Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hearing Focuses On Wireless Technology And Spectrum Policy 20170303

Confused minds of being antisemi, let israel in a way no other president ever had American History tv schedule, go to cspan. Org. Industry representatives testify on technology and spectrum policy including the federal Communications Commissions spectrum options. Also innovation and the security of communications and wireless devices and applications. The Senate Commerce Committee Heard from them yesterday. Good morning. On the half of my friends and i im glad to convene the first hearing of the subcommittee on Communications Technology innovation and the internet. Anyone hundred 15th congress, welcome to you all. As we all know in todays connected world, perspective increases with every new technology. Spectrum is the lifeblood of this, improving the lives of people around the globe. Our discussion today comes on the heels of this committees approval of the mobile now. Under the senate leadership, weve taken a significant bipartisan step toward freeing our spectrum for the next generation and people should silence their devices , by the way. But, right on cue, thank you senator. For the next generation, in Armed Services, the approval of this legislation. Our hope is the passage of the bill in the near future. Our discussion on policy should continue with rapid growth in the use of mobile devices and the internet of things, demand for spectrum will only increase. Mobilebroadband is giving Rural Americans the tools and resources they need , applications that utilize mobile broadband and deliver policy healthcare in the most remote corners of our state and in Real Time Data for improving the crosssection and they are providing television, broadband and conversation for a variety of applications. Next jen tv has the potential to deliver Better Emergency Services and ultimately save lives. This is particularly important to states like mississippi that can be situated in the past some hurricanes, tornadoes and other Natural Disasters. Unlike spectrum offers opportunities for businesses of all sizes to innovate and continue to fuel the vast expansion of the internet of things. Although innovation for efficient spectrum use will also be what solves the problem of limited spectrum. We are here to talk about the value of spectrum to the economy. We are here to talk about what we have learned from the fccs recent spectrum auctions and how unlicensed spectrum is a vital piece to the puzzle. I also hope our discussion will encourage a focus on the future of spectrum policy and set the stage for this committee to look at ways to address spectrum demand. I would like to welcome all eyewitnesses and i will introduce them in a moment after we have heard from an Opening Statement to our colleague mister shot. Thank you mister chairman for convening this hearing and to the witnesses for being here today. Spectrum is the invisible infrastructure that has become the on ramp to access the internet. Its the mobile and Wireless Technologies people use for money, watch shows, video chat with their doctor, all from their mobile device. In a very short time, these technologies can transform our lives. The 5b Wireless Network and internet of things demand or spectrum will continue to grow. The value that that spectrum delivers to the economy is hard to overstate. Spectrum generates new investments, facilitates innovation, supports jobs growth and advancements in mobile and wireless benefit consumers and more industry secretaryters but transformed news and enhanced Public Safety. Although the focus of todays hearing is on the economic benefits of commercial spectrum, it is vital to point out that the federal government has critical spectrum needs for National Security, transp wide range of other government services. So we must continue to work with the agencies to insure they have the spectrum resources they need now and in the future but we should also build on the successes of the Spectrum Relocation Fund to make it more attractive for agencies to vacate or share bands with more commercial users where there is possible. Sh since we cant create more spectrum, we need to be more creative in how we manage competing spectrum needs. Im confident that industry will find innovative ways to make better use of the bands they have but we need to find a balance between competing public and private sector needs for terrestrial and pattern. And we need spectrum for licensed and unlicensed uses. Spectrum policy a priority for this committee which passed the mobile now act which would make more licensed spectrum available and facilitate the deployment of supporting infrastructure for 5g. Mobile now includes a bill that senator moran and i introduced that requires the government to develop a National Plan for unlicensed spectrum. While a lot of attention focuses how to make new frequencies available for the license side we also need a clear plan to support continued info he vision in the unlicensed bands. These shared bands have become an affordable way for people to get online. Consumers benefit, Technology Companies benefit and isps benefit from unlicensed spectrum. I trust the committee will continuework with the agencies and stakeholders to make more bands available to users over the come weeks and months. We have a responsible to insure people of all walks of life in rural, isolated hard to reach areas across the country have access to wireless broken band services. I know the chairman and many of our colleagues on the committee share this point of view. To pursue new spectrum opportunity every stake hold must be an effective partner in this conversation, a fullystaffed fcc led by a chairman and four commissioners is therefore critical to accomplishing these goals. I am appalled that the white house withdrew all pending nominations for federal commissions that unnecessarily provocative act of the administration should defer to congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle on nominees for these commissions as has been the norm. Of specific relevance to this committee is commissioner rosen weeks sells nomination. She has been a leader on spectrum policy and a strong advocate for consumers. I hope the white house willnd renominate her and the Senate Commitment to confirm her as we should have done a year ago. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the discussion and i look forward to the witnesses testimony. Thank you very much, senator schatz. We have a distinguished panel were looking forward to hearing from at this point. Our witnesses include from left to right, mr. Scott bergmann, Vice President of regulatory affairs, ctia, the wireless association. Mr. Roger entner, founder and lead analyst, recon analytics. Mr. Dave heiner, Vice President and deputy general counsel, microsoft corporation. Mr. Pat laplatney, president , ceo, raycom media. Mr. Tom stroup, president , satellite industry association. We have, a lot of people are prepared to come long distances and put a lot of thought into this hearing. We have votes at the top of the hour. We want to be respectful of the time and preparation of our witnesses. So it is the chairs intention to proceed on with the testimony and members will, will simply proceed in and out during the two votes i think which will begin at the top of the hour, and i think well be able to proceed in that fashion without having to recess and take the valuable time of thesese participants. So well begin to my left, and mr. Bergmann, youre recognized for five minutes for an Opening Statement. Good morning chairman, wicker, Ranking Member schatz, and members of the subcommittee. On behalf of ctia thank you for the opportunity to speak aboutic the significant economic contributions of the u. S. Wireless industry. The power of wireless is transforming how we live and work in every Community Across the country, and in every sector of the economy. Were about to have a breakthrough with 5g the next generation of wireless. 5g will add trillions of dollars to our economy and three million new jobs, from 333 in tupelo, to nearly 3500 in honolulu. To deliver on this promise, the Wireless Industry needs this committees continued leadership to deliver more spectrum ander modernize infrastructure sighting policies. The Wireless Industry today is a powerful contributor to the u. S. Economy. Our members have invested over 300 billion over the last 10 years. And are responsible for more than 4. 6 million jobs. S consumers and businesses continue to adopt mobile broadband with data traffic increasing more than 25 times since 2010. And expected to increase another five times by 2021. Americas Wireless Industry stands ready to invest another 275 billion to deliver 5g networks, faster and more responsive and connect more devices. 5g will enable new generation of smart communities and unlock internet of things. It will unleash industry across our economy, from energy, health care, Public Safety and transportation. With smart grids and selfdriving carts 5g will unlooktrillions of dollars of economic benefits and help save thousands of lives. The u. S. Has been the Global Leader in 4 g. Lte deployment and were poised to lead in 5g but the global competition is fierce. China, japan, south korea, the eu are all in the chase, making spectrum available, streamlining sighting and investing. The keys to u. S. Leadership are sound spectrum and infrastructure apologies. Licenses spectrum in particular is a key input in mobile networks and a powerful creator of Economic Growth and jobs. Fortunately the congress and the if cc have taken bipartisan steps to make spectrum available for wireless. Now more work remains to enable 5g leadership. 5g let me highlight a few steps the committee can take. First, we must insure timely access to new spectrum available to the 600 megahertz incentive auction of the auction will deliver 70 megahertz of spectrum for mobile booed band and 14 for unlicensed use. It raised 19. 6 billion, making it the second largest fcc auction ever. We support a seamless process and committed to working collaborative to achieve the fccs 39 month schedule to so that 5g is not delayed the second, the fcc decision to dedicate high band to mobile services is. By targeting reforms and acting on eight toon additional gig about hertz of spectrum in the mobile act. It takes on average 13 years to reallocate spectrum for wireless use. This under dosser the need to start today. Service sy makes should continue to review federal use of spectrum and consider ways to incentivize agencies to use spectrum for efficiently. Finally we must modernize our infrastructure sighting policies so Wireless Networks can be deployed quickly. They were designed to review large cell towers, not the small cells that will be essential for 5g. Small cells are far less intrusive, size of a pizza box or lunch box and will be deployed bit hundreds of thousands. We can remove barriers toa deployment by addressing burdensome local permitting insuring access to rights of way and polls with costs and fees that are reasonable and costbased. Ri modernizing our Historic Preservation and Environmental Review processes and directing agencies to speed deployment on federal lands and properties. With a continued focus on spectrum and infrastructure, well be able to insure that wireless providers can continue to invest, create jobs, and lead the world in 5g. Thank you. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much. Look and at this point Ranking Member of the full committee has a unanimous consent request. To insert my comment into the record on this extremely important subject and thank you, mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member of the subcommittee for holdingc this hearing. Without objection, the remarks will be inserted at appropriate place in the record. Thank you, senator, and our next witness is mr. Roger entner. Sir, you are recognized. Good morning, chairman wicker, Ranking Member schatz, members of the subcommittee. