awareness system.
    Mr. Fulcher. OK. Thank you.
    Also, we have been talking about bridging the digital 
divide. To your earlier comments, what needs to happen there is 
cost, coverage, and performance. In your view, are we there 
with cost, coverage, and performance to bridge that?
    And let me back that up by saying, I live in a State that 
has under 2 million people, one of the largest States in the 
country. A lot of rural space. Is the cost, coverage, and 
performance there today?
    Mr. Stroup. So I think that the issue that we encounter--
and I also am from a rural area where it makes no sense to 
deploy a terrestrial-based system, a fiber system. So we are 
deploying a number of different satellite systems. But as I had 
mentioned before, the system that has been placed potentially 
is not going to allow satellite systems to participate in the 
funding.
    So certainly the NTIA rules did not prohibit satellite 
companies from participating or looking at how it is being 
implemented. But ultimately, our fear is that money is going to 
go to overbuilding areas that already have service instead of 
areas like the ones that you are referencing that could benefit 
from being able to obtain some of the funding to provide 
broadband service there.
    Mr. Fulcher. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back.
    And at this time, the gentlelady from Michigan's Sixth 
District is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 
having this hearing. Thank you to Ranking Member Matsui as well 
and to all the witnesses, because this is a really important 
subject.
    Innovative satellite technologies have proven crucial in 
expanding broadband access, emergency and disaster response, 
and 5G adoption. And as the committee, we have got to consider 
forward-looking policies that will promote these groundbreaking 
technologies, clarify the responsibilities of industry 
regulators and, quite frankly, government at all levels, and 
ultimately benefit Americans in their communities.
    This topic is important, and I look forward to working with 
all my colleagues on this committee to make it a reality.
    I have often said that innovation is a core strength of the 
United States. We have got to keep it that way, and we can't 
take it for granted. It takes a lot of work to keep the United 
States at the forefront of cutting-edge technologies. I see 
that firsthand in the automotive industry, where I have been 
working tirelessly to ensure that we continue to empower our 
greatest minds and our strong workforce to keep us ahead of our 
global competitors.
    In the satellite industry, the U.S. has gotten a head 
start. But we need to keep moving forward. And as you all know, 
but I think too many don't realize, our global competitors are 
nipping at our heals.
    I know that the U.S. is currently responsible for more than 
60 percent of the satellites in the orbit. But in the last few 
years, the combined satellite fleets of China and Russia have 
grown by approximately 70 percent.
    Mr. Stroup and/or Ms. Bingen, given this data, what is your 
assessment of U.S. leadership in this market? Is counting the 
number of satellites sufficient, or are there other metrics we 
need to be considering?
    Mr. Stroup, why don't you go first?
    Mr. Stroup. I am sorry. Could you repeat the question?
    Mrs. Dingell. Given the data, what is your assessment of 
U.S. leadership in this market, and is counting the number of 
satellites sufficient, or do we need other metrics now?
    Mr. Stroup. We definitely need other metrics. So counting 
satellites is one example, but the amount of capacity that each 
of those is capable of providing is also an important metric. 
And so we have seen a tremendous increase in the capacity.
    And so I think that, whether we are looking at competition 
or whether it is just the capabilities of the industry, taking 
it beyond the numbers of satellites. So each of the satellites 
that are being launched to have much more capacity, higher 
speeds. Remote-sensing satellites have greater imaging 
capabilities.
    So I think we need to look at the specific satellite, that 
capability, what it is being produced for.
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you.
    Ms. Bingen, would you have anything to add quickly?
    Ms. Bingen. Market share, things like where the investment 
dollars are coming from.The customer base, including 
international and commercial customers.Looking at technology 
and performance, speed in particular.And then also standards 
and best practices. Are others looking to U.S., or are they 
looking to China?
    Mrs. Dingell. Thank you. I am going to ask you to expand on 
that in follow-up questions.
    I also chair the Congressional 5G Caucus and understand the 
importance of next-generation wireless connectivity to unlock 
growth and digital innovation in this country.
    In the last Congress, I joined my colleagues Reps. Walberg, 
Johnson, and Kuster to introduce the Promoting United States 
Wireless Leadership Act, which focused on leveraging the U.S. 
role in setting the international standards to maintain 
leadership in an increasingly competitive market.
    Ms. Manner, in your testimony you mentioned the role that 
EchoStar played in the Third Generation Partnership Project and 
what that meant for the satellite industry.
    Can you talk in more detail about how participation in 
these standard-setting bodies by U.S. companies and 
stakeholders helps advance U.S. economic competitiveness and 
national security interests?
    Ms. Manner. Thank you.
    Yes. We are not just talking about 3GPP. We are talking 
about other bodies, including the International 
Telecommunications Union and the U.S. Most recently, U.S. 
companies, our company, and some of our other satellite 
operator colleagues are advancing further inclusion into 5G and 
6G standards there. I really do believe if the U.S. companies 
weren't there, we wouldn't be represented.
    My concern, however, is that the U.S. Government--
especially at the ITU, which is a treaty organization--isn't 
always supportive of the satellite industry. And even in our 
efforts to have satellite inclusion, we sometimes had some 
delay or slowdown because of U.S. Government intervention.
    So it is one of those areas that, I am ashamed to say, I 
don't participate on the U.S. delegation. I participate as a 
sector member because we are unable to get the U.S. 
Government's support. And that is something we would like to 
see overcome as satellite becomes increasingly important for 
strategic needs and for economic needs, that the U.S. 
Government is more supportive of us.
    Mrs. Dingell. I probably need to follow up on that in Q&A. 
And I am going to be out of time. And nobody should be 
surprised that I have got autonomous vehicle questions, which I 
know my partner behind me, that we are working on, probably 
does too.
    So I want to thank you all for being here today, and we all 
need to work together to keep our competitiveness.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. The gentlelady yields back.
    And at this time, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California's 23rd District for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you to our witnesses.
    I would like to continue a line of questioning that 
Congressman Cardenas started about the way that satellite 
technology can help fight wildfires in California.
    It really can't be overstated how dire a situation this is. 
We had a relatively light wildfire season last year. The year 
before that was our second worst in the history of the State, 
overshadowed only by the year before that, which was the worst 
wildfire seasonwe have ever had.
    And, Ms. Deckard, I wish I shared your optimism that this 
season would be light. Unfortunately, when we have a wet 
winter, as we have had, that fuels the growth of the ladder 
fuels. And those dry out in the summer, and then that just 
makes it all the worse in the winter. So we face a real 
desperate situation in California.
    We have some promising new tools to be able to deal with 
the situation. We have large aerial assets, that if they are 
dispatched in a timely manner, they can quickly go to the 
source of ignition on a fire--for example, a lightning strike 
that ignites a tree--and put that out completely without having 
to rely on ground-based assets, as long as they get there on 
time. If the flame threat is allowed to spread, it becomes too 
large for aerial assets to put out, and therefore a much larger 
problem and the potential for spread.
    So, Mr. Stroup, the one thing that we desperately need is 
satellite-based thermal imagery that is real-time and high 
resolution enough to detect something as small as a tree that 
is ignited by a lightning strike.
