<a href="http://www.ntia.doc.gov/speechtestimony/2011/remarks-assistant-secretary-strickling-practising-law-institutes-29th-annual-te">http://www.ntia.doc.gov/speechtestimony/2011/remarks-assistant-secretary-strickling-practising-law-institutes-29th-annual-te</a><br>
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<span class="date-display-single">December 08, 2011</span> </div>
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</div><p align="center"><strong>Remarks by Lawrence E. Strickling</strong></p>
<p align="center"><strong>Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information</strong></p>
<p align="center"><strong>PLI/FCBA Telecommunications Policy & Regulation Institute</strong></p>
<p align="center"><strong>Washington, DC</strong></p>
<p align="center"><strong>December 8, 2011</strong></p>
<p align="center">—<strong>As prepared for delivery</strong>—</p>
<p>I am pleased to return to this conference as a speaker. I realize I
am the last speaker before the Chairman’s dinner, so I am under a lot of
pressure to be brief, and maybe even interesting. But I do want to
take this opportunity to review our accomplishments of the last year and
preview our priorities for the coming year. And what a year it has
been. We all remember the prediction of the talk show evangelist Harold
Camping that the world was going to end this year. The conventional
wisdom is that Camping was wrong. But there are many, including probably
some of you, who predicted that the world would end before the FCC
would ever reform universal service so perhaps Camping actually was onto
something. </p>
<p>Of course, I am not here to talk about the FCC but rather my agency,
the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and
while none of our work will either require or lead to the end of the
world, we are working on a host of compelling issues that will help
shape the telecommunications and Internet landscape for years to come.<br>
Our work focuses on three principal areas—spectrum, Internet policy and broadband. I’ll talk about each in turn.</p>
<p><strong>Spectrum </strong></p>
<p>First: spectrum.</p>
<p>One of NTIA’s core missions is to manage the use of spectrum by
Federal agencies. Our work in this area is more important now than ever
before as spectrum is fast becoming a pillar of America's digital
infrastructure. Spectrum has enabled the mobile broadband revolution,
changing the way that Americans communicate and do business.</p>
<p>But while demand for America's spectrum resources is increasing at
rapid rates—the amount of information flowing over some wireless
networks is growing at over 250 percent per year—there has not been a
corresponding increase in supply. If we do not meet America’s growing
spectrum needs, we not only threaten our economic growth but also our
role as the world leader in wireless innovation.</p>
<p>Last year, President Obama committed to make available 500 megahertz
of Federal and nonfederal spectrum for wireless broadband over the next
10 years. The initiative – to nearly double the amount of commercial
spectrum over the next decade – will spur investment, economic growth,
and job creation while supporting the growing demand by consumers and
businesses for wireless broadband services. </p>
<p>So last fall, NTIA released a ten-year plan and timetable that
identified 2,200 megahertz of spectrum for evaluation, the process for
evaluating these candidate bands, and the steps necessary to make the
selected spectrum available for wireless broadband services.</p>
<p>We also released the results of a fast-track review to identify some
spectrum reallocation opportunities that exist in the nearer term. We
recommended a total of 115 megahertz of spectrum be made available for
wireless broadband use within five years.</p>
<p>This year we focused our efforts on evaluating the 1755-1850
megahertz band for potential repurposing to commercial use. This 95
megahertz of spectrum is used currently by federal agencies for a host
of important services, including some very complex Department of Defense
systems, but is of great interest to industry given its location in the
spectrum table.</p>
<p>NTIA completed its technical review of the band at the beginning of
October, the target date we set forth in our timetable. We are now
collaborating with OMB and the federal agencies to finalize our
recommendation, which we expect to release in the coming weeks. This
has been a complex inquiry because we are dealing with large systems,
such as air combat training systems, that will be very expensive to
relocate and will take years to relocate.</p>
<p>We are approaching the point where the days of clearing spectrum
bands of all government uses and then making them available for the
exclusive use of commercial service providers are pretty much over.