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify this morning. My name is roger entner. Im the founder of reconr and analytics with a focus on wireless. H im here to discuss my research into the effect that the u. S. Mobile industry has on the u. S. Economy. And to highlight the importance of federal government continuing to free up additional spectrum to support 5 g and future network evolutions. First a quick overview of the u. S. Mobile industry. In 2015 americans spent 2. 9 trillion minutes talking on their mobile phones. Spent 1. 9 trillion Text Messages 218 billion pictures and used 9. 6 trillion inning ga bites of data. U. S. Wireless Network Operators have conducted over 307,000 cell sites, from 2000 to 2015, u. S. Network operators have spent 77. 8 billion to buy spectrum an invested 432 billion to buildout to expand the capacity and speed of the networks. Competition in the u. S. Mobile industry is intense. Two weeks ago verizon reduced its unlimited plan with. Less than four days competitors matched and tried to beat offer. Just today, at t launched another new pricing plan. 97. 9 of americans can choose from three met work based operators and 93. 4 can choose from four operators, plus more than a dozen virtual operators. The mobile industry is equivalent of over the top competitors. How does this relate into jobs . The mobile industry directly and indirectly supports 7 million jobs in the United States. These jobs are a function of the amount of investment the companies spend to build their networks, operate the networks, advertise the networks andt services and otherwise work with a wide variety of vendors to sustain what we know as the American Mobile Consumer Experience and u. S. Wireless industry. As a result, the mobile industry contributed 194. 8 billion in gdp in 2014. The app and mobile content market is a 36 billion industry whose very existence is dependent on the ubiquitous fast, broad, mobile Network American companies have built. Companies like uber, lyft and airbnb would be unthinkable without direct connections and data flows mobile networks give them and their customers. Together these three companies alone are valued at 98 billion. To stay at that the u. S. Mobile industry is one of the driving factors to create new jobs and businesses in the Digital Economy is an understatement. But there is no guarranty the industry will be able to support the kind of exponential demand for mobile networking that a fullyconnected networked economy is expected to need. From 2008 to 2015 mobile data usage increased 643 fold and growth is expected to continue unabated. And today the internet of things is the newest frontier for wireless and it has implications for improvements in manufacturing, health care, transportation. Fo there is not a sector in your u. S. Economy that wont be improved by access to fast, mobile broadband networks. Deploying new spectrum is the most effective and quickest way to provide more capacity ahead of the tsunami of demand and insure the industry can continue to drive Economic Growth and nei job creation. Consider every 10 megahertz of deployed licensed spectrum creates 3. 1 billion in gdp and 100,000 new jobs. The mobile now act is a great next step in the journey to clear more spectrum but as demand for mobile services is increasing, the need foror spectrum is increasing as well. My suggestions for policymakerss are few but specific. First, licenses should be allocated in larger channel sizes. 5g deployments need at least 20 by 20 megahertz channels, ideally in low, medium and high frequencies. Second, 5g deployments hinge on access to clear spectrum which providers have exclusive use. Third to help streamline the approval process for new and existing cell sites. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify at this important hearing. I look forward to answersing your questions. Thank you very much. Mr. Heiner, youre recognized. Chairman wicker, Ranking Member schatz, members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify. My name is dave heiner. Im microsofts Vice President of regulatory affairs. Im pleased to have the opportunity to speak with you today about the critical importance of inrunsed spectrum to the u. S. Economy. We all use unlicensed spectrum every day without giving it much thought. If you open to unlock your car with a key fob or open your ga roar door with remote this morning, make hands free call in your car youre using unlicensed spectrum. If you use a fitness tracker youre connecting to your phone with unlicensed spectrum. Of course we all use wifi every day. Pcs, laptops, tablets mobile phones, game consoles, smart tvs, thermostats, webcams, Lighting Systems and countless other devices connect to the internet and one another with unlicensed wifi spectrum. This Success Story is no accident. Congress and the fcc had great foresight decades ago in opening up spectrum to unlicensed use. Today unlicensed use, unlicensed spectrum is powering the nations economy. The nations internet economy. We can see it all around us. For example, most u. S. Homes have a wifi connection. Away from home there are 94 million public wifi hot spots around the world and that is projected to grow to more than 500 million by 2021. People want wifi wherever they go. And they want it for all of their many devices. As of 2015, the industry had shipped more than 10 billion wifienabled devices. All of this means of course that the unlicensed spectrum is very heavily utilized. In fact according to a report from cisco, in the United States 55 of total internet traffic is carried over a wifi network. By comparison, just 3. 4 of internet traffic is carried by licensed mobile networks. Ce this flood of traffic has translated into enormoustr Economic Growth. As detailed in my written testimony, a recent study estimated that by this year unlicensed spectrum would contribute nearly 50 billion to the gdp and 547 billion in economic surplus annually. The public availability of unlicensed spectrum is important to microsoft because our customers depend on connectivity to reach our services. Our Business Strategy is mobile first, cloud first. Te what that means is enabling customers to use any connected device to Access Internet Services Running in massive data centers which we call the cloud. Our products like windows andwh office used to be stand alone programs but no more. Today theyre always connected, enabling new features and being continuously updated for security and other improvementss in recent years we developed a new platform called azure to enable anyone to build and deploy Cloud Services accessible via the internet. Cloud computing is taking off because it offers tremendous economic efficiencies but thecl cloud is wholly dependent upon connectivity and the unlicensed bands are the workhorse that enable it. For example, our telemetry shows that 98 percent of windows 10 devices are connected to wifi, and nearly half of all the data that comes on to and off thosewi devices flows over the wifi connection. Of course unlicensed spectrum is more than just wifi. The bluetooth connections were all familiar with operate in unlicensed spectrum as well. The internet of things depend upon unlicensed spectrum. Tv white Spaces Technology whica carries promise of bringingac broadband to Rural Communities depends upon unlicensed as well. The unlicensed bands have spurred these and so many other innovations because they provide immediate access to shared spectrum resources with low barriers to entry and light regulation. In closing i would offer two suggestions to promote optimal use of spectrum. First, congress should advance a balanced spectrum policy that includes both licensed and unlicensed spectrum as is done in the mobile now act which we support. Second, through this act and others, policymakers should look for additional opportunity in the low, mid and High Frequency unlicensed bands to help satisfy ever growing demand. Thank you, again, for the opportunity to testify. At microsoft we look forward to working with you to promote optimal spectrum policy. Thank you very much. Mr. Laplatney. Commissioner wicker, Ranking Member schatz and the subcommittee. Im Pat Laplatney president and ceo of raycom media. Im testifying today on behalf of the National Association offy broadcasters and its 1300 full Power Television stations that serve communities across the country with free, locallyfocused programing. I appreciate you inviting me here to speak about the upcoming voluntary upgrade that broadcasters and other parts the country and the world are making to the next Generation Television standard ats 3. 0. Broadband access is on par with electricity and water social media is ubiquitous the importance of local broadcasting and trusted News Coverage it affords is paramount. Through next jen tv broadcasters will deliver this along with mostwatched entertainment programing and sports to your constituents in new and excite ways. What is nextgen tv . That is Crystal Clear ultrahigh def picture that enhances the broadcasting listening experience. Nextgen tv that will have learning capabilities that will save more lives. Nextgen tv an integrates best of broadband and content and drop down men use of sports scores and movie information. It enables broadcast television through smartphones and tablets insuring better local station content is available virtually anywhere anytime that viewers desire. Nextgen tv is spectrum efficient. Offers more channels for free with the same amount of spectrum. No expensive cable bill or data plan is required. Simply put nextgen tv will enhance ability of local broadcasters to Impact Communities we serve. The recent broadcast coverage of the tragic tornado in hat businessburg, mississippi and the hurricanes on the big island of hawaii provide ample evidence of potential viewer benefits that nextgen tv will afford. Through my stations wall to call coverage, next gen enable more and Better Emergency Services including enhanced alerting interactive men use of hyperlocal detail and access had mobile signals failed. D. Commercial and public broadcasters, Consumer Electronics manufacturers an Public Safety advocates have petitioned to the fcc to allow stations to conduct a voluntary Market Driven transition to this nextgen tv standard. After several months the fcc unanimously approved a notice of proposed rule making last week. Broadcasters stand willing and ready to make the necessary investments in oure infrastructure to enable an upgrade to nextgen tv. We simply need the fcc to quickly finalize the rules to move forward. We applaud the fcc for its work to date and encourage the committee to stay engaged. One issue has challenges to enjoy the benefit of nextgen fv, successful completion of broadcast incentive auction. As the auction winds its way to completion, one thing is certain the broadcast industry will end up with less spectrum of the ability of nonparticipating stations to repack successfully into a smaller broadcast band without viewer disruption is critical. To that i want to thank the committee leadership, senators moran and schatz, and cosponsors, senators blumenthal, blunt, fischer and udall for the work on draft legislation that will insure broadcasters will have adequate time and resources to successfully repack following the close of the incentive auction. Your legislation will insure no consumer will lose access to their broadcast service as a result of repack. It is this certainty that nextgen tv requires. Thank you and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you very much. Mr. Stroup, youre recognize. Chairman wicker, ranging member schatz and members of the submitt fee i would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. Im tom stroup, president of the satellite industry association. Since its creation over 20 years ago sia has been the