    And as Ms. Bingen had pointed out earlier in the testimony, 
we can then pair that with AI tools that can distinguish 
between a campfire and a lightning strike and get those assets 
on the way and solve that problem before it becomes a bigger 
problem.
    Unfortunately, up until now, the geostationary platforms 
that we had access to are high enough that we can't get enough 
resolution to be able to accomplish that. But with the advent 
of all of these low Earth orbit satellites now, we are much 
closer to the ground, we can deploy those sensing technologies. 
As long as we can get that information back, we can start to 
put these tools into motion. But we don't have a platform for 
that right now.
    So, Mr. Stroup, what can be done to catalyze the 
availability of this solution to what is a really critical 
problem for us?
    Mr. Stroup. Thank you for the question. And you are right. 
There are nongeostationary satellite systems that have the 
capability of refreshing the data much more quickly, multiple 
times a day. And in some examples with optical imagery, there 
are synthetic-aperture radars that have the ability to see 
through clouds, through smoke.
    The question that you pointed--the case example that you 
cited, in terms of being able to detect a lightning strike, I 
am not sure whether that capability exists. And I look forward 
to checking with our members and getting back to you about that 
capability.
    But I think the combination of those technologies will 
address part of what you are describing--also, the ability to 
be able to identify access roads in that remain accessible. And 
then, of course, being able to provide the communications to 
those people, those firefighters, who are on the ground.
    Mr. Obernolte. Let me point out to the systems operators 
that are here, you know, Kuiper and EchoStar and Lynk--SpaceX, 
if they are listening--I know that the primary focus for low 
Earth orbit is communications, but imaging should also be a 
focus for us. And this is technology that I am convinced could 
be deployed relatively inexpensively, and yet the value of that 
data in doing things--this is just one narrow domain, the 
prevention of wildfires by dispatching aerial assets. There are 
lots of other applications for other sensing technologies that 
has huge commercial value. I am sure that ways could be found 
to pay for it.
    And with the time I have remaining, Ms. Bingen, I was very 
interested in the testimony from you and several of the other 
panelists on the way that export restrictions have hampered the 
ability of U.S. satellite equipment companies to compete 
internationally.
    Can you talk a little bit more on the changes to export law 
that you think need to be made, and particularly highlight 
those that can be made and why you feel that they would not 
affect our national security?
    Ms. Bingen. And it is a really--I think the tough part here 
is to find a better balance. And I recall being in the 
executive branch. In interagency discussions, we would always 
put national security against economic interest, and it was 
always the national security card won.
    I think the thing that we need to think about now is how do 
we broaden our thinking on national security. It is not just 
military and intelligence, but it is also our economic 
security, which I think is a big part of that.
    We have to still be able to protect our technology from 
getting to China--I mean, hands down, absolutely--but there are 
so many allies and partners out there that could benefit from, 
whether it be certain new forms of remote sensing technologies, 
some of the ones that you highlighted, certain satellite 
technology components, software, some of our commercial launch 
service providers, that are still kind of stuck in that 
traditional ITAR process that is very opaque to them and very 
lengthy.
    So some of the same recommendations we are making on the 
regulatory front, I would say let's take a look at those for 
the ITAR processes.
    Mr. Obernolte. Well, this is a conversation I am very 
interested in continuing.
    Ms. Bingen. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Obernolte. But I see I am out of time. Thank you for 
the testimony.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. The gentleman's time has expired.
    And the Chair recognizes the gentlelady from New Hampshire 
for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Kuster. Thank you to our subcommittee leader, Chair 
Latta, and Ranking Member Matsui for holding this important 
hearing today. We appreciate it.
    I am a new member on this subcommittee, and I am excited 
that our first hearing is on a subject that is of vital 
importance to rural communities like my State, New Hampshire: 
satellites.
    Satellite technology provides critical basic internet 
services for many rural communities. However, as we have come 
to learn, basic internet services are no longer enough to meet 
the demands of today's world.
    During the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly every aspect of our 
lives moved to virtual platforms. Many companies and small 
businesses shifted to a virtual workplace. Our children went to 
school online, and we attended our doctors' appointments via 
telehealth services.
    In Congress, I am committed to doing everything I can to 
improve internet connectivity in rural communities. That is why 
I am proud to have supported the Infrastructure Investment and 
Jobs Act, investing $65 billion in broadband infrastructure to 
connect communities nationwide. And I also serve on Mr. 
Clyburn's Rural Broadband Task Force as well.
    This investment is going to help us ensure access to high-
speed, reliable, affordable broadband internet services for 
homes, business, schools, and hospitals. So today at this 
hearing, I am excited to learn more about how we can use 
satellite technology to help connect more Americans to the 
internet. For many in my district, the barrier to broadband 
internet services is not accessibility but affordability.
    So, Mr. Stroup, if I could, currently in some communities 
the cost of satellite broadband service and consumer equipment 
may be higher than the alternatives. Can you speak to how the 
satellite industry and recent technological advances can help 
to lower costs and provide affordable, reliable broadband?
    Mr. Stroup. So one of the things that is happening in some 
communities is installing community WiFi systems in order to 
share the cost of the service and the equipment. Of course, the 
industry is continuously trying to find ways to lower the cost 
and ease the installation of the equipment, but I think that 
this is an ideal example of how the subsidies can be applied.
    And I would encourage every Member here to convey that to 
their States as they are going through establishing the process 
for determining who is going to qualify for broadband funding, 
because buying down the cost of the equipment is certainly a 
legitimate means of bringing down the cost of service, as you 
noted.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Kuster. Thank you.
    In the Granite State, we take great pride in the 
preservation of our beautiful forests and remote regions, which 
are the bedrock of our tourism economy. Now, recently many of 
our major wireless companies have announced partnerships with 
satellite providers to extend service to some of the hardest-
to-reach places, including parks, forests, and even ski areas 
around the country.
    Ms. Deckard, could you elaborate on these capabilities and 
their implications on the future of wireless and satellite 
connectivity across the country?
    Ms. Deckard. Thank you for the question. So I think the 
implications are the reason why we haven't seen a total 
buildout of terrestrial towers in the United States is because 
of the CAPEX and the OPEX. That is why our mobile network 
operator partners are looking to a satellite solution.
    In addition to the fact, as you mentioned, our beautiful 
national parks, people do not want to go out into the national 
park and see a cell tower. But what they do want is 
connectivity, so if the park closes, which we have had happen, 
they want instructions for how to leave it. And when they 
suffer an emergency, they want to be able to call for help.
    So I think, as you have seen, the mobile network operators 
are looking to partner with satellite companies to fill in the 
gaps in their coverage.
    Ms. Kuster. And we have had examples. You gave the example 
of the family out in California. We have had accidents and 
deaths on Mount Washington as well, and we are only--you know, 
it is literally 2 hours from Boston, but it is very remote, in 
the White Mountains, and very rugged to get the rescue crews in 
there. And frequently they will find, you know, the cell phone, 
either the battery is dead or they are frantically trying to 
reach somebody and there is just not service.