Today, federal agencies have exclusive control over only 18 percent of
the spectrum between 300 and 3000 megahertz. Over the years, the
critical missions performed by federal agencies have required systems of
greater and greater complexity, which makes their relocation quite
costly and lengthy. We are headed for an environment where commercial
wireless broadband will need to co-exist in the same bands with federal
operations. This new environment raises technical issues for sure. But
it also raises business issues as to how spectrum users, whether
companies or agencies, will be able to organize themselves to take
advantage of new technologies that support novel spectrum sharing
arrangements. So this is an important issue for research and analysis
over the coming years, and we must solve it if we are going to be able
to meet the demand for spectrum for commercial wireless broadband
services.</p>
<p>In 2012, spectrum issues also will be prominent in the international
arena. The 193 member countries of the International Telecommunication
Union will meet next month at the World Radiocommunication Conference
and make decisions about spectrum that affect how unmanned aircraft will
be controlled and whether imagery that supports disaster relief
operations has sufficient resolution. They will also determine when and
how future mobile broadband needs will be met. We have joined with
other nations in the Americas in a common proposal to address this issue
as a matter of urgency, and to make specific spectrum allocations in
2015. We are working closely with the FCC and federal agencies to
ensure we succeed internationally in making mobile allocations while
taking into account the needs of incumbent users.</p>
<p>On the legislative front, I am pleased to see that Congress continues
to work on comprehensive spectrum legislation. This legislation is
crucial to advancing the President’s goals of making additional spectrum
available for commercial wireless use, achieving the long-overdue goal
of a nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband network, and
reducing the deficit. Senators Rockefeller and Hutchison have shown
great leadership in crafting a bipartisan bill that tracks closely with
the spectrum provisions in the American Jobs Act, and Representatives
Waxman and Eshoo have proposed similar legislation in the House. Each
of these measures, in varying degrees of detail, contains critical
elements to achieving the Administration’s goals in this area, which
include:</p>
<ul><li>
Giving the FCC authority to conduct voluntary incentive auctions;</li><li>
Maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of federal spectrum use
through improvements to relocation and spectrum sharing processes;</li><li>
Reallocating the D Block for public safety use;</li><li>
Building out a nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband network through a strong, nationally-focused governance body;</li><li>
Ensuring new opportunities for innovation through expanded unlicensed spectrum;</li><li>
Supporting critical research and development; and</li><li>
Reducing the deficit. </li></ul>
<p>Each of these goals is achievable, if done the right way, and we
continue to work with the House and Senate so that the President can
sign legislation in the near term. But I do need to add some specific
comments about the draft bill approved by a subcommittee of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee last week. </p>
<p>Having observed close-up how large telecommunications networks are
built, I have serious concerns about the House bill. Specifically
related to public safety, the bill’s governance model appears to turn a
blind eye to the past years of failure in achieving nationwide public
safety communications interoperability through a patchwork of state
networks. If past is prologue, such an approach is doomed to fail,
potentially wasting billions in taxpayer dollars along the way.
Additionally, the bill ignores the critical role that both unlicensed
spectrum and communications research and development have played and can
continue to play in driving innovation and job growth. Imagine where
we would be today if we did not have the benefit of all the Wi-Fi
systems that were made possible by the use of unlicensed spectrum. I
greatly appreciate the work that Chairmen Upton and Walden and their
staff have undertaken, and I am hopeful that these issues can be
resolved satisfactorily going forward. NTIA is committed to working with
all parties to make that happen.</p>
<p><strong>I</strong><strong>nternet Policy </strong></p>
<p>Next, let me turn to Internet policy. This year has been a very
active one for NTIA in the area of Internet governance as well as in
privacy policy. In fact, the Senate Commerce Committee had a hearing
this morning on the new top level domain program that Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will be starting in
January. Our work at NTIA in this area has focused on how we can
preserve and expand the marvelous economic and job creation engine that
the Internet has become. As we address these issues, we are guided by
two principles.</p>
<p>First is trust. It is imperative for the sustainability and continued
growth of the Internet that we preserve the trust of all actors on the
Internet. For example, if users do not trust that their personal
information is safe on the Internet, they may not use it to its full
potential. If content providers do not trust that their content will be
protected, they may be reluctant to put it online.</p>
<p>Second, as we find ways to address Internet policy challenges, we
want to preserve the flexibility companies need to innovate. Our view at
NTIA is that multistakeholder processes are best suited for striking
this balance. By engaging all interested parties, multistakeholder
processes encourage broader and more creative problem solving, which is
essential when markets and technology are changing as rapidly as they
are. They promote speedier, more flexible decision making than is common
under traditional, top-down regulatory models which can too easily fall
prey to rigid procedures, bureaucracy, and stalemate.</p>
<p>The United States strongly supports the use of a multistakeholder
process as the preferred means of addressing Internet policy issues. We
have been active in promoting the multistakeholder model in the
international arena through our work at ICANN and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).</p>
<p>But there is a challenge emerging to this model in parts of the
world. Some nations appear to prefer an Internet managed and controlled
by nation-states. In December 2012, the U.S. will participate in the
ITU’s World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). This
treaty negotiation will conduct a review of the International
Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), the general principles which
relate to traditional international voice telecommunication services.