unifiedce voice of the u. S. Industry on policy, regulatory and legislative issues affect the satellite business. Like the other Industries Represented on panel today the a satellite industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and generates billions of dollars in revenue. Beyond strictly financial metrics however i would encourage the subcommittee to consider our very way of life depends on benefits we reef from satellitebased services and applications. Satellites providing truly ubiquitous coverage that enables communications, earth observation, and position navigation and Timing Services have transformed how we communicate, how we map, navigate, an see our world, how we produce food and energy, conduct banking, predict weather, reform disaster relief, insure National Security and so much more. Of course delivering these Diverse Services to a broad range of customers is only possible because of our ability to access spectrum. Satellites have long played a central roll in distributing virtually all Television Content to american viewing audiences. In particular, live events like breaking news and sports depend on the point to multipoint coverage and High Service Quality that satellites provide. Communications satellites also provide connectivity to business works, mobile platforms like commercial aircraft and murraynd time vessels and direct to household consumers. S. Satellite broadband, a highquality and Cost Effective solution, is playing an increasingly important part in addressing the Digital Divide across the United States including in the most rural and remote areas of the country where it remains uneconomical for terrestrial services to build. Today the commercial satellite industry has approximately two million customers nationwide enjoying highquality, Broadband Services no matter where they are located. And, with addition of multiple, high throughput, broadband satellites this year. We expect a prevalence of Broadband Services by satellite to increase rapidly. It is also extremely important to mention the critical ture that satellites propried to ourr safety an security. Satellites are often only means of communicating after a natural or other disaster. Furthermore they enable our military to project power in the air, on land and at sea. To cite one example, Satellite Communications enable agile connectivity and Efficient Mission control for remotelypiloted aircraft carrying out Critical Missions abroad. Let me turn to info he vision and growth. Even as demand for spectrum increased, the satellite industry has developed ways to use it this limited Natural Resource more efficiently. High through put satellites for example, rely on spot Beam Technology to produce increased output factors upwards 20 times of that traditional satellites, meeting fcc benchmark broadband speeds. The industry has seen similarhmp increases in the capacity of its systems. In another highlyanticipated advancement in the industry, hundreds of new highthrough put nongeostationary satelliteshr will provide high speed capacity at low latency levels. Commits high throughput satellites expedite the delivery of 3 and 4g services. In future satellite fleets will be part of the system infrastructure that delivers 5g, iot and Intelligent Transportation consumers services. Sia Member Companies are launching satellites that can view and sense the earth across multiple spectral bands at unparalled spacial resolutionsil with unprecedented Global Coverage rates. D data from the u. S. Remote sensing operators are building new markets based on geospatialt data agriculture, Business Intelligence to weathergr prediction. All the breakthroughs weve seen because of satellite technologies should not be taken for granted. They depend upon our industrys ability to access spectrum. In order for our industry to sustain and meet the growing demand for Satellite Services we encourage regulators to continue to allocate sufficient spectrumu for satellite use. Together we have the opportunity to address the Digital Divide, meet growing needs of u. S. Consumers, insure our countrys safety and National Security, and do so in a manner that utilizes spectrum most efficiently. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and im happy toance any questions. Thank you, mr. Stroup. Thank you all for your excellent testimony and helping us staying in the time. As i explained early enough and ive gone over this also with, with consultation with senator schatz, i will now turn the gavel over to senator gardner, and i will go vote and immediately come back. At, at this point i think it is probably best to recognize senator schatz for a question and then well proceed along, along the list thats been prepared for us by our staff. Been prepared. The use of wireless devices in the unlicensed bands is so poplar the Wifi Alliance predicts we will need another 500 gigahertz of spectrum in the unlicensed demand to accommodate by 2025. I will ask you three questions in the interest of time. Which bands are the most important for unlicensed what are the industrys plans to identify more bands for unlicensed spectrum and do Tech Companies generally agree or differ greatly in terms of a strategy forthe unlicensed bands . Thank you for those questions shot. Ill answer the first two together. We very much need to find and sort of utilize as efficiently as possible additional unlicensed spectrum in the low, mid and high frequencies. The low end, around 600 megahertz, after the incentive auction, we have the possibility of really investing very heavily into the white space technology. Thats technology that enables signals to travel quite a long distance, four or five miles. Its only i think like fm radio, 82 180 on the dial. With fm stations, they can affect the whole city, four megahertz is not far off from that but very low power. Were able to serve an entire community. We have an example coming up in southern virginia as a test pilot. At the mid frequencies, thats where most wifi is today, 2. 4 and five megahertz. Thats a very good spectrum within the home, it can penetrate a couple walls. As you know, your signal falls off outside the home but would like more meticulous spectrum next to what we already have to fill out more channels. Then at the highend in the Millimeter Waves, at the recent spectrum frontiers proceeding of the fec has a new spectrum we are very enthused about. This spectrum can carry a heavy blueprint but only for short distances. Were talking about line of sight. Theres great applications for that technology, to be able for example you have your pc connected to a monitor with no tables, do video within the home, augmented reality scenarios where you are wearing a headset and devices that are actually communicating with the headset on these high Millimeter Waves so we want to see all three bands. In the interest of time i will take the last question for the record so i can get to my second and final question and this is for Mister Berman and Mister Laplante, we all want Faster Internet Service and Better Wireless Service coverage that will result from the kind of options at the same time, a lot of us are concerned that consumers reduce access to the local broadcast news, panels are forced off the air and the packing process so the question for Mister Berman and mister look at me is is there a way to balance these concerns and make sure that Member Companies can deploy quickly after the auction while also affecting our constituentsaccess to local news . Mister berman first. Thank you senator. We are committed to a smooth transition process. We believe its important to have timely access to spectrum. We are confident the team will be able to stick to its 39 month schedule. The faster we get access, the faster we can invest in these jobs and build out our 5g spectrum and we are confident we will be able to work positively to get that done iq mister planning. Lets try it again, there we go. For your question, thank you for your leadership on a bill that will help adjust these issues. We believe currently with the information we have to post the time and Financial Resources are going to be inadequate based on great information. Speaking for ray, we got our letter or our packed letter about a month or so ago and we will have to our stations be repacked and markets from West Palm Beach to Cape Girardeau missouri and indiana and hattiesburg, election mississippi. The complicated process, for instance a couple of our markets will have to move from channel 12 to channel 8 and that could involve, it will involve an antenna is going to potentially wait thousands of pounds in an existing tower. Theres all kinds of issues surrounding, we begun engineering studies already in a number of these markets so we are concerned about the timeline, concerned about the money but we will work collaboratively as quickly as we can to move through, to repack as efficiently and as effectively as we can to work on it. It involves the chairman, if i could indulge in for a minute, could we have your commitment yes, sir no to working out a solution that accommodates these very serious concerns . We are absolutely committed to working with our partners in the broadband industry , 39 months is an eternity and wireless industries. As you can imagine, after spending 20 million to purchase something thats essentially the value of people price or Hilton Hotels or jetblue two times over, we want to make sure that spectrum gets used and it will absolutely work with you all to make that happen. Thank you. Senator clover char. Thank you very much, and you and i love that the broadcast is just with the microphone. I think we all know how important this topic is, we have an active broadband pocket and our capital and i have a letterthat was signed by 48 senators , having the president include broadband in any package because i think we have the potential of making something thats progressing even much bigger. Weve also been working on the big one legislation with senator gardner, to make it easier to deploy broadband but i specifically want to focus on the rural issues, first mister person, part of the mobile that i had with senator fisher would require the fcc to find more ways to provide incentives for wireless areas or unused spectrum. How could leasing or aggregating spectrum in rural areas improve Wireless Service customers. Senator, thank you for the work that you senator fisher have done onrural spectrum , we expect is a creative tool and we recognize that our members to expand our service maps, they want to serve the entire country, they can help coverage from zero to over 99 percent in seven years, we recognize that rural areas have challenges in geography and people and we need to think creatively about how to get there. The legislation that you worked on is a big part of that. Getting access to that spectrum is important as well too. It has those characteristics that enable us to provide service in rural areas we want to ensure that a smooth and timely process thats important. Thank you mister stroup, of the 911 caucus and senator nelson and i actually have announced a new legislation, the generation 911 active 2017 to provide more federal funding to 59 11 grant programs, everything relates to 911, using and having the ability for firefighters to give blueprints to buildings and for people to get expanded in the woods of minnesota that we could use location accuracy to find them. Can you explain how a satellite backup can improve the resiliency of nexgen systems . The Satellite Networks today have ubiquitous coverage and the opportunity to provide backup communications whether its in the time of an emergency or people are lost so it is the ubiquitous nature of the coverage that allows it to be able to answer these services that are provided by traditional providers. Finally Mister Laplante me, ensuring our Communications Network can effectively support Public Safety includes Natural Disasters and emergency