    So thank you for everything that you are doing for safety 
and security for people. And thank you to all of you. This has 
been a fascinating hearing for me.
    And with 30 seconds left, I will yield back.
    Mr. Latta. The Chair appreciates that.
    Ms. Kuster. A model new member of the committee.
    Mr. Latta. The gentlelady yields back. Thank you very much.
    At this time, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia's 12th district for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am very pleased 
to be on the Energy and Commerce Committee and on this 
Subcommittee on Communications and Technology for the 118th 
Congress.
    This subcommittee has jurisdiction over many issues that 
you have heard about that we all face in our districts, 
primarily rural broadband, consistent cell service, and others. 
You know, resolving these issues seems to be a little 
complicated.
    Just to give you an example, though, of some of the great 
things that I am enjoying from satellite is satellite radio. 
You know, I spend about 36 weeks here in Congress and then the 
rest of the time I spend in my district, which covers 23 
counties, and in a week we will put as many as 2,000 miles on 
the car. And without satellite radio, I don't know how I would 
find out exactly what is going on out there.
    But the other issues are cell phone coverage and then, of 
course, broadband and all these other things. And I will tell 
you something on the agriculture side. I grew up on a tractor, 
on a small farm. The last time I was on a tractor, I did not 
touch the wheel, and I planted peanuts 16 inches over from 
where they were planted the year before in a row that was 
perfect. It was an experience like no other.
    So we are making tremendous advances, tremendous advances. 
And there are great stories out there. But how do we get to 
where we need to be? For example, the most frustrating thing in 
my district is trying to use my phone. I mean, we drive by a 
cell tower and I can't get cell service. I don't understand 
that.
    And, you know, obviously, if it is the FCC, I don't know. 
Ms. Deckard, I mean, what can we do to advance, you know, the 
technology as far as broadband and cell phone quickly because, 
you know, we are running a lot of fiber optics in my district 
right now, because I guess satellite is just not there. But are 
we going to be in a position very quickly where satellite will 
be there? I mean, are these competing technologies, or how can 
we--how is this going to work?
    Ms. Deckard. Well, thank you for the question, sir. They 
are not competing technologies. There is a role for every one 
of these ways we supply connectivity. It is really having a 
portfolio of options.
    There are places where laying fiber is the best option and 
there are places where using satellite is the best option. And 
the great thing about satellite is it provides network 
resiliency for the fiber-based networks when they go down for 
whatever reason.
    So it is not an either/or. It is how we build those 
services and continue to support the American public and meet 
their communications needs, which are growing on an everyday 
basis as we move forward.
    Mr. Allen. Well, and obviously GPS is critical, because we 
use that in the construction industry. Again, our motor graders 
and all are self-guided and that sort of thing.
    As far as the security, you know, we have talked about 
security. And, Mr. Stroup, what are your biggest challenges in 
dealing with, you know, adversaries, that sort of thing? I 
mean, we talked about the competition with China. Frankly, I 
think we have got to figure out how to get ahead there.
    But from a security standpoint, obviously, what we are 
running into with broadband and the internet and email and all 
these other things, would satellite help that situation?
    Mr. Stroup. So thank you for the question. And if I may add 
to the prior question, I think one of the ways of helping to 
drive adoption of the satellite connections to mobile phones is 
to convey to mobile carriers that, given that technology is 
being deployed, there is an expectation that they will utilize 
it to be able to provide coverage into those areas.
    So the security of satellite systems is extremely 
important. And we created a set of cybersecurity principles 
probably at least 5 years ago. We are in the process of 
updating them. Most of the companies in the industry provide 
service or seek to provide service to the U.S. military. And as 
you can well imagine, they have requirements to be able to 
provide service in conjunction with the military.
    So this is an ongoing process. We received warnings, SIA 
received warnings at the initiation of the war in Ukraine to 
notify our members that they may be subject to cybersecurity 
attacks. It wasn't necessarily anything we needed to convey, 
because it is an issue that is top of mind of all of the 
carriers that provide service.
    Mr. Allen. All right. Well, I am sorry, I am out of time, 
but one thing, I am going to submit a question on the capital 
markets, as far as the capital markets and their investment. 
Obviously, there have been cell phone in the past--or cell 
towers in the past. How do we--what are the capital markets 
doing to help you get this new technology up and running?
    I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. I hate to interrupt, but if the gentleman would 
like to submit that question in writing.
    Mr. Allen. Yes.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much.
    At this time, the gentlelady from Illinois' Second District 
is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    As you know, the digital divide is real, and we must act to 
ensure all Americans have equitable access to broadband 
services. As you have already heard a lot on this committee, we 
are concerned about our rural areas.
    And in Illinois, more than half of rural households don't 
have access to broadband internet. And nationally, 24 million 
people lack access to broadband services, or about 1 in 13 
Americans. But in rural communities, 1 in 3 lack access. And 
those lacking access are more likely to be poor, more likely to 
have children, more likely to be people of color.
    So broadband services are necessary for Americans to do 
their jobs and increasingly important for our youth. If we want 
the U.S. to remain a top global competitor, we must invest in 
high-speed broadband services to ensure economic progress and 
educational attainment. And far too many of our communities 
have been left out of the digital revolution.
    So I look forward to hearing about how we can modernize our 
laws so that our Nation's schools, hospitals, small businesses, 
and rural farms all have access to reliable broadband 
infrastructure.
    Mr. Stroup, in your written testimony, you mention that the 
satellite industry is prepared to bring the furthest corners of 
America into the 21st century by serving as the most viable 
technology capable of bridging the digital divide in rural 
areas as well as working to bring the Nation into an 
interconnected future.
    Can you speak to any specifics about how your industry can 
assist terrestrial networks in helping close the digital divide 
in rural America, where so many of our communities are unserved 
or underserved?
    Mr. Stroup. Yes. Thank you for the question. And, of 
course, we have been talking about broadband extensively. So 
the ability to provide service directly to consumers, schools, 
hospitals via satellite broadband is one example.
    But in addition, as we have also discussed, the inclusion 
of satellite in 5G standards. So there are two aspects to it. 
One is the backhaul capability. So where it does not make sense 
to be able to provide backhaul of the microwave fiber optics, 
whatever, the industry has the ability to provide that for 
mobile carriers. And, of course, we have also been talking 
about the direct-to-mobile connectivity, which is another part 
of the 3GPP standard.
    So I think that the combination of those is the means by 
which we are able to provide the backhaul infrastructure.
    Ms. Kelly. I have over 1,500, probably closer to 2,000 
farms in my district, which is the backbone of the economy in 
Illinois. Can you speak to the agricultural applications of 
satellites now ensuring U.S. satellite leadership can have a 
positive impact on the farms in my district?
    Mr. Stroup. Absolutely. And, you know, one of the best 
examples was that which was cited on being able to provide or 
utilize GPS for the control of tractors or other farm 
equipment, being able to utilize sensors to be able to 
determine whether it is additional water, fertilizer, whatever 
is needed. To be able to remain in constant communication, 
whether it is through mobile connectivity, broadband 
connectivity. All of these are important.
