Cox supports shan cspan as a Public Service. Along with these other Television Providers giving awe front row seat to democracy. The chair of the f. C. C. , Jessica Rosenworcel reported reinstating internet rules. She says the policy can be expected in the coming days. They voted for net knew centrality during the obama administration. It was repealed in 2017 under president trump. This is 25 minutes. So i think were going to get started. People can take their sheath could folks take their seats if they can . My name is will rehnquist. In the f. C. C. Office of media relations. Well be posting a back sheet about the proposal and text of the chairwomans remarks and with no further ado, let me introduce chairwoman rosenworcel. Ms. Rosenworcel thank you everyone for being he it was more than three years ag when the covid virus reached ou shores and upended our everyday i thought it was bewildering. We were told to stay hom hunker down and live life online. So i grabbed what i thought was important at work and i moved m office to my dining room table. At home i kept changing the location of the wifi router, feverishly trying to identify the sweet spot where the signal would reach everyone in my fami we had two parents, two kids, two jobs, and a toocrowded house with all of us on the internet all the time. It was a and we were lucky. Because so many others were digitally disc we had people sitting in cars i parking lots, to catch a free wifi signal for work and health care appointments. We had kids lingering outside of fast food restaurants with laptops just to go online for class. We had cities and towns fearful they would never thrive without new efforts to extend broadband to their residents and businesses. As a nation, we responded to this crisis with extraordinary we made a historic commitment t broadband for all. Congress invested tens of billions of dollars into building Internet Networks and making access more and equitable. Culminating in an investment of 65 billion in th infrastructure law. Infrastructure law. The f. C. C. Is a big part of that effort to close the Digital Divide and that includes our efforts to map where broadband is and is not across the f. C. C. Is a big part of th effort to close the Digital Divide and that includes our efforts to map where broadband is and is not across the countr and our efforts to assist 21 million households getting online and staying online through the Affordable Connectivity Program. But you know, the pandemic did somethin it made Crystal Clear that broadband is no longer just nic to have. Its need to have for its not a luxury. Its a neces it is essential infrastructure for modern life. No one without it has a fair shot at 21st century success. We need broadband to reach 100 of us and we need it to be fast, open, and fair. Yet even as our socie reconfigured itself to do so much online our institutions havent always kept up. Today, there is no Expert Agency ensuring that the internet is fast, open, and fair. Since the birth of the modern internet, the f. C. C. Has played that role and if you think about it it makes sense. These are principles that have deep origins in Communications Law and history. After all, back in the era when communications meant telephony each and every call went through, the phone co couldnt cut you off from your call or edit the content of you now fast forward to the present Communications Means a whole lo more than just phone calls. It means access to the internet because broadband is the most important infrastructure of our time but as a result of the previous decision to abdicate authority, the Agency Charged with overseeing communications has limited ability to oversee indispensable networks and make sure that for every consumer their access is fast, open and i think thats not right. Because for everyone, everywhere, to enjoy the full benefits of the internet age, Internet Access should be more than just accessible and afford the internet needs to be open. And thats what i want to talk about today. The internets open design is revolutionary. It is right there at its foundation. It means creating without permi Building Community beyond geogr organizing without physical con consuming content where you wan it and when you want it. And cultivating ideas not just around the corner but across th i believe it is essential that we sustain this foundation of openness and thats why, since have served at the f. C. C. I hav always supported Net Neutrality at this point, i think its worth acknowledging that Net Neutrality is one of the most widely discussed issues in telecommunications policy. But the debate around it often yields more heat than light. So im going to keep my comments on the history here short but focused on the basics. So roll back before the pandemic. Before the smartphone era. Before the Washington Football Team called itself the commanders. Lets start in 2005. That was when the f. C. C. Adopted its first open internet policy statement which was built on policies that had long been in Communications Law and history. The agency made clear that when it came to net consumers should expect that their broadband providers would not block, throttle or engage i paid prioritization of lawful internet traffic. In other words, your broadband provider has no business cutting off access to websites, slowing down Internet Services, and censoring online speech. Your broadband provider was not allowed to play favorites like steering you to some Online Service that had given them a payout and assigning you to a bumpy road for those who had not offered up the same pay. As a consumer, you can go where you want and do what you want online without your broadband provider getting in the way or making choices fo after 10 years of policymaking and what i think were, when i count, three rounds of litigation, in 2015 the f. C. C. Finally, finally adopted Net Neutrality protections that wer upheld by the courts. The f. C. C. Had produced open internet policies that passed judicial m we had clear rules of the road and those rules were popular. 