events like we have flooding in north dakota and minnesota and these kind of things can destroy communication infrastructure. Health and Public Safety and be enhanced by next generation tv standards . NextGeneration Television standards allow for better targeting alerts and emergencies whether its flooding or tornadoes or hurricanes. It also has the capability to do televisions and mobile devices. You say a way for government . I couldnt help but let know. Your all over me today senator. [laughter] if you are asleep at three in the morning, there is a tornado bearing down, this technology has the capability to wake your phone up or wake your television up and say if you are in the path of the storm, take cover. So wed like turn it on. Okay. All right. So this idea with the new standards with the 911 and what we are working on here could help you make that standard across the country. Absolutely. You very much, thank you all. Were excited about the possibility on a bipartisan basis here to look forward on broadband as well as any 911 services. Thank you mister chair. Thank you for joining, as a new member im excited to be working with you on this issue and let me say thank you for the bipartisan willingness to Work Together. The broadcasters from nevada have the same concerns that you just brought out today and its nice to hear mister birdman willing to work with them and to see that hes paying attention to. My colleague talked about rural areas in nevada, its a challenge for us in nevada is getting access to private broadband in rural areas for so many means but how we could have education in bringing Behavioral Services through broadband, wireless and thank you for your comments. Im curious if theres any other areas where we can see that we should be looking towards incentivizing Additional Services through wireless and through spectrum that we should be looking at through these rural areas. I know you addressed it to 600 megahertz. It was there anything else that we are looking through to enhance or bring up in terms of these areas . Thank you senator masto. Rural areas does inquire committees and wireless is to be invested, 2 billion last year to try to build out and improve its network. In to assure you that we continue to expand coverage footprints, over the past three years, weve added 300,000 road miles to our coverage and over 500,000 citizens so the key to make that priority, we have to be creative, Pay Attention to creating incentives to share spectrum and that happens today in the marketplace, rotted band as lte and Rural American programs to share spectrum with rural areas. Incentivizing is incredibly helpful, having the robust mobility. So that we commend sed for adopting the Mobility Fund that lacks and we look forward toimplementation. I would say the possibility in western states, citing on federal lands is an opportunity where today, we can take 2 to 4 years the site on federal lands. If we can keep that up and reduce the cost it would be easier to get out there and serve citizens who might have areas with lots of federal land so. Thats helpful, thank you very much. Thank you very much senator cortez masco. And you know, i kind of felt like i would get adjourned. If we proceeded in this fashion. Let me start with you mister higher. Whats the take away in terms of federal policy coming out with this committee, with regard to the unlicensed spectrum . Do we need to leave it like it is . What do we need to do, what decisions do we need to make from a legislative standpoint or from a standpoint of giving advice on a Regulatory Framework . A couple points, i was mentioning a minute ago so i wont repeat it at length now but we do need to encourage the fcc to enable unlicensed spectrum in the low bands, midbands, the high bands. There are a couple of fcc teams that are open and we look forward to their conclusion in the incentive auction for instance which was a success and that 70 megahertz was made available for license use and for unlicensed use, we just need to finalize that and get the repacking done. And to try to do that in such a way that there are new unlicensed channels open in every part of the country including urban areas. That the Device Manufacturers for td whitespace devices will know that if they sell their devices, it can be purchased and used anyplace. There are some Court Proceedings also relating to 2. 4 gigs, five gigs and also up to millimeter bands so weve all concluded in ways that encourage the unlicensed use. The only other point i would make is its important that we all Work Together in the unlicensed space. To prevent interference. Other users of the same frequencies and its important that regulation not be so onerous that the effect of it is blocked from using the unlicensed metric, we need to find the right problems there. Okay. Let me shift, i may ask members, other members of the panel if theyd like to weigh in on that issue but first let me talk about another aspect of the money. And that is the status centers that constitute the cloud. Where are these data centers located . You said a lot of them are in an outside down here and how safe are they . How safe is their infrastructure. And then ill ask other members of the panel, to volunteer if theyd like in these matters . Thank you for that question. Is not up in the air somewhere is it . These old buildings. What happens is we use to go to the whiteboard and say were going to connect to a serversomeplace and they would draw in the midst of a cloud. The data centers are on the ground. They are massive. This could be frontpage news tomorrow. They are massive buildings with just racks and racks of servers. We have one in Washington State on the Columbia River and the idea is to get hyper electric power which is. But we have about 100 data centers around the world. We tried to have been close to, spread around the world to reduce so that we have a fast connection to customers wherever they are. These are highly secure facilities. People sometimes worry about g, these facilities, is it safer if i keep the data at home and our point of view is that its like is your data safe, is your money safe at the back were safer under the mattress . And actually, its safer if its professionally managed. We put tremendous resources into ensuring the security of those systems. Somebody launches a rocket propelled grenade, im not going to lose my money. What if they attack the fibers that connect these data centers and also help me out, you tell me where yours are. But if you could answer this to. They are spread around the world. In terms of the attack on any one data center, all the data is replicated in a professional way too many other locations. So that shouldnt be a concern. And in terms of where theyre located, it really is all over the world. The leadersin running these data centers of course are microsoft , amazon which are downtown web services and google, they all have their own policies. Okay. Is there any other member of the panel who would like to talk about these or unlicensed spectrum data centers that comprise the cloud . Actually i was, this is related to the question related to the information in the cloud is one member on the Panel Members provide service of all the cloud, that is one of the great advantages of a science emergency, that infrastructure is protected from the kind of attacks that you mentioned or Natural Disaster so im wondering what you would raise in terms of datain the cloud , in the Communications Networks. Mister bergman. German wicker, to the question about providing both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, we believe the Wireless Industry relies on unlicensed spectrum and looks to launch new services and online stance area id encourage this committee to continue to focus on the needs for unlicensed spectrum as well as to look towards it. Were looking for an initial platform for 5g services and so one of the things we want to make sure is we have a high demand spectrum in large channels, large contiguous channels so even after the fcc adopted his spectrum frontiers order last year, there are now 14 gigahertz of spectrum for unlicensed high band and just under four licensed spectrum in the hide and so we want to make sure we have enough spectrum there so we can invest in the industry looking to invest 350 billion over the next seven years, creating 3 million jobs and enabling us to keep our lead so we encourage you all to prioritize those area. What if any recommendations do you have to the fcc in this regard . We love it if the fcc would move forward with its further notice where it speeds up the gigahertz of highend spectrum that can we use for 5g services and we want to make sure the fcc prioritizes licensed bactrim and make sure we have enough to maintain that leadership as we move from 4g into 5g. All right, mister gladney. You side next gen tv in your testimony, what needs to happen at the federal level to help your goals become a reality . Thank you for the question center wicker. There is annpr and out there currently , i believe were in a comment. And i think the short answer is just continued oversight by this committee and it would be the hope of the industry. That would be a noticeable proposed rulemaking. A notice of proposed rulemaking, thank you at the fcc. Its common. And we expect,. And during the summer. It would be our help that the standard would be adopted in it sometime during the fall. Have you made recommendations, you responded to this notice with suggestions . Yes sir, i take a number of industry participants have. Anyone else . Okay. Well, Mister Bergman. Many industries are leveraging digital platforms or innovation and growth. And in healthcare. Its very exciting area in which we are actually helping people be longer and more meaningful lives. In mississippi, there was a great example of this, ifcs Telehealth Network that provides patients with remote Care Management , and cost savings of over 300,000. Or only 100 pages, we would like to write this large. And expand this program could save medicaid 189 million. How do we ensure that there is a sufficient spectrum of available continue to fuel innovation and in telemedicine and provide Healthcare Access to all americans regardless of where they live. Mister chairman, we agree with you. Telehealth is one of the most promising applications that 5g looks to bring but if were talking about remote location monitoring, chronic , there are tremendous opportunities to do kickoff as you mentioned. But to also improve outcomes. To save lives and make sure that patients have a better quality of life. So a couple of things that the city can do, ive been focusing on the spectrum available in low, mid and high band, making sure that we have spectrum that enables us to provide those guaranteed performances that reliability and security that we want to have out of our Health Applications and then maybe sometimes overlooked aspect is the instructor sighting, we looked at to build out ibms structures to have the capacity, five times the responsiveness, 10 times the speed of what we have today. Its important that we have this new 5g infrastructure and so being able to cite their small cells quickly and without unnecessary costs or delays is important. Anyone else want to talk about telehealth . One additional comment which is that the white space technology. That could also be helpful for telemedicine area because it has the capability as i mentioned earlier of sending signals over long distances area and in fact, microsoft has a system up and running in botswana where circumstances can be difficult, specifically focus on telemedicine. And in this way, the doctors in more urban areas are able to reach out in rural areas. Okay. Now the administration believes and i support and certainly a general sense the idea that regulations many times though well intended can stifle job creation and that we need Regulatory Reform not only from the standpoint