    So while we may get to the point where we no longer need to 
even be in the farm equipment, farmers are businesspeople. They 
need to be able to continue to monitor crop situations. So I 
think it is a combination of all of those.
    Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
    NASA and government generally used to be the only game in 
town when it came to satellite operation, but obviously this is 
no longer the case.
    Ms. Zoller, how should we be thinking about the role of 
commercial satellites as more providers enter the market? And 
does the prospect of a commercial-heavy future in this area 
change the way we should be thinking about the policy and 
regulatory environment?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you for that question. We should be 
thinking about the policy and regulatory environment in terms 
of enabling innovation and competition, taking a careful and 
light touch to policy and regulations so that we can continue 
to advance our technology over time without requiring new 
rules.
    Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
    Ms. Bingen, do you have anything to quickly add?
    Ms. Bingen. I would just like to add as to your point on 
this used to be in the domain of governments. What is great 
about commercial now is it is based on unclassified, off-the-
shelf technology. The data that is being collected is 
unclassified and sharable.
    So we are now opening up this data to so many more 
applications than we would have traditionally done in the past. 
So you mentioned agriculture, environmental monitoring, 
humanitarian disaster relief operations, even sanctions 
enforcement or insurance that, had we used those government 
systems, they would have never gotten priority to be able to do 
that.
    Ms. Kelly. Thank you. And I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. The gentlelady yields back.
    And at this time, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas' 11th District for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Pfluger. I thank the chair. And what a great 
discussion. So many good points that have been made.
    I come from a rural area like so many on this committee. 
And I think our competition, especially when we look at, you 
know, just connecting people, whether it is in the agriculture 
business or in the energy industry, like I represent. 
Certainly, the national security focus is really important. I 
want to get to that. I represent AST, an important competitor 
in this marketplace.
    And let me get to the national security focus. I spent 20 
years in the Air Force depending, as was said, on space. My 
question and my concern actually is the speed of relevancy and 
the denial of that relevancy when it comes to competition and 
innovation and getting the permits approved.
    And so, Ms. Bingen, I will start with you. You know, when 
it comes to the FCC, are they operating at the speed of 
relevancy? I don't want to leave this committee hearing with 
any, you know, nebulous ideas on it. And if not, what is the 
cost when it comes to dual use technology, when it comes to 
technology in space that can be used not just for commercial 
interests but also to enhance our national security?
    Ms. Bingen. It is a great question, sir. I am encouraged by 
the steps that they are taking, but there is still I think a 
long way to go, and it will have to be a continuous process as 
the technology is evolving so quickly. Six months from design 
to satellite on orbit. If we can get FCC to be able to make a 
decision in 6 months, that is huge, right?
    And so back to the point on the implications or the 
consequences. If we can't get these approvals in a timely way, 
in ways that these companies who are moving so fast have some 
level of predictability and planning, they are not going to be 
on the field competing where we know that there are 
competimates and that China is out there actively seeking the 
same customer set as our companies are.
    Mr. Pfluger. Mr. Stroup, when it comes to kind of the 
technical risk from the answer we just heard, I mean, is it 
spectrum? Is it competition for spectrum? You know, where are 
our adversaries able to gain if we don't have that speed of 
relevancy, if the permitting process or the licensure or the 
things that are needing to be done don't happen at that speed 
of relevancy?
    Mr. Stroup. Well, certainly our adver--if our adversaries 
have access to spectrum in dealing with some of these issues 
more quickly, they have the ability to deploy a constellation, 
then, therefore, go out and to compete globally while we are 
still trying to go through the permitting process if we allow 
that to happen. So that is one of the biggest risks, in 
addition to the access to spectrum.
    I would also note, as the Chairwoman of the FCC stated, you 
know, the rules were in place 15 years ago when we built and 
launched a handful of satellites. We have been talking about 
the tremendous increase in the number of satellites, the 64,000 
applications. We are in a different world today and, you know, 
it is not unusual for regulators to try and catch up with 
technology. That is what we are going through.
    Mr. Pfluger. I will give each of you 30 seconds for the 
commercial side.
    Ms. Deckard, we will start with you. In your own companies, 
is there technology that you have now that now you are waiting 
on licensure, and then by the time you get it approved or by 
the time you are able to--I mean, is it past that point and it 
has moved on?
    Ms. Deckard. Fortunately, we have had, overall, a very 
positive experience with the FCC. I will echo Ms. Zoller's 
comments. The FCC licensed our payload in a record amount of 
time, and that was the Office of Engineering and Technology 
with an experimental license.
    We have also taken a crawl-walk-run approach with the FCC, 
where we have launched five experimental payloads. So they got 
to know us as a company before we put in our commercial 
application.
    I will again reiterate that when the FCC has a tool like 
the small sat authorization, which is meant to be streamlined 
and sets parameters on it to reduce the risk, we would like the 
FCC to be able to lean in in the processing timeline.
    Mr. Pfluger. Thank you.
    Ms. Manner.
    Ms. Manner. So thank you. I want to bring up two other 
issues. One is the U.S.--and I brought this up earlier in 
response to the chairman's question, was ITU. We are limited in 
the number of ITU filings we can file as U.S. operators, so 
many of us have to go overseas to get our satellite networks 
licensed. That is a big hindrance.
    But I also want to talk about speed for a second, and there 
is an important part that the FCC does, and it is to protect 
against harmful interference. So we don't want them to go so 
fast where we neglect to--we do something sloppy and we put 
something up that hasn't been proven and tested. So there is 
that. This is still a technological issue.
    So while I am fully in favor of faster processing, we have 
had applications pending for over 2 years, at times it may make 
sense to balance it and have some----
    Mr. Pfluger. Ms. Manner, I am sorry, I am out of time. But 
we can submit for the record, but it sounds like speed is 
important, security is important, but do it here in the United 
States instead of offshore.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Texas' Seventh 
District for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Fletcher. Thank you, Chairman Latta, and thank you, 
Ranking Member Matsui, for convening our first very informative 
hearing today. I am glad to be serving again on this 
subcommittee and look forward to your leadership.
    As many have noted in testimony and in questions today, 
this growing industry has great potential to connect Americans 
in rural and underserved areas and to provide life-saving 
service during emergencies and natural disasters.
    And in Texas' Seventh Congressional District that I 
represent and along the Texas Gulf Coast, we are, 
unfortunately, all too familiar with flooding and extreme rain 
events and hurricanes and emergency and natural disasters. In 
August of 2017, as many will remember, Hurricane Harvey 
devastated the region, disrupting many emergency call centers 
and cell sites and causing life-threatening outages for our 
residents.
    So several have spoken about the benefits of satellite 
telecommunications for consumers experiencing disasters and 
communities recovering from disasters, and I really want to 
focus my questions there.
    And, Ms. Deckard, you spoke passionately and really 
powerfully, I think, in this hearing about how satellites can 
provide continuous service for consumers dealing with disasters 
and emergencies. You know, they always tell us the best way to 
communicate is to tell stories, and I think your story was 
incredibly powerful. And, you know, who can forget which way do 
you turn when you get to the road. I think that that 
illustrates the challenge in front of us.