80 of americans support open internet and Net Neutrality pol so, this looked like it was going to be the end of the net knew tallty saga. But not so. Because in 2017, the last administration took it up again and did something different. It announced that it would break with over a decade of consisten f. C. C. Policy and repeal the f. C. C. s open internet rules, the ones that were held up by the court. Now the public backlash was overwhelming. Maybe you remember it. People lit up our phone line, clogged our email and inboxes and jammed our online comment s to express their disapproval. And despite this overwhelming opposition from the public, the f. C. C. Repealed Net Neutrality. In fact, the f. C. C. s actions were so extreme the United States senate voted to restore the agencys open internet prot now i believe this repeal of ne neutrality put the f. C. C. On th wrong side of history, the wron side of the law, and the wrong side of the american public. It was not good then, and it makes even less sense now. It determines that the infrastructure which the pandemic proved is so essential for modern life needs no oversi i think thats just wrong. So today we going a process to make it right. This afternoon, im sharing with my colleagues rule making that proposes to reinstate Net Neutrality. This is the first step. When we vote on this rule making well invite Public Comments about how restoring Net Neutrality rules can help ensure Internet Access is fast, open, and fair. We will need to develop an updated record to identify the best ways to restore these policies and have a uniform National Open internet standard. Now, i recognize that were kicking off this rule making and that will be the headline today. But while i have your attention, theres Something Else i want to share with you about this process and this policy today. The repeal of Net Neutrality rules was problematic not only because it wiped away enforceable brightline policies to prevent block, throttling and paid prio it was problematic because what the agency did reversed the decision to oversee broadband a an Internet AccessTelecommunications Service unde title ii of the communications well, it had a lot of downstrea consequences and i think we should talk about them. Now, that last sentence was complicated and i realize if you are not from washington, its a little hard to unpack. So let me do it for you. Title ii is a part of the law that gives the f. C. C. Clear authority to serve as a watchdog over the co and look out for the public int title ii took on special importance in the net neutralit debate because the courts have ruled that the f. C. C. Has Clear Authority to enforce open internet policies. If Broadband Internet is classified as a title ii service. And providing a Strong Foundation for net neu rules is a good reason to support classifying Broadband Internet as a title ii service. But again, there are downstream consequences that flow from the agency retreat trg title ii and they need attention so let me e back to the pandemic. It made clear that broadband see is essential infrastructure for modern life. Access to the internet is now access to everything and commonsense tells us the nations leading communi watchdog should have the muscle it needs to protect consumers and make sure their Internet Access is fast, open, and fair. Commonsense also tells us a thing or two about the state of competition in the broadband ma im a big believer in the power of competitive markets to drive innovation, investment, and consumer benefits. But i also recognize the high cost of entry makes competition a challenge in many places. That is why almost half of us have High Speed Service with 100megabits per second download speed and only half of us can get it from more than a single provider. In fact, only 1 5 of the countr more than two choices at this s so if your broadband provider mucks up your traffic, messes around with your ability to go where you want and do what you want online, you cant just pic up and take your business to another provider. That provider may be the only game in town. You need a referee on the field looking out for the public inte and ensuring that access is fast, open, and fair. On one issue after issue, classifying broadband as a title ii service would help the f. C. C. Serve the Public Interest more efficiently and effectively. So lets start with Public Safety. In its remand of the f. C. C. s decision to roll back Net Neutrality the court found its disregard of its duty to analyze the impact of Public Safety renders the decision arbitrary and