of legislation but also coming out of the administration. So would each of you experts give us the benefit of some recommendations, two or three recommendations that the administration, that you might send to the administration for Regulatory Reform, in early months of this administration . Mister bergman. Thank you mister chairman. Just a couple thoughts. Certainly two places where we would appreciate this committees guidance are with respect to the privacy, regulation and the open internet regulations that the past fcc adopted. In the case of privacy where the fcc departed from longstanding fcc precedent in the case of title ii where public utility regulation was applied to broadband terms, both of these areas are places where people in the committee can help guide the fcc. A third area as we look forward to things like the internet and making sure we have consistent National Frameworks to guide innovation in that space is very important for future growth of those services. Let me make sure i understand what youre saying. With regard to title ii. Its your view that the fcc made a mistake in that regard in recent years and that should be turned around. Yes mister chair. We are certainly very encouraged to talk about reverse decisions and recognizing the competition and innovation happening in the mobile broadband space. All right, mister enter. Thank you chairman. In my opinion, the American People have benefited tremendously from a light touch regulatory approach to telecom and technology in general and the growth speaks for itself. I think we should return to light touch regulation and make it possible for Companies Across the world competitively to compete with each other, competition is really the lifeblood here. Of the industry and americans have benefited tremendously from it. And i think thats the important to this is that the same rules apply to everybody the same way. No matter how they compete with each other, with Similar Services . So with regard to returning to a light touch, you would agree with Mister Bergmanthen. Members of the publishing know that the panel is a panel suggested by both the republican and democratic membership in this committee. E its not a one sided show at all. And would anyone care to take issue with either of Mister Bergman or mister enter with regard to thetentative issue . Well then, whatsuggestions do you have , back to the broader general question, suggestions for policymakers, theadministration , the congress or the regulators with regard to Regulatory Reform . Reform . I would focus on the unlicensed spectrum thats already a lower adulation. That lower regulation means they are incredibly low and anybody can dream up some device and transit on the frequencies with almost no regulation so i would urge the congress and the fcc to continue to make that approach and expand the amount available to the unlicensed spectrum. On the Net Neutrality point i would say microsoft very much however thats done. The specifics around title two is not something that is at all important to us. Mr. Laplatney, do you have anything to add . Yes, senator wicker. The broadcast industry is highly regulated and we would love to see the fcc take up local ownership rules, local media ownership rules. We think theres, whether its the newspaper or broadcast press ownership, or the local duopoly rule, we think those rules, it is time for those rules to be revisited. That would be our suggestion. Mr. Stroup . Yes, first id like to commend the fcc for many of the modifications they made to the part 25 rules last year, working with the industry, however we would like to see them make some modifications to the restrictions on the industry that were adopted in theic spectrum frontiers proceeding where we can locate our earth stations. Of course going to the core of this proceeding, insuring theref is sufficient spectrum made available for the growth of the industry. Another area we would recommend relates to export reform. Fortunately a number of the itar restrictions were removed allowing manufacturers satellites to export and compete in the market on a worldwide basis but some restrictions remain with respect to earthnd imaging and we would request that be revisited. Thank you very much. Ranking member schatz, ive tried my best to stir up a disagreement among these panelists and im having an awful time doing it. Av so ill yield to you for a few questions. Thank you, mr. Chairman. If you need disagreement i couln provide it for you. My additional questions is for mr. Bergmann. The u. S. Has been a Global Leader in the development of mobile technology, and there has been a lot of anticipation for the implementation of 5g. In fact the committee passed mobile now in january which wilj make additional spectrum available for 5 g networks. Q my question for you, mr. Bergmann, can you put this in a global context in terms of how we are viewed in the highlycompetitive world of international Technology Companies and why its so important for the United States to lead on 5g . So, thank you, senator schatz. We are clearly recognized as the leader in the world in 4g. Lte. We invested first, that paid dividend over last seven years. If you look at the two largest operating systems are based here in the u. S. Stunning 76 of Apps Developers are located here in the u. S. We think its paidnk tremendous dividends in terms of innovation. We believe 5g will see more greater opportunity as we look at services that have much greater capacity to Impact Industries across the economy and our consumers lives. So there is truly a global race. I mentioned some other countries around the world that are takinw steps to make large swaths of spectrum available and streamline where they site that infrastructure and architecture. So it is really critical we do the same here in the u. S. Can you flesh out what those new opportunities as opposed to the last iteration . Sure. You know, if we look at health care, you look at opportunity to have remote patient monitoring or chronic disease management or, as you look at the ability to use high band spectrum we have the opportunity to have ultrahd, so you might have remote surgery and extend the reach of expert doctors beyond urban centers into rural areas. Similarly in education space where you might have Virtual Reality applications that allow students in hawaii to, in a blink of an eye to be in the center of the room in the coliseum. There is tremendous opportunity. In transportation, in argues well too, where we have the ability to cut traffic times, reduce fatalities, cut emissions. There are tremendous opportunity associated with that. Could you give me a status report . Who are we, who is our greatest competitors, who is on top of this . Are we already behind . Just tell me where we are. I think were really poised to lead. The fccs actions to make that high band spectrum available have led to over two dozen trials here in the u. S. Companies have already invested in r d. So were out ahead of the standards process. Dy one of our Member Companies announced just earlier this week a Pilot Program to offer 5g services in 11 different markets. W so i think were very much poised to lead but it is a race and it will be important that we make the right policy decisions here. Who are we in a race with . Japan, the eu, south korea, china. Thank you. Anyone else care to comment on that . Mr. Entner. Thank you, senator. I want to highlight the importance of configuring the spectrum in large channel configurations because think ofn these channels as like water pipes and the bigger the pipe, the faster the speed. In the United States spectrum is typically allocated in five by five or 10 by 10 megahertz channels. Overseas it is in 20 by 20 megahertz channels very frequently. Inherently of how you can provide for speed is you have you now carry aggragation where you can essentially glue three of these pipes together, three of these channels and if you glue together three 5 by 5s it gives you 15 megahertz of spectrum with one channel. Ue glue three 20 by 20s that is 60. Inherently who has the 20 by 20s will be four times fast it and that is a really importantim consideration to keep the u. S. Competitive with the rest of the world. Ke is one of our, sort of unique challenges the spectrum currently allocated, i think appropriately, to National Security and other needs maybe not every country has quite that obligation and quite that same Public Policy . It is within the existing spectrum, not necessarily about different and new spectrum. It is just like when we have spectrum, how do we divide uper that spectrum. Oh, this is within the bands that are allocated . Correct. And so how is that a fcc decision that has to be made or are these technical changes that can be made at the operating level . Initially it is an fcc decision of how they are allocating the spectrum. If through pure happenstance a company wins several licenses in the market, and they lie next to each other they can create this but that doesnt happen very often. So through regulatory foresightu this problem can be alleviated. Okay. Thank you very much. A question for mr. Laplatney. I want to talk to but the nextgen tv. You know i understand that transition that was made from analog to digital, and the consumer benefits that economic benefits and the need to sort of subsidize that transition. As a Television Watcher i can understand the desire for better and better it v. More sort of cross platform, utility and sharper and sharper resolution but im not yet persuaded this is as fundamental of a shift as the analog to digital shift was. And i want to be persuaded of how revolutionary this technology is because im not there yet. So give me your best shot. Well, so i think the best way to explain it, you know, the point we talked about earlier. So theres the ability in thi standard to better target emergency warnings, including, you know turning on devices which i think is so far removed from what we can do today. You know, i think thats a much larger step than the analog to digital. I think also the standard because of the hybrid ip, broadcast architecture can i interrupt there . Whats that . Let me just interrupt there. So what youre saying is, ive got a device on my nightstand and, suddenly there is a tornado so what happens . So we could alert your phone. So it turns my phone on. Okay. If it has power. Okay. It would turn your phone on and there would be an alert come up say you are in the path of a storm or, youre in imminent danger, take cover immediately. In fact, you know the tornadoes that went through hattiesburg back on the 21st of january, if we had that technology, you know i believe, i believe we could have saved some lives. Nobody has that technology now . That technology is we could alert but, this Technology Allows us to target much more effectively. So as an example, todays alerts sometimes conform to county lines and as a tornado moves through geography it doesnt conform to county lines. So you could alert just those consumers in the path of the storm. The polygon in front of the storm as opposed to Montgomery County and prince georges county. It is a much more targeted alert that would be more effective. Ld thank you, senator schatz, for letting me interject there. So i want to understand when you talk about nextgen tv, it sounds like a platform integrating several different kinds of new technologies . This ability to turn on your device for sort of Civil Defense preparedness purposes is not the, i mean that is not the Central Technology that i was thinking of when i hear about the nextgen tv. Again, it is a hybrid broadcast standard, so it allows, you know, again better, more relevant advertising for, you know, for our viewers and users, and that i think is important to the broadcast industry because currently our targeting capabilities are way behind, you know, our friend over on the mobile side or the cable folks or facebook or google. You know, in a given market today, facebook or google can take 40, 50, 60 of the advertising revenue to market. There is that capability. It also offers the ability for a user to have a more hulu or netflix type of experience. So you have a dropdown menu ank you want to know what the score is of some game other than the one youre watching or know who that actor is, it allows for that type of interaction. It also, it can transmit to suitablyequipped mobile devices which for our industry is almost a gamechanger. As you know it can transmit from the tv tower to, oh, from the tower to any platform a tablet, whatever it may be. Right, if it has the 3. 