    And so what I want to ask you first is, are there sort of 
disaster or postdisaster conditions that satellites are 
uniquely suited to addressing or uniquely disadvantaged, in 
your experience?
    Ms. Deckard. I feel that satellites are uniquely an 
advantage in the disaster, both pre, during, and post event. 
You know, one of the main features of Lynk that we are rolling 
out initially is emergency cell broadcast. Well, if you don't 
have connectivity where you live and work, you are not even 
getting that preparedness announcement in order to plan for the 
coming event.
    During--because of the RF bands that we use from space, we 
can transmit during very wet weather. So we, again, provide 
that connectivity piece when you are beginning to lose your 
cellular terrestrial infrastructure. And then immediately 
during the postevent, that instantaneous backup.
    Right now, our emergency responders rely on cellular towers 
on wheels to be deployed postevent. And no matter how efficient 
they get at queuing these things up even multiple States away 
to drive them in postevent, that takes time.
    And it is that self-organization--which I have experienced, 
every first responder living and working in their own community 
has experienced, that self-organization right after an event--
that is where you save the most lives.
    Mrs. Fletcher. Well, and you really anticipated my next 
question, because I was going to shift to emergency responders, 
and I think if you could just help. Certainly, it makes sense 
of why this is an--or that it is an advantage, but can you talk 
a little bit more detail about what it is that satellites can 
do to support our emergency call centers and responders in 
times of crisis specifically?
    Ms. Deckard. Oh, absolutely. So, you know, this year alone 
we have had 168 tornadoes in the United States, and it is 
February 2. We are seeing a lot of long-track tornadoes. 
Satellite technology, because of their unique capabilities, I 
can reroute emergency phone calls to a different PSAP.
    So in Kentucky, when you had that long-track tornado and it 
takes down a PSAP, I can draw a polygon around it, send those 
calls to another PSAP that is still up and operating, and begin 
to get immediate and appropriate resources dispatched to where 
they need to be.
    Mrs. Fletcher. Thank you. That is an incredibly helpful 
illustration. And I will note for my colleagues, we experienced 
some of those tornadoes in Texas and in the Houston area very 
recently. And our community, especially in southeast Houston, 
is still recovering from these tornadoes, which are not usually 
occurring as frequently in our area.
    And so I think adjusting to the different kinds of 
disasters we are seeing across the country is also a challenge 
for all of us. And so bringing all of these resources together 
is incredibly important.
    I only have 30 seconds left, and I know we are trying to 
get to votes. I have several more questions, so what I would 
like to do is submit my questions for the record, because I 
would like to hear from all of you on some of these issues.
    And I just want to thank you for your time being here 
today. This has been an incredibly informative hearing for me 
and I know for my colleagues.
    So thank you very much, Chairman Latta. With that, I will 
yield back.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Florida's Third 
District for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Cammack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to 
congratulate you and thank you for holding this very important 
hearing today.
    Also to our witnesses, thank you for hanging in there with 
us. I know we are coming to the end.
    I represent a very unique district in north central 
Florida, Florida's Fighting Third District, the Gator Nation. 
We have a large swathe of rural areas where truly the only 
internet option is dial-up. I am not even joking. And pair that 
with our urban clusters which we are home to, as I said, the 
University of Florida, the Gator Nation, where we have cutting-
edge AI technology. It is remarkable. So it is two very 
different worlds that this district encompasses.
    So the satellite marketplace is a very interesting and 
attractive area for us. So I am going to jump right in.
    I will not lie, I am extraordinarily frustrated with the 
FCC for a number of reasons, but I really feel like when it 
comes to satellite deployment and this technology, it is kind 
of like the mid-nineties with cell phones. They don't know 
really how to regulate it, how to handle it. They are trying. 
And I give them credit.
    Ms. Deckard, you said today in answering one of my 
colleagues that speed to market is how we stay not dominant but 
competitive as well.
    Under this new FCC initiative, the space innovation agenda, 
we are seeing an increase in which they are approving the 
applications. And that is a good thing. Added 38 percent more 
in terms of their division size to move applications.
    But my question is to you, Ms. Deckard, and to you, Mr. 
Stroup: Is it enough? Is it enough? We throw money at problems 
all day long in Washington, DC, but it doesn't really seem to 
work too often or very well. So what do we need to be doing in 
terms of the personnel that we need to bring in to process 
these applications, and is there a labor issue or is it we 
just--we continue to throw money and wonder why it doesn't get 
fixed?
    I will let you go, Ms. Deckard, and then to you, Mr. 
Stroup.
    Ms. Deckard. Thank you. Well, I think we are at a point 
where we have seen Chairwoman Rosenworcel and the 
Commissioners, who have also long been worried about the time 
it takes them to process applications, put forth a new 
structure with the Space Bureau.
    And I know from Lynk's perspective, we are excited to see 
that new organization, the new organization of the 
International Bureau, with their focus on the ITU filings. And 
we are just excited to be part of the conversation moving 
forward to make sure that whatever they put in place really 
does work for both small and large companies alike.
    In addition with, you know, this hearing here today, I 
think it is a winning combination when both the FCC and 
Congress realizes we have got to change the way we do business 
in order for America to lead.
    Mrs. Cammack. Thank you.
    Mr. Stroup.
    Mr. Stroup. Thank you for the question. I would like to see 
more resources made available. Many of it is engineering 
related. Some of the issues are complex. They have made steps 
to streamline some of the processes for small constellations, 
as an example. But the fact that we still have the backlog is 
indicative of something.
    Certainly, the fact that they are in competition with 
industry, with other Government agencies for engineering talent 
shows some of the challenges. But ultimately giving them the 
resources, and I would argue for more resources for them to be 
able to deal with the backlog and address some of the issues 
that we have been talking about today.
    Mrs. Cammack. OK. I am going to follow up with you 
specifically in a written question.
    Ms. Zoller, you were asked a bit of time ago about 
regulations that you need within this space. You stated that 
more regulations relating to spectrum were needed. As we all 
know, regulations, more regulations doesn't necessarily mean 
better outcomes. So in that same vein, what regulations do you 
not need on the books?
    Ms. Zoller. The regulations should provide the flexibility 
to operators to determine how to meet an objective. In other 
words, if the point is to apply a power limit to a satellite 
system to protect terrestrial services, let us figure out the 
combination of antennas and transmitters and so on to meet 
that. Give us the liberty to do that.
    Mrs. Cammack. OK. So a little bit more flexibility, which 
flexibility and regulations don't typically go hand in hand, 
but we will figure that out.
    I am going to ask each of you to submit for the record how 
the farm bill, which will be coming up this year, that element 
of the Ag Committee and the jurisdiction under the Ag Committee 
in concert with Energy and Commerce, what we can do to advance 
some of the satellite technology.
    But in the 13 seconds that I have remaining, I do want to 
say that I am so grateful for your testimony here today. 
Satellite communications, satellite technology is going to save 
lives. It is not only going to improve them, it is going to 
save lives. I say that as the wife of a first responder in a 
very rural area where this type of technology is going to be 
the next generation for us.