capricio i agree. The record before the demonstrated that when firefighters in santa clara, california, were responding to wildfires they discovered that the Wireless Connectivity on their command vehicle was being as a result of title ii repeal, the f. C. C. Didnt have any authority to intervene and fix title ii would also bolster our authority to require Internet Service providers to address internet outages. This issue really hit home for me when i visited detroit last year. I heard about hope village. A neighborhood of nearly 7,000 people that went through a 45day internet outage in the pandemic with little recourse. Remember, when the f. C. C. Backe away from overseeing broadband, it meant that the only mandator outage reporting system we coul have in place is focused on lon distance voice outages. Let me submit to you, in a modern economy and during the pandemic, collecting only day 25 ability when the voice system goes down just doesnt cut it. Look at National Security. The f. C. C. Has take on a series of bipartisan actions to reduce our dependence on Insecure Communications equipment and to keep potentially hostile actors from connecting to our networks this is good. But it is not enough to keep our adversaries at bay. Today, when we take awa authorization to provide servic in the United States from state affiliated companies who may wish to do us harm, we take awa what is known as section 214 au but remember, thanks to the retreat from title ii in the last administration that authority does not cover broadb this is a National Security loophole that needs to be addre. Then look at Cyber Security. The f. C. C. Is actively involved in federal interagency Cyber Security planning, coordination and response activities. You want the Expert Agency with all sorts of knowledge about Network Technology to be sitting at tha but without reclassification th f. C. C. Has limited authority to incorporate updated Cyber Security standards into its network policy. Policies. Then look at Network Resilience and reliabil we want to make sure that our Communications Networks hold up during emergency situations lik natural disasters. Title i could help us better monitor the degradation of service in times of emergency with the kind of required outage reporting i mentioned earlier. Then look at the law requires Telecommunications Providers to protect the confidentiality of the proprietary information of their customers. That means these providers cannot sell your location data among other sensi these Privacy Protection currently extend to phone Service Customers but not to broadband subscribers because title ii does not cover the lat does that really make sense . Do we want our broadband providers selling off where we go and what we do online . Scraping our service for a payday from new a intelligence models . Doing any of this without our permission . Then look at broadband deployme as a nation we are committed postpandemic to building broadband for all so keep in mind that when you can instruct these you can construct thes facility, utility poles are really important. Title ii gives cable and Internet Companies rights to attach to utility poles when they deployed service. When the f. C. C. Rolled back open internet rules it eliminated the pole attachment right of broadbandonly providers. But if you really want buildout and you really want competition, this is not good. It needs to b then look at robo texts. Along with robo calls theyre a big source of consume complaints to the f. C. C. And one thing we have learned at the bad actors behind this junk is that they were continually evolving their technologies to reach us with their scams and f title ii authority would give u the maximum flexibility to coun they are fraud and evolve our approaches as Technology Change to be clear, the f. C. C. Is actively engaged in all of thes issues but at times it can require duct tape and bailing wire to jerry rig the justifications to make sure all our actions are on sound legal it doesnt always work. And it renders unnecessarily vulnerable some of our most important security objectives. Reclassification of broadband a a title ii various would make the f. C. C. Work more efficient and effective and consumer more confident that their Internet Access to fast, open, and fair. On top of this, restoring our open internet policies will mea that a uniform legal frame work applies to the whole country. Because if you think t nothing much has happened since the f. C. C. Retreated from our Net Neutrality policies and are asking yourself whats the big think again. Then look harder. Because when the f. C. C. Steps back from having these policies in place, the courts said the states could step in. So when washington withdrew, california rode in with its own other states too. They put Net Neutrality rules in state laws, in executive orders and in contracting policies. So in effect we have open internet policies that providers are abiding by right now. Theyre just coming from sacramento and places like it. But when you are dealing with the most essential infrastructure in the digital age, we benefit from having a National Policy. All of this means that we are choosing between Net Neutrality and no rules, well, thats a false cho because what were really discussing are having one National Standard or patchwork