0 chi in it. So it arent there other ways to do that right now . There are ways to get a get tv on your tablet, right . You can but it is over ip essentially. So this is broadcast. I think the key there is that, you know, if you an, having four boys we have data cap issues in our house. If somebody wants to watch movies over, you know, 3. 0, it is not going to hit their data cap. If theyre consuming a lot of video having one boy, i like it when which hit our cap. So there is a number, there is a number of different capabilities and, and it really is its a gamechanger for the industry. Thank you very much. Senator fischer . Thank you, senator schatz. Hak senator hassen. Thank you, senator fischer. Thank you to all of the panelists. I too apologize for us being in and out this morning on votes. I thought, mr. Heiner, i wanted to follow up a little bit on your testimony where you advocated for a balanced all of the above approach to spectrum policy and, i cant agree more. I think granite staters and folks around the country benefit most when we have both licensed and unlicensed spectrum available to them and you talked about the example i think of tha Wireless Phone industry. I know data from cisco shows 60 of the wireless traffic was offloaded on to wifi networkso last year which helped create a positive Consumer Experience where Network Traffic was alleviated and the industry all around thrived as a result. So can can you elaborate a little bit more specifically how a balanced all of the above approach to National Spectrum policy that includes both licensed and unlicensed spectrum can benefit rule communities specifically . Yeah, id be happy to and thank you very much for the question. Mr. Bergmann was describing just a few minutes ago the possibilities of greater access for Rural Community through 5g and new spectrum and what i would focus on as well then is the possibility of using tv white space as technology. Okay. So this is in the 600 meg hurts band where some ne spectrum was made available as a result of the incentive auction and this band has propagation rs characteristics such that at very low power, so, low cost, a transmitter can serve quite a large community. Okay. And so for instance, we have this trial running, were getting it running in southern virginia where the school has fixed broadband access, so wired connection. Yep. So the students are dispersed around that rural area and through just a series of a handful of transmit, we will be able to reach 7200 kids, thereby address the homework gap. In that region half the kids do have broadband at home an half the kids dont. And so the concept is, you give each of those, the kids who dont this little device that will only cost about 50 and it picks up the tv white space signal and basically turns it into a wifi signal. Yeah. In this matter we can help to address the homework app. Thats fabulous and i expect there would be teleHealth Applications as well . There would be. Were just asking discussing that a minute ago. We have a trial in botswana actually, specifically focused on telemedicine. Okay. Y. Were bringing doctors in the urban areas to patients in theas rural areas to this technology. N thank you very much i wanted to follow up too with mr. Laplatney because, you know, i am strongly supportive of the recent spectrum auction. I think it holds great promise for innovation and our economy and im pleased to see it moving forward. Youve talked this morning abouy some of the challenges thating broadcast stations face as they need to move to different frequencies what im learning is industry term, repack here. And i know, ive been talking with broadcasters in New Hampshire and across the country, and we all want to make sure were prepared and i wanted to just focus a little bit on the issue for radio stations. I know we talked about Television Broadcasting but particularly those that towers with television stations. Im concerned they could be negatively impacted or go off the air. If so are there any resources or recourse available or is there more that needs to be done to address the issue for radio in particular . Thanks for your question. Ss there are a number of towers, Television Towers that have radio occupants throughout the country and during the repack process when we have tower riggers climbing up and down towers, there will be times where those radio antennas will be powered down or shut off. So it is a real issue. You know, it could be for hours at a time or for days at a time. So i do think something needs to be done. I really think that just you know scores the need for the fcc to take up a rational approach to the repack and i know members of the nab are currently in conversation with folks at the fcc around talking about this issue and trying to come up with some answers. Thank you very much. Thank you. I see the chairman of the full committee, senator thune arrived. Senator thune. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i appreciate the subcommittee having this hearing and putting together such an excellent panel. I want to say how much i appreciate the work you do connecting people across the country from remote rural areas to cities and each other and the world and providing education, entertainment and Public Safety services which contributes greatly to the economy and the quality of life of every american. You all drive the innovation an investment that made the Unitede States the leader in advanced wireless technology. Our job in congress is to make sure that consistent with our National Security and Public Welfare obligations is the market has access to spectrumre and that industry is not unduly burdened getting the spectrum into service. This committee reported out a bill here recently called the mobile now act. That make as down payment on that obligation. It would make available 255 megahertz prime spectrum, licensed and unlicensed next three years. That is really just the beginning. To meet americas demand for mobile broadband it is estimated the Wireless Industry will need 350 megahertz of new spectrum by 2019. It will direct the fcc and ntia to direct commercial service in number of different spectrum bands but having access to veck sum is only part of the challenge t can take years and. Leases for federallymanaged property and establish as shot clock for review of those applications which we think is something that is essential. Mobile now also established a National Broadband facilities asset database listing federal property that could be used by private entities for the purpose of building and operating communications facilities. Im hoping we can get the bill passed, looking forward to the t full Senate Acting on that in the coming weeks and very much focused working with our w colleagues on this committee and the entire senate and the house in making the next payment toward americas wireless leadership and i just have one quick question i want to ask, direct this to mr. Bergmann. The widespread deployment of small cells is a massive undertaking for companies and also for state and local officials. Are there opportunity for companies and government un officials to work collaboratively and to streamline the approval process so it only focuses sightings that raise significant deployment issue, issues i should is a. So thank you, chairman thune. We certainly commend you and Ranking Member nelson and the committee for the work on mobile now. That focus on infrastructure is tremendously important, as we look to lead in that race to 5g, and certainly small cell deployment is an absolutely critical part of that equation. Our companies are looking to deploy hundreds of thousands of small cells to deliver that high Capacity Service and being able to move quickly is something that will reduce costs, enable us to move faster. Right now today there ar challenges both with the local zoning process and, as you mentioned with federal agencies. So we would certainly appreciate this committees attention to finding opportunity to right size that process so that we exclude small cells where appropriate that are the size of a pizza box or a lunch box. I dont think anyone thinks that the process that applies to ach 200foot tower should approve when putting lunch box on top of an existing building. We would love to work with you w to try to find opportunity to speed those deployments. In the end what it means 275 billion of investment and three million jobs. So it is a real priority. We appreciate that. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thanks again for the opportunity to speak at this hearing. Thank you, mr. Thune. And im going to go ahead and. Take my questions now and senator udall is after this. Mr. Entner, recently in my home state of colorado a Company Announced they would be pursuing a launch of a 5g Pilot Project in denver bringing us close to the next generation of wireless. 5g, companies have to evaluate and reevaluate their Spectrum Holdings to determine how best to play a role in this wireless innovation. As you talk about it in yourou e testimony, high i had, mid and low band spectrum are critical to build next generation of Wireless Service. What are some of the specific bands you believe can help thisu effort . Mr. Heimer was asked a similar question but could you elaborate a little further . E thank you. We could certainly use more spectrum below one gigahertz to penetrate walls and to cover rural areas adjacent to current bands would be most appropriate. When we look at mid spectrum, again here, bands that are currently idol or largely idle would be appropriate around navigation, for example. And then the large swaths in the millimeter band that are actually unused at this time and should as be brought in, and the fcc has several proposals here in the space. I want to bring to the attention of the committee, you know, over the last few weeks all the wireless carriers have been reduced unlimited plans, and, so, that, people like the fellow witnesses here, no longer have the problem of, with data caps. O i think it is unappreciated what impact it will have actually on spectrum. When we look at lte, were currently are getting faster speeds from our mobile networks than we get from wifi and when unlimited is now back the whole incentive of using wifi has been diminished significantly because there is no cost advantage anymore to shifting over to wifi and that will drive really the demand for licensed spectrum further, and thats why we need more spectrum. Thank you, mr. Entner. Mr. Berg plan while the United States is a Global Leader as we discussed today in Wireless Service other nations are catching up trying to exceed advances in the space, particularly nations like south korea, and japan. Very important we remain our competitive advantage number one in the world and Wireless Technologies require spectrum to operate. That means well need more spectrum than currently available for commercial and nonfederal users. That why i support freeing up more federal government spectrum for such uses. What do you think the impact of on american competitiveness will be if we dont have adequate spectrum in the pipeline . Thank you, senator gardner. What were seeing, were seeing mobile wireless being integrated into every major sector of the economy. We talked a little bit earlier about energy, transportation, health care. These are places where our leadership in 4g give us tremendous advantages. An apps economy that didnt exist seven years ago now employs over 1. 