    So thank you so much, and thank you again to the chairman.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentlelady's time is 
expired.
    I will just let you all know they have changed it again. We 
are probably going to be voting between 12 and 12:05 now.
    So if we could keep our questioning short, we will try to 
get through, because I would hate to keep the panel here for 
votes and then have to come back just for a couple of Members.
    So the gentlelady from New York is recognized.
    Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And congratulations to 
you and our ranking member for your ascension to leadership on 
this very important committee.
    And let me thank our panelists for bringing your expert 
witness to the panel today.
    Let me also take a moment to recognize and congratulate my 
dear friend, Congresswoman Matsui, on her first hearing as 
ranking member of the subcommittee. Between Ranking Member 
Matsui and our new full committee chairwoman, it is so 
heartening to see the dawn of a new era of female leadership of 
this very historic committee.
    Well, last year, Congress passed the transformational 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which included major investments 
in broadband connectivity and environmental justice. While 
these investments represent an important and historic step 
forward, much work remains to close the digital divide and 
address the disparate impact of climate change on historically 
marginalized communities. Advances in technology, such as the 
burgeoning satellite marketplace, will play a crucial role in 
addressing our Nation's inequities.
    On the topic of broadband deployment and access, fiber 
remains the best tool in our toolkit to bring high-speed 
connectivity to all Americans, but despite our best efforts, 
gaps will remain, and low Earth orbit satellites represent an 
intriguing option to fill those gaps.
    So, Ms. Zoller, can you begin by explaining how low Earth 
satellites differ from other kinds of satellite technology, and 
how LEO constellations bring new opportunities to the satellite 
industry?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you for that question. It starts with the 
altitude. Low Earth orbit systems are below 2,000 kilometers, 
or roughly 1,200 miles. Kuiper will be at about 370 miles above 
the Earth. So it takes a constellation of satellites to provide 
connectivity. That constellation provides resiliency. You have 
a lot of satellites in view of any one place on Earth.
    It also provides for low latency. The round trip to the 
internet is fast. And the beams that are transmitted from the 
satellite to the Earth are small, and that means we can reuse 
spectrum efficiently.
    Ms. Clarke. Thank you.
    Mr. Stroup, more broadly, can you explain on the potential 
role of satellites in helping bridge the digital divide in 
areas where other networks may not be able to reach, and how we 
can move quickly towards a more connected future? And would any 
of the other panelists also comment on that.
    Mr. Stroup. Yes. Thank you for the question. And, you know, 
the fact that satellites provide a broad signal across the 
entire country, I think, is one of the key--the key advantage.
    You mentioned fiber optics, and where there are fiber 
optics it makes sense to utilize them. But there are many areas 
of the country that will never be reached by fiber optic 
technology, and satellites currently provide coverage across 
the country. So we are in a position to be able to take 
advantage of it.
    We have also talked about some of the affordability issues, 
and ensuring that we have access to the funding that is 
intended to be made available to ensure that everybody has 
access to broadband, I think, is one of the key aspects of it.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Manner. I would also point, building on what Mr. Stroup 
said, it is timely deployment. So even if you are using funding 
for broadband for fiber, it is going to take years for that 
fiber to be deployed. So satellite can also serve as an interim 
solution while that is being set up, so that at least people 
have broadband now and then can use something different in the 
future.
    Ms. Clarke. Very well. Do either of you want to comment on 
that? It is not necessary. I have other questions. OK. Let me 
go to it quickly.
    On the topic of environmental justice, technological 
advances can play a crucial role in both identifying problems, 
threats, and providing otherwise unavailable or inaccessible 
data.
    The question is directed to any or all of you esteemed 
panelists. What role can the satellite marketplace play in 
understanding and addressing environmental issues?
    Yes.
    Ms. Bingen. So if I can start with a story, and then I will 
get to that.
    Mr. Latta. I am sorry, you have 22 seconds.
    Ms. Bingen. So I teach a space policy class at Georgetown, 
and one of my students last year was an FBI environmental 
crimes analyst. Why she took the course on space is because she 
wanted to understand how space could be used to help address 
that mission. So absolutely.
    Particularly the space remote sensing data, you can use it 
for detecting illegal fishing, illegal mining, illegal 
foresting activities, destruction of coral mines in the South 
China Sea. You pair that data with the artificial intelligence 
we talked about earlier and then these communication networks, 
you can get that process data to anyone in the world.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentlelady yields back.
    Ms. Clarke. I yield back. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Latta. Just to let the Members know, we are at 10 
minutes and 49 seconds for this vote to close, so we know there 
are a few minutes after that.
    Would there be any objection if we cut our time down about 
2 minutes to ask, so we can get--because otherwise, we are 
going to come back, and I just don't want to hold these 
witnesses.
    So, Mr. Walberg, the gentleman from Michigan is--from 
Michigan 5 is recognized.
    Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You are great. I am 
proud of you. I am glad you had this hearing today.
    Ms. Manner, in your testimony, you talk about the recent 
work of international standards bodies like 3GPP to facilitate 
interoperability between satellite networks and terrestrial 
networks. I have led legislation to promote U.S. wireless 
leadership in these standards bodies, because it is important 
that our adversaries do not write the rules of the road.
    Can you please elaborate on how you see the future of the 
satellite marketplace as it relates to the recent developments 
in these standards bodies?
    Ms. Manner. Yes, thank you. So I view satellite as a 
complementary service. And we have heard today about my 
colleague from Lynk's service, but satellite operators are also 
putting their own frequency bands into cell phones today.
    And so you are going to see a more robust marketplace with 
lots of different solutions, but also hybrid devices today. We 
offer a hybrid IoT service that is both terrestrial and 
satellite. So you will go to the most efficient and cost-
effective method.
    So by having these standards enabled that include both 
satellite and terrestrial, it will be seamless to the user. We 
are working on technology that switches right now so that you 
would never know, as the user, whether you are using satellite 
or terrestrial to be seamless. So it will be a same user 
experience.
    Mr. Walberg. Thank you. Staying on the same topic, Ms. 
Zoller, I understand that you have also led the U.S. at these 
international bodies and conferences. How do you recommend we 
approach this issue at an international level?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you for that question. It is absolutely 
essential that the U.S. Government prioritize satellite issues 
at the International Telecommunication Union and the World 
Radiocommunication Conference. It is a treaty conference that 
happens only every 4 years. A lot of countries look at the 
outcome and adopt it into our rules. We need those outcomes to 
be favorable and to promote U.S. innovation and economic 
growth.
    Mr. Walberg. Thank you.
    And, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back and submit my 
questions.
    Mr. Latta. If I could just interrupt my friend for a 
second, there are a couple Members that do want to come back 
after. So if you want to finish up with your last 2 minutes and 
53 seconds, you have it.
    Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Bingen, this committee has taken action to prevent 
untrusted companies, like Huawei and ZTE, from offering service 
or having equipment present in communications networks in the 
United States.
    If companies that raise similar national security concerns 
were to provide satellite services in the United States, what 
does that mean for American data and sensitive uses of 
satellite services?