We expect that some states will attempt to rewrite the regulation in a
manner that would exclude the contributions of multi-stakeholder
organizations and instead provide for heavy-handed governmental control
of the Internet, including provisions for cybersecurity and granular
operational and technical requirements for private industry. We do not
support any of these elements. It is critical that we work with the
private sector on outreach to countries to promote the multi-stakeholder
model as a credible alternative. Our work must begin right away.</p>
<p>In pushing back on these initiatives of other countries to regulate
the Internet through a treaty, we must be vigilant to protect the
multistakeholder process in our country. For example, at ICANN, a
multistakeholder process that ran for six years resulted in the approval
last summer of an expansion of top level domains. This process
involved global stakeholders from the business community, civil society,
registries, registrars, and governments. At NTIA, we worked throughout
the process to make sure that ICANN adequately addressed government
concerns and we have also spent significant time the last two years
pushing for overall improvements in ICANN’s accountability and
transparency to the global Internet community. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, we are now seeing parties that did not like the outcome
of that multistakeholder process trying to collaterally attack the
outcome and seek unilateral action by the U.S. government to overturn or
delay the product of a six-year multistakeholder process that engaged
folks from all over the world. The multistakeholder process does not
guarantee that everyone will be satisfied with the outcome. But it is
critical to preserving the model of Internet governance that has been so
successful to date that all parties respect and work through the
process and accept the outcome once a decision is reached. When parties
ask us to overturn the outcomes of these processes, no matter how
well-intentioned the request, they are providing “ammunition” to other
countries who attempt to justify their unilateral actions to deny their
citizens the free flow of information on the Internet. This we will not
do. There is too much at stake here. </p>
<p>But we are sensitive to the concerns being raised by some companies
about the introduction of new gTLDs. Today, Chairman Rockefeller held an
important oversight hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee on the
subject of how ICANN will expand top level domains. We agree with the
Chairman’s concerns over how this program will be implemented and its
potential negative effect if not implemented properly. We will closely
monitor the execution of the program and are committed to working with
stakeholders, including U.S. industry, to mitigate any unintended
consequences.</p>
<p>We are putting these principles of trust and multistakeholder process
into practice with our work on privacy. The current privacy policy
framework has come under increasing strain as companies collect more and
more personal data on the Internet, putting at risk the consumer trust
that is an essential foundation of the digital economy.</p>
<p>Last year, when the Commerce Department launched its examination of
online privacy, the public response showed us that both industry and
public interest groups are in broad agreement that consumers need
clearer, more consistent privacy protections in the Internet economy.
But we need to bolster privacy in a manner that continues to ensure the
Web remains a platform for innovation, jobs, and economic growth.</p>
<p>We learned a tremendous amount from the stakeholder input we received
throughout this process, and we are now finalizing a
soon-to-be-released report that sets forth Administration-wide policy.
Let me preview the framework we will be announcing. It consists of four
pillars.</p>
<p>First, we will set forth a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights that
provides clear protections for consumers and greater certainty for
businesses. And we will ask Congress to enact the Bill of Rights into
law. A baseline consumer data privacy law would increase legal certainty
for businesses, strengthen consumer trust, and support the United
States’ consumer data privacy engagements with our international
partners. A wide array of stakeholders—from industry and civil
society—has voiced support for legislation. </p>
<p>Second, NTIA will convene interested parties to develop codes of
conduct based on the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. This will be an
open and transparent multistakeholder process, and we expect that
commitments to follow codes of conduct will be enforceable under U.S.