6 million people. So we want to make sure that in that race to 5g, with even more capabilities were out in front and that we keep innovation here in the u. S. Thats why the work that you all are doing on spectrum, on infrastructure siting is really critical. Thank you, and next is senator moran. Chairman, thank you very much. Thank yall for being here. Let me start with mr. Bergmann and i apologize for my absence for your testimony and also most of the questioning. So you may be repeating in answering me something thats already been asked but, we paid a lot of attention to spectrum issues and i want to make sure good things are happening. G. Last summer the fcc identified several high band spectrum frontier, several high bands in their spectrum frontier proceedings. The fcc do enough if is there a need for additional high band spectrum above the 24 gigahertz for terrestrial mobile systems . What else can be done to insure . Thank you, senator moran. The fccs action in the spectrum frontier proceeding to make that high band spectrum available is really important. Hy that will be the initial platform where 5g services are tested and launched. That is an important step. Really commend this committee for your focus on additional bands and at the fcc the leadership of chairman pai, commissioner orielly, commissioner clyburn, all of whom have talked about the importance of high band spectrum they have a proceeding now where theyre proposed to make 18 additional gigahertz of high band spectrum available and that is spectrum will deliver speeds 10 times that we have today. Services five times more responsive. When you think about applications of selfdriving cars you want to make sure you have responsive services. The ability to connect 100 times the devices we have today. As we think about the internet of things and what that will open up in terms of opportunities for savings andd the energy sector, there is tremendous potential from the high band spectrum, making sure we get that to market quickly. That we have large contiguous channels as my copanelists have said. That we have emphasis on licensed spectrum that will allow to us provide that performance, provide that reliability, and that security that we expect out of those kind of health care and other services is really critical. Let me turn to mr. Heiner in regards to unlicensed spectrum. We and senator schatz worked to have a balanced approach to licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Let me ask you the continued demand for unlicensed spectrum, i assume growing at exponential rates. What bands, where do we look, what bands might we still yet find . Well the demand is growing very, very rapidly. We do need to look across all he three bands, low, middle and high. Low i have explained a little bit. It gives us the opportunity for tv white Spaces Technology to serve rural areas and it can work in urban areas as well. In the midrange, thats where we have existing technology, 2. 4 and 5 gig and there is opportunities there to expand those bands. And then in the millimeter bands, you know were very enthused by the spectrum frontiers proceeding where spectrum was opened up between 5and i think 72 gigahertz. As mr. Entner was saying withat that much spectrum there is the possibility of setting up wider channels. Those wider channels have more throughput and so it is very efficient use of technology. A new standard has been developed. This is the industry coming together in consensus basis through a standard setting body and created a standard beyond wifi called wigig. The gig is for very high throughput. I believe that standard requires the 160 megahertz channels, which the millimeter bands can afford. So were very enthused about that. Keep looking i think is your answer, look everywhere . Thats right. Let me turn to mr. Laplatney. Although i didnt hear your testimony im astute enough to know that you mentioned my name. Thank you, senator schatz and i have been working on an issue of importance. There is no one, i shouldnt say that. I come from a place in which getting broadband opportunities to Rural America is significant and important. Spectrum matters to us but so does Community Broadcasting and i want to indicate that we want to be in a position to make certain that good things happen in this repack process. Ng whats going on that has a consequence on next generation technologies in your world . Well, so, you know, we are, in the early stages of repack. We talked a little bit earlierbr with broadcasters now doing engineering studies and it appears based on current data that will be 1000, 1100 stations repacked which is a pretty big number the as of today the amount of time we have to complete the repack and amount of money we have is insufficient and so we will, we will appreciate your continued oversight and, and you know, as we get more information, you know, we will certainly pass that along but we have some concerns today. That said well do everything we can to make sure that if there is a way to do it in 39 months, were going to do it. I appreciate that. I think, i would backpack on the idea there is any desire to slow this process down. We all want it to work very quickly for the benefit of all. Absolutely. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Thank you, senator moran. Senator udall. Chairman wicker, thank you so much. This has been a fascinating panel i think with a lot of excellent testimony. Thanks for bearing with us in the middle of the vote and continuing here. As you know today there are more wireless devices than there are people in the United States and with some new wireless devices connected to the internet, we could face a spectrum crunch that could hinder the next internet revolution. Im pleased that my spectrum challenge act is approved by the committee. This contest would provide a a significant monetary award to a person who finds the way to make spectrum use vastly more efficient. This approach helps incentivize more innovators and researchers to focus on the problem. And will help use American Ingenuity to solve it chairman wicker, im pleased mr. Plat any is here to give a broadcasters perspective. Broadcast is the First Technology and still relevant today. Mr. Bergmann, my first question is for you. Senator moran and i worked in 2015 to form the Spectrum Relocation Fund. This multimilliondollar fund pays the cost ofrelocating federal users when a particular spectrum band is auctioned for commercial use. The spectrum pipeline act made 500 million of existing money available for r d and Pilot Projects that could lose to more efficient use of federal spectrum. Omb issued guidance to agencies for proposing plans to use these funds. Mr. Bergmann, do you agree the omb should continue to make Spectrum Reallocation Fund Resources Available to federal agencies that are exploring how to use spectrum for efficiently . Senator udall, we truly appreciate the work you and senator moran have done to improve the Spectrum Relocation Fund. That is really important tool for making sure that there are the right incentives and opportunities for Winwin Solutions to, put spectrum to efficient use. We know that federal agencies have exclusive or primary access to somewhere between 60, to 70 of the spectrum below three gigahertz. So trying to make sure were using that spectrum efficiently, trying to identify opportunities to make that available for commercial use is a really important goal, and that tool is a very strong one. We believe there are truly opportunity for winwins. The aws 3 auction is opportunity for government users to upgrade their systems. And, resulted in making available 65 megahertz ofva spectrum that went on to produce the worlds largest, or the u. S. s largest spectrum auction. We certainly appreciate your work on that. Thank you. Sp and i appreciate that answer. Mr. Heiner, your testimony discusses Cloud Computing. This is a topic of keen interest to me and senator moran and i worked together for several years on i. T. Reform legislation and oversight to increase cloud adoption. I believe replacing socalled legacy i. T. Systems with modern solutions can save the federal government billions of dollars and improve cybersecurity. Can you share more why microsoft and other companies are increasingly leveraging the cloud and what that means for future Broadband Connectivity needs . Thank you for the question. Every 15 years or so there is a major shift in the computing landscape. Th we had the mainframe era in the 60s. Revolution of personal computing. Then the shift to Client Server computing and pcs servers running on back end of enterprises. Today it is Cloud Computing. The basic concept it is incredibly economically efficient to run servers in central locations, these data centers, rather than at each individual company. The analogy, someone offered is to energy where in 1880s it was a revolution that you could have electric power and each factory had its own generator. Someone dreamt up, you know, i will make power for the whole city. That was, then we had coned and that was much more efficient. It is similar with the cloud as well. So we really believe and were seeing it in the marketplace that enterprises around the world will be more efficient and will have better access to data analyst i analytics and Artificial Intelligence techniques if they are delivered via the cloud. Li the same is true for federal government. Its a big lift to move legacy systems over to that approach and it will take a long time. We believe that ought to be done as well. Now the cloud is operating its data centers in remote locations and so people need connectivity to reach those data centers. It is just as simple as that it is absolute sina qua non for Cloud Computing to have firstrate connectivity, whether it is licensed or unlicensed. Thank you very much. And thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator udall. Senator peters. Thank thank you, mr. Chairmad thanks to each of our panelists today for your testimony on the very important subject. Mr. Heiner, i have a question for you in some area that i find particularly fascinating and thats whats being done by american manufacturers using the white space spectrum. I was particularly intrigued by some of the work that microsoft is doing in virginia to help the homework gap, using white spaces to leverage fiber connections that run through these schools and allows students inn surrounding areas to access their Schools Network wirelessly from their home which is incredibly important for education today. In your estimation what must be done at the fcc to insure that we have enough tv white space channels available so we can have this kind of unlicensed use that can be so beneficial . We need to conclude the incentive auction process and socalled repacking of the tv channels in such a way that there is as much spectrum available for tv white spaces as possible. Or and in particular theres, this possibility of having a vacant channels in some areas where there is not enough tv stations to fill up all of the available spectrum and we would like to see as many vacant channels as possible that we can leverage for tv white spaces and also have a system where from coast to coast, in both rural and urban areas certain channels are just set aside for tv white spaces and that way the Device Manufacturers will know they can build a device and it can be deployed any place in the country. Do you see any other challenges that in exexpanding School Connectivity i think isal so important, things we should be working on . Well its a question of setting up incentives for investment. I mean, nothing is free. But the technology is very efficient. We can have low you power transmitters relativelyw inexpensive and devices in the students homes are relatively