    Ms. Bingen. If a Chinese company, most likely backed by one 
of their State-owned enterprises, built and operates a system, 
whether it be space-based or terrestrial, I would be concerned 
that they would now have the means and the access to steal 
sensitive data, whether it be personal information, sensitive 
technology, or business information, that they would be able to 
conduct espionage, that they would be able to block access, et 
cetera.
    And I say this because they have a military-civil fusion 
policy that basically says, ``Hey, commercial, you have got to 
help our military.'' They have a national intelligence law that 
compels individuals and organizations to support their national 
intelligence activities and to keep it secret. So there is more 
there that gives me concern.
    Mr. Walberg. More there there. Yes. Thank you.
    Ms. Manner, back to you. You mentioned the need for 
increased U.S. support at the International Telecommunications 
Union and at the World Radiocommunication Conference. What type 
of support did you have in mind?
    And secondly, how can the U.S. set itself up for success at 
the World Radiocommunication Conference, and what would be a 
successful outcome?
    Ms. Manner. Thank you. So first off, there has been times 
where the satellite industry is not fully represented in the 
U.S. positions at the WRC, and there tends to be favoritism 
toward certain technologies over satellite. For instance, we 
have seen some situations where the U.S. has favored positions 
that would actually harm the satellite industry from deployment 
or continued use of certain frequency bands. So that is an area 
we are concerned with.
    In terms of success at the U.S., I do think that we--this 
is one--this is one where I do think additional resources are 
critical. We are incredibly understaffed on the Federal 
Government side, in my view, at the WRC. We do a really good 
job with minimal resources, but having additional staff at the 
three agencies that tend to lead, which are the FCC, Department 
of Commerce's NTIA, and Department of State, would certainly 
put us into a better situation.
    And we have already--I am proud to say that we are seeing 
some support already for the preparation for the WRC. So early 
process, but that is something we are doing a good job on. So 
thank you.
    Mr. Walberg. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentleman's time has 
expired.
    And the gentleman from Florida's 12th is recognized. And 
just to let everybody know, we are at 5 minutes now.
    Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 
appreciate it very much.
    With recent redistricting, now I represent Hernando and 
Citrus County in Florida, two wonderful counties. In meeting 
after meeting with the constituents and local leaders, I 
regularly hear that internet connectivity and cell phone 
service are top issues to be addressed. As I frequent these 
counties, I can agree it is a very serious problem going 
through those counties for many, many years, even though I 
didn't represent them.
    Satellite innovation offers hope for these areas, 
especially to those where terrestrial networks are unrealistic 
due to marshy land conditions, and hopefully neutralize the 
digital divide once and for all.
    So, Mr. Stroup, for realistic coverage to consumers and as 
a stable business model, you need to launch thousands of NGSO 
satellites. Does the FCC review and approve these as a whole, 
in batches, or one by one? What is the timeline for getting 
approvals? And is the regulatory process the same or different 
for geostationary satellites as with the NGSO systems?
    Mr. Stroup. Thank you for the question. And I actually 
might suggest deferring to one of my members who has actually 
been through the process and can give you the exact details in 
terms of timeframes, if you don't mind.
    Mr. Bilirakis. Yes, please.
    Mr. Stroup. Julie.
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you. I can speak to our experience. We 
applied for our FCC license in July of 2019 and received it in 
July of 2020. So it took a year, well ahead of our planned 
operation date.
    Mr. Bilirakis. Very good. Thank you.
    Moving to a different topic, yesterday I chaired a hearing, 
very honored to chair a hearing, a subcommittee hearing on 
Innovation, Data, and Commerce on the threats we face if China 
was to lead on emerging technologies such as autonomous 
vehicles. We are not going to let that happen. Obviously, those 
threats exist as we navigate the satellite space as well in 
this race.
    Mr. Stroup, again----
    Mr. Latta. OK. If I can interrupt the gentleman for just 
one second. We are down under 3 minutes.
    Mr. Bilirakis. OK. All right. No problem. I will submit the 
question. Is that OK?
    Mr. Latta. That is fine.
    Mr. Bilirakis. All right. Thank you very much. I yield 
back.
    Mr. Latta. At this time, we are going to recess, because 
the votes are getting down to about a minute and a half now. 
And we are going to ask the Members that are coming back that 
as soon as that last vote is over to be right back here so we 
can get you all released from your witness chairs. So thank you 
very much, and we stand in recess.
    [Recess.]
    Mr. Latta. I recognize the gentlelady from Tennessee for 5 
minutes.
    Mrs. Harshbarger. Well, thanks for coming back. Thank you, 
Mr. Chairman.
    I want to start with Ms. Deckard. You know, I serve a rural 
district in east Tennessee, and there are mountains in the 
region, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. And we get more 
than double the number of visitors than anybody else does in 
the country, of any other national park, as a matter of fact. 
It was 14.1 million last year.
    But I say that to say this: Your Lynk system, we had fires 
back in 2016 that killed 14 people. I know it is not like 
California, but it was devastating to that community. And if 
they had had access--they didn't have communication. Even the 
EMS responders didn't have communication with each other. So 
that was devastating.
    You say in your testimony that your model is to partner 
with carriers so they bring the spectrum and the customers in. 
You bring the space-based infrastructure to fill the gaps in 
the network.
    And my question is this: What kind of reception have you 
gotten from U.S. carriers, and how many partners do you need to 
offer this service?
    Ms. Deckard. Thank you for the question. So the mobile 
network operators are very excited about the potential for 
being able to extend their coverage. I think, you know, they 
are open to learning about the technology and they want to make 
sure that it doesn't interfere with their terrestrial networks.
    And as Lynk was rolled out and as a function of our 
experimental licenses with the FCC, we actually give the mobile 
network operators in the U.S., within the spot beam of where we 
are operating them, we give them our test schedule and they 
monitor and sign off on our tests.
    So over time, we have been building that relationship with 
them. And you actually need one large mobile network operator 
really to go into the FCC to be able to partner.
    Mrs. Harshbarger. That is good to hear. You know, we have 
the Appalachian Trail too. And I know that I have hiked on that 
Appalachian Trail, and there is no service. I don't care--you 
have to carry a GPS device to do that. But if we could do that 
on the phone, that would be fantastic. I know there are some 
apps you can download to tell you about the terrain, but----
    Thank you for what you have done with EMS, and they have 
made a lot of corrections in Gatlinburg in different places 
after that fire, a lot of insufficiencies have been corrected 
because of that.
    I want to turn to you, Ms. Bingen. And, you know, it is 
astonishing, in your testimony, you said in 2021 the U.S. 
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency assessed that China was 
the global leader in three of nine categories of commercially 
space-based imagery capabilities. And then you go on down to 
say the U.S. commercial providers maintained the lead in only 
three categories.
    If there are nine categories, who else leads in the other 
three, I guess, is my question?
    Ms. Bingen. I am looking at a chart, and NGA has this 
available as well. So the other three--let me make sure I 
understand my flags here. Argentina, Korea, and then I believe 
this is Finland.
    Mrs. Harshbarger. Really?
    Ms. Bingen. But I can get back to you on that.