law. </p>
<p>We can start this work even before Congress enacts the Bill of Rights
into law. NTIA will work with various constituents to identify
specific markets or business contexts that pose significant consumer
privacy issues and are ripe for codes of conduct. We will urge all
stakeholders who share an interest in these areas to participate in the
efforts that interest them. Together we will work toward consensus on
appropriate, legally enforceable codes of conduct. </p>
<p>The third pillar of our framework, effective enforcement, is critical
to ensuring that companies are accountable for adhering to codes of
conduct and other privacy commitments. In the U.S., we will encourage
Congress to provide the FTC and the Attorneys General in our States with
authority to directly enforce the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights.</p>
<p>Fourth and finally, we will reaffirm that the United States is
committed to increasing interoperability with the privacy frameworks of
our international partners. The codes can play an important role
bridging the differences in privacy regimes between countries, and we
will welcome international participation. </p>
<p>I expect that the development of these codes will be a major initiative for NTIA next year.</p>
<p><strong>Broadband </strong></p>
<p>Last, let me address our work on expanding broadband access and
availability. In the past year, we have become one of, if not the,
leading source of public data on broadband access and adoption in
America.</p>
<p>Last February we published the National Broadband Map – America’s
first public, searchable nationwide map of broadband Internet
availability. We are updating the map twice a year. Each update is
powered by an extensive, publicly available dataset – more than 20
million records – that shows where broadband is available, the
technology used to provide the service, the maximum advertised speeds,
and the names of the service providers. It is the most extensive dataset
of its kind. We are also collecting the locations of community anchor
institutions and the broadband services that they adopt.</p>
<p>One of the key take-aways from the map is that well over 90 percent
of Americans have access to some level of broadband service. This does
not diminish the fact that many communities still need broadband
infrastructure. Moreover, the map demonstrates that countless community
anchor institutions – such as public safety facilities, hospitals,
schools, and libraries – lack adequate broadband. </p>
<p>We’ve performed additional research on broadband adoption. Our
Digital Nation report, a survey of 54,000 households which we released
last month, shows that only 68 percent of households subscribe to
broadband. So nearly a third of households –more than 100 million
Americans – are cut off from the Internet at home. And approximately one
in five households –20 percent– do not use the Internet <em>anywhere</em>.</p>
<p>This is a troubling statistic in the 21<sup>st</sup> century economy,
when broadband access and digital literacy skills are needed to compete
in the workforce. For example, about 80 percent of Fortune 500
companies only accept job applications online. And with approximately 60
percent of working Americans using the Internet as an integral part of
their jobs, broadband access and digital literacy are paramount to
succeeding in the digital economy.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, here is what Americans tell us about why they don’t adopt
broadband: Nearly half of non-adopting households cited a lack of
interest or need as the primary reason. The next most common reasons
were the expense and the lack of an adequate computer.</p>
<p>The point is that there are different reasons why people do not adopt
broadband at home. In some cases, there is a perception that it’s not
needed. In other cases, the reason is affordability or an insufficient
computer. As we often say, there is no “one size fits all” solution to
this issue. We can’t make assumptions that the cause for non-adoption is
simply related to income or availability.</p>
<p>Our findings also underscore that community anchor institutions are
important means of broadband access for those who don’t have broadband
at home but <em>do</em> want to go online. Besides the workplace,
schools and public libraries are the main locations where these
Americans use broadband.</p>
<p>So the research reaffirms the importance of broadband availability in
anchor institutions and the role of public computer centers. The
analysis also indicates that effective broadband outreach and support
should be targeted to specific populations, and it should demonstrate
the relevancy of broadband. </p>
<p>I’m pleased to say that NTIA is investing in a host of projects nationwide doing just these things. </p>
<p>Thanks to the Recovery Act, NTIA is investing nearly $4 billion in
about 230 projects to expand broadband access and adoption. These
projects will build and upgrade broadband infrastructure, expand and
improve public computer centers, and promote sustainable broadband
adoption through computer training and other approaches. These
investments promise to stimulate economic growth and job creation in
both the short and long term.</p>
<p>Already, grantees in NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities
Program, or BTOP as we call it, have deployed or upgraded more than
29,000 miles of broadband infrastructure and installed more than 24,000
workstations in public computer centers. In the last quarter, grantees
provided more than 755,000 hours of training to around 220,000
participants. And grantees report that their programs have already led
to a total of more than 230,000 new broadband subscribers.</p>
<p>The numbers are impressive, but let me give you a few examples of how these projects are benefiting their communities.</p>