inexpensive as well. We do have a petition pending at the fcc to try to clarify that the Erate Program should cover tv white spaces as well as the other means of access to the internet and we hope that moves forward. Right. Sir, i know you addressed this next topic in your written testimony. I dont think you addressed it y before us in this panel. This is for all of you. It is an important question for you to think about. We know the advances in technology were seeing are all accelerating ad an exponential rate and that curve seems to get steeper and steeper every year as we go forward. Then on our side as far as Public Policy, the rate of progress moves at pretty consistent rate which is called a snails pace as it goes forward. Which means it is tough for some of our regulatory agencies to keep up particularly if theyre underfunded, lack personnel, lack expertise. They need all those things. We know that is a difficult sell in this current fiscal environment. So we have to look for opportunities to collaborate with act deem yaw, standard setting bodies and come up with standards for all these various technologies to have a unified approach. You mentioned this in your written. If you want to expand on that i would encourage other witnesses if you have thoughts to get together these kind of partnerships to make sure we allow the technologies to flurish and innovation to flurish and dealing with some of the regulatory challenges that associated with it. I would touch on Industry Standard setting. Bluetooth were using that was voluntary standard. Wifi is standard. Wigig i referred to earlier. Issues can arise when you have shared spectrum in that spectru in adjacent channels. Sometimes if the fcc regulation may get a heavier than is needed to really address those concerns. We would encourage that wherever possible the industry Work Together with standardsetting bodies to achieve that. More broadly i think we need to work with the International Telecommunications union and microsoft, were part of the government delegation to the worldwide spectrum discussions that are going on through the itu. And we very much support the efforts of working with academics as well. All right. Thanks for your question, senator peters. I would suggest ats 3. 0 has been a tremendously collaborative and quicklymoving process relative to past standard changes. I think the last time we changed the tv standard, it took 19 years. This particular transition or Standard Development is moving at much quicker pace. Were encouraged by that and current fcc, that helping us move that along. So thank you. Thank you. Help m i think we saw the beginning of that opportunity and in some discussions between the Wireless Industry and the satellite industry and spectrum frontiersr proceeding, something that becomes more important as we look at millimeter wave bands. Despite all the discussion taking place, many of those bands have been identified for the growth of the satellite industry and topic of service to rural areas came up several times during the course of the discussions today. Ththats been an area that the satellite industry has been providing service including Telemedicine Services for decades and i noted in my testimony the growth of the industry, the new high throughput satellites have been launched and providing fcc broadband speeds and continued growth with low earth orbit at slights. So being able to access that spectrum and in some cases on a shared basis continues to be very important and hopefully it will be done through voluntaryto discussions. So, thank you, senator peters. I would say the Wireless Industry participates in a variety of different standardsetting bodies for licensed spectrum and unlicensed spectrum. It is a tremendously important tool for the industry in terms of being able to develop and bring new products to market. One reason why we like a mix of both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, with licensed spectrum we can Bring New Services to market quicker sometimes because we can launch services before standards are developed. To your point about collaborative processes. That is another great one. That is a model we in the Wireless Industry embraced, whether wireless emergency alerts or 911 location accuracy, we found a successful ability to partner in those two cases with Public Safety you but in order cases as well to try to advance Public Policy goals in a a flexible and nimble way. Right, thank you. Thank you, senator. I think one of things that, as you mentioned technology is progressing exponentially whereas government policy not always is following pays. I think it just needs more foresight so that we are using more Ambitious Goals in what were clearing and making available to industry. I think overall the technology and Telecom Industry has worked very well together. One notable example is for example, lteu and licensed assist access. So i think we should encourage these type of voluntary processes with a light touch, regulatory environment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, senator peters. Senator inhofe. En thank you, mr. Chairman. I guess the panel knows that were simultaneously meeting with other committees. Reprogrammed my Senate Armed Services concerns here and so i dont know really what youve already gone over but if we look at, looking forward, mr. Bergmann. Deployment of next Generation Technology will allow faster internet speeds and which willr require a substantial infrastructure investment. Have you discussed what we can do, this is congress now, wereu your partner and we want to help. What should we be doing . So senator inhofe, youre right, were facing a great opportunity and a great challenge as we look to lead in 5g. We recognize that its a whole new network, built not just around tall towers but also around hundreds of thousands of small cells that are the size of pizza boxes or lunch boxes that will enable us to have much higher and Capacity Services. A couple of things this committee can do is to work with us to make sure that that local permitting proses ises are not overly burdensome. Make sure we have access to rightsofway and polls on timely basis. Seems that are reasonable and costbased. Make sure federal agencies move quickly and have deadlines. Fe so particularly as we look to parts of the country that have large areas of federal lan and federal buildings, the delays can be on order of two to four years. Sometimes much longer than that. If we start to shorten some of that siting well get the infrastructure out there morehe quickly and cheaply. When i spent 30 years on that side of the table the problem i had with federal government verh often is predictability, knowing in advance whats going to happen. You mentioned towers. You have to know well in advance before huge expenditures are made what the rules are going to be when you finally get to the point where you try to make it happen. So i assume that would be one of your concerns. I understand the consumer demano for wireless, more than doubled in 2015 alone. Now i didnt know this. Im newest one on this committee. To me you have to rely on licensed spectrum which you, exclusively own and unlicensed spectrum which anyone can use. Ne so, could you share with the committee for why it is both important to use licensed and unlicensed spectrum to meet the growing consumer demand which doubled in the last year alone . Sure, senator. Both licensed and unlicensed are really important parts of the Wireless Industrys ability to serve. We traffic on licensed spectrum. Were launching now ltebasedkia services on licensed spectrum. Licensed remains the foundation of mobile networks and thats a place to build in highly reliable and secure services. As we look into 5g and things like selfdriving cars or remote surgery where we want a really high level, a high high quality of service, licensed will be a critical part of that overall equation. Thank you, senator. Yes. And mr. Heiner, microsoft is leading innovator using unlicensed spectrum. The congress and fcc directed more spectrum be made available, balancing between licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Do you believe there is an appropriate balance between the two licensed and unlicensed . Well, i mean i think a theme coming out of the hearing today is everyone on this side of the table would like to see as much spectrum as possible allocateded to both licensed and unlicensed use. We speak very much in terms of a balanced spectrum policy. That doesnt necessarily mean like one megahertz for one, for unlicensed and one megahertz fon licensed. At different bands it may be more, may make more sense to allocate more to licensed or more to unlicensed in a particular circumstance. We are enthused about the extra bandwidth that opened up in the 600 megahertz band as a result of the incentive auction and were enthused about the spectrum frontiers proceeding where new spectrum has opened up as well. Just to your point aboutell. Predictability, of course that is important too because you need to know, you know, sort of years ahead in order to plan and develop standards and then build devices and its been a little bit of a challenge in the tv white spaces area, you know, over the past 10 years where the rules have been a little bit in flux. We feel like we need to move forward investing in that technology now. Were sort of redoubling our efforts and we feel like the rules are sort of almost done. So were ready to move forward. I would like to bring that up because thats true with any issue we could be talking about right now. Ed abo seems like government doesnt have the understanding thereha really need to know what is going to be expected of them next year or 10 years from now because the invests sometimes has to be made way in advance. Im sure you covered quite a few things. Th i apologize for those of us on Armed Services not being here. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator inhofe. This has been a very interesting and enlightening two hours. This is hearing with a talent and knowledgeable panel. Weve been interrupted by votess and other committee meetings, so maybe you had to reiterate a few themes. That is help phil to us also. Thank you very much. Es well stand adjourned and express our appreciation on behalf of the entire subcommittee. Thank you very much. The record will stay open for, for two weeks, thank thank. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations]. [inaudible conversations]. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] sunday night on after words, journalist sophia nelson, on her latest book, remaiming our founders vision for a united america. She is interviewed by michael steele, former chair of the rnc. When does unity come into play . How does this book provide prescriptions for turning that important corner to recognize how important unity is . This book is a refresher of sings, i row it in my sophia way, we need a little help, were a little messed up. America is great country and were confused by who we are and what we want. I think that is what were wrestling, michael. This unity piece we have to break down, because the problem you saw in the last election, half the country literally feels one way and the other half of the country feels another. Sunday night at 9 00 eastern on after words. Tomorrow at 8 00 on cspan, president trumps former Campaign Manager Corey Lewandoski on the president ial election. Here he talks about the campaigns focus on certain states, where the final results surprised political pundits and pollsters, and why they chose those states. We looked at a couple different factors coming into the end of the race. Absentee early ballot was always primary indicator. The state of florida was tumultuous for us. It has a huge hispanic population. We didnt know where they would break. Break as they history do. Donald trump ended up 33 of the hispanic vote which is great number a republican. We thought w