    Mrs. Harshbarger. Well, that is just--our fight is against 
China in so many ways. So I just was curious, since they 
weren't listed, what they were. But I am looking at the 
categories you did list. We need to be number one. We need to 
be ahead in all nine, basically. Thank you for that.
    And I know I have got a little bit of time. This is for Ms. 
Zoller and Ms. Manner. You know, I have told you before I live 
in a very rural district. I have two distressed counties, and a 
lot of my constituents rely on satellite internet. And we know 
that Congress has spent an astronomical amount of money in the 
last 2 years, and of that, the vast majority of broadband 
funding is going to end up going toward fiber for the last 
mile.
    Without significant permitting reform, you know, I have 
serious concerns about the money actually getting into 
internet, into the homes of the people I serve, because I know 
it is not there yet.
    You know, in the likely event that this money fails to 
deliver universal service for east Tennesseeans, what level of 
service can my constituents expect from satellite internet, and 
what can Congress do to help satellite internet companies 
deliver stronger service in places like east Tennessee?
    Ms. Manner. So I think the good news is today--and that is 
growing--there is some hundred--there is some higher-speed 
service. We are bringing even higher speed than we have today 
later this year and a number of other operators and my 
colleagues from Amazon as well.
    I think the bigger issue is the funding issue. And, 
unfortunately, the way BEAD is being implemented is a way that 
essentially closes the door for satellite broadband. So having 
an oversight hearing perhaps with NTIA to talk to them about 
how they are spending the money to make sure that it does get 
out.
    And as I talked about, it doesn't have to be the final 
solution. It could be an interim solution until other 
technologies can come. But satellite is up today, and it is 
continuing to grow. You know, we are putting up new satellites, 
a lot of other folks are. So you are seeing greater capability. 
So it is really an affordability issue. I have been to your 
district and love it there, so I----
    Mrs. Harshbarger. It is the most beautiful part of 
Tennessee. It goes from Bristol Motor Speedway to Dollywood. So 
what else do you want, you know?
    Ms. Zoller?
    Ms. Zoller. Thank you. LEO constellations are a great way 
to connect people in rural and remote communities around the 
world who are out of reach of traditional wired and wireless 
networks and who will stay that way.
    We look forward to serving your community. I would agree 
with Ms. Manner that, to the extent that funding is provided, 
it should be done so on a technology-neutral basis.
    Mrs. Harshbarger. Yes. Do you want to chime in, sir?
    Mr. Stroup. I would agree with both of my colleagues. I 
mean, the service is affordable. It is available immediately, 
and there are more constellations being launched every day.
    Mrs. Harshbarger. I know. Why don't they understand this? 
Well, anyway.
    OK. I have talked to all of you. So I guess, with that, Mr. 
Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much. The gentlelady's time has 
expired and yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank you and 
Ranking Member Matsui for allowing me to waive on. I served on 
this subcommittee for five terms, and it didn't work out that 
way this session, but these issues are all very, very important 
to me. So you are going to get requests from me to waive on 
quite often, so I hope that is OK.
    Ms. Zoller, I am very excited about what you are doing with 
Project Kuiper and the prospects of LEO satellite broadband 
playing such a critical role in bridging the urban-rural 
digital divide, because we got a lot of that problem in my 
rural Appalachian district. And that is true for all the 
providers.
    Are there any specific actions that Congress could take 
that would assist in the FCC's ability to process license 
applications to keep up with the demand so that they can 
process it more efficiently?
    Ms. Zoller. I am excited too. And I appreciate your 
question.
    I think that the congressional attention on these issues is 
very motivating, in terms of fostering motivation within the 
Commission to move out on some rulemakings, to make more 
spectrum available for nongeostationary satellite systems, 
aligning the U.S. rules with what is available more globally 
already, and to also clarify how we will share spectrum with 
each other in the future, because that lack of clarity can be 
the source of a lot of controversy during the application 
process.
    Mr. Johnson. Sure. Are there other regulatory hurdles that 
you are facing for Project Kuiper to successfully launch your 
satellites and provide these services?
    Ms. Zoller. The international regulatory landscape is a 
patchwork of different rules and requirements. Many countries 
look to the ITU for guidance on how to allocate spectrum, what 
services should share together and so on, and many are behind 
the United States in terms of making decisions that would 
enable nongeostationary systems.
    So I think it is really important that the U.S. go to the 
World Radio Conference with a strong voice, a very pro-
satellite voice, and help us move the rule set in a direction 
that enables American innovation.
    Mr. Johnson. OK. All right.
    Continuing, Ms. Zoller, in your testimony, you mention the 
importance of the U.S. presenting key priorities at that World 
Radiocommunication Conference later. You just mentioned some of 
them moving, you know, speaking with a loud voice. Are there 
other messages that the U.S. should be given at that 
conference?
    Ms. Zoller. A particular area of importance is the mobility 
of Earth stations for nongeostationary systems. It is something 
we already allow here in the United States for systems like 
ours, but it is not the case globally. And this is an issue on 
the agenda of the 2023 World Radio Conference. And we would 
like to see a good decision out of the Conference, knowing that 
it is 4 years between treaty events and it could be many, many 
more before such an issue is revisited.
    Mr. Johnson. OK. Mr. Stroup, in your testimony, you 
mentioned China's investments in satellite systems and the 
services they are offering at below-market rate or free 
globally. This is very concerning from a national security 
standpoint in addition to commercially for U.S. competitors, 
because we all know there are likely a lot of unknown and 
unintended consequences of letting the Chinese play in that 
global marketplace.
    What specific ways can Congress support domestic innovation 
and bring U.S. providers back to a more level playing field 
internationally?
    Mr. Stroup. I think ensuring the health of satellite 
providers is one of the key aspects of it, because certainly 
what they are seeking to do is consistent with some of the 
other infrastructure investments that they have made in various 
countries. And ultimately, to have a successful constellation, 
whether it is a geo or nongeo system, you want to provide 
service globally.
    So I think that helping to ensure the strength of the 
industry through the many things that we have talked about--
access to spectrum, stable regulatory environment--are all key 
things to ensuring the competitiveness of our companies.
    Mr. Johnson. OK. All right.
    Well, Mr. Chairman, again, thanks for allowing me to waive 
on, and I yield back.
    Mr. Latta. The gentleman yields back.
    And seeing no other Members here wishing to ask questions, 
I want to, again, thank the panel for being with us today. I 
think that, as you can tell from all the questions you had and 
so many Members being here wanting to ask those questions, that 
it is a fascinating topic, one that we have to be very, very 
concerned about. So, again, I just want to thank you.
    And I ask unanimous consent to insert in the record the 
documents included on the staff hearing documents list. Without 
objection, that will be the order. Without objection, so 
ordered.
    [The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
    Mr. Latta. Pursuant to committee rules, I remind Members 
they have 10 business days to submit questions for the record, 
and I ask the witnesses to respond to the questions promptly. 
Members should submit their record questions by the close of 
business on February the 16th.
    And without objection, the subcommittee is adjourned. Thank 
you very much.
    [Whereupon, at 12:59 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
    [Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
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