<ul><li>
I visited Kannapolis, North Carolina, one of the towns that will
benefit from two infrastructure grants that will reach much of the
state, especially rural areas. The effort is led by <strong>MCNC</strong>,
a nonprofit broadband provider that has operated the North Carolina
Research and Education Network (NCREN) for more than 25 years. Funded by
a $104 million Recovery Act investment and $42 million in private
sector matching funds, the project will deploy or upgrade a total of
2,600 miles of infrastructure. It will extend broadband to nearly 2,700
community anchor institutions, including universities, schools,
community colleges, libraries, healthcare providers, and public safety
facilities. About 1,100 of those anchors have already benefitted from
improved access to the network.</li></ul>
<p style="margin-left:.5in">Before we funded MCNC, its network
delivered speeds of 1 gigabit per second or faster to only 12 out of 100
counties in North Carolina. With the Recovery Act dollars, MCNC will
expand that number to 83 counties. This will not only improve education
and other public services, but it can also spur additional private
sector investment as local Internet providers utilize the new
infrastructure to extend broadband service to homes and businesses that
may otherwise be too costly to reach.<br>
<br>
Even while construction is underway, the project is benefiting the
state by creating jobs. Local businesses are serving as vendors, like
Hickory-based CommScope, which is supplying fiber optic cable and other
network materials.<br>
<br>
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the project is how a modern
communications infrastructure can support economic revitalization. For
example, Kannapolis was a textile mill town until 2003, when the mill
closed and displaced thousands of workers. Now, less than a decade
later, it is an emerging biotechnology and life sciences hub, home of
the new North Carolina Research Campus. But the campus needs more
bandwidth. In the past, researchers had to store data on disk drives and
drive across the state to deliver the data to other institutions. The
project we are funding will bring much-needed broadband capacity to the
campus, a vital ingredient in the transformation of this 20th century
American mill town to a 21st century global research center.</p>
<ul><li>
In June, I attended a ribbon-cutting event to formally kick off
construction of the One Maryland Broadband Network, which will bring
broadband access to every one of the state’s 24 counties. Local carriers
will be able to use the new infrastructure to extend or improve
broadband in an area covering nearly 2 million homes and 443,000
businesses, including rural communities in Western and Southern Maryland
and on the Eastern Shore. The network will deliver connections of up to
10 gigabits per second to more than 1,000 schools, libraries, colleges,
police and fire stations and government buildings.</li></ul>
<p style="margin-left:.5in">Among the community anchors institutions
that have hooked up so far are three fire stations in Baltimore City and
Carroll County, an elementary school in Anne Arundel County, the police
department and town hall in Sykesville, Md., and the State Police
Barracks in La Plata, Md. At the Police Barracks, the new network
makes it possible for officers to download training videos in just
seconds, quickly access criminal databases for background checks, and
monitor traffic cameras in real time. The project tells us it has
already created at least 430 jobs in construction, engineering and
project management.</p>
<ul><li>
I was in Cleveland in October where One Community’s infrastructure
project is aptly named “Transforming Northeast Ohio: From Rust Belt to
Tech Powerhouse.” The project is laying the groundwork for economic
revitalization with a new broadband network. They expect to connect up
to 800 community anchor institutions, including public safety and health
care centers, and schools. Local providers will be able to use the new
network to extend or upgrade broadband service in an area with over
6,000 anchors, two million households, and 200,000 businesses.</li></ul>
<ul><li>
One Community also has a grant to increase the sustainable adoption of
broadband service. The project, carried out by One Community and local
partners in five states, has trained and hired more than 100 people, who
are helping others in their own communities learn digital literacy
skills. The project provides customized computer training, low-cost
equipment, and either free or affordable broadband service for
low-income residents. More than 19,000 people have already completed the
training and more than 13,000 have subscribed to broadband as a result
of the project.</li></ul>
<p>In overseeing these projects, NTIA is focused on ensuring that they
are completed on time, on budget, and deliver the promised benefits to
the communities they will serve. NTIA is taking action early to make
sure taxpayer dollars are not wasted and that projects needing our
technical assistance receive it so they can get back on track. </p>
<p>In 2012, we will focus on accelerating the schedules of our grant
recipients so we can maximize the immediate impact on the economy and
ensure that the projects are completed by their end dates in 2013. One
way we are doing that is by sharing successful strategies across the
grant portfolio on issues ranging from procuring fiber to streamlining
the environmental review process.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
<p>As I close, I want to thank you again for the opportunity to speak. I
hope this is an informative conference for you. This is an exciting
time to be in the telecommunications and Internet policy arena, where
our efforts can improve America’s economic future and the lives of our
people.</p><br>