Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Communicators USTelecom President

CSPAN2 The Communicators USTelecom President Jonathan Spalter July 12, 2024

Post. This response or, if you could again by reminding us what u. S. Telecom is and who you represe represent. Guest thank you very much, peter. Rate to be here but i represent the future of conductivity and members of u. S. Telecom are the broadband carriers, innovators and Technology Companies that are all about delivering and Building Networks of the future to all americans. We have Large National providers like at t and verizon and wonderful regional providers like consolidated frontier and windstream and Alaska Communications but we also represent a number of our smallest providers serving our Rural Communities across the country and we are really proud to know that around us as well some of the most innovative Global Technology Enterprises Like cisco and ericsson and they are a part of our effort to raise the bar when it comes to this Important Technology which is broadband. Host give us a snapshot, if you would, of the last couple of months for your member compani companies. Guest well, it is been taught for our companies for millions of folks that are in the workforce as for every Single Person around the globe during this time of seriousness and a time of anxiety but also a time to get to work. At the very beginning of this crisis, this National Health emergency, our workforce were aware of the danger and were a part of the frontline First Responders that continued to work hard to deliver Broadband Service to so many of our fellow citizens that at a time when it was needed most. Im glad to see broadband standing tall and working well. Host what advances have been made literally almost overnight . Guest it is an amazing moment. Our entire economy was told to go home and on monday we all turned on our internet at our home while the Global Economy shut down but what we found out is the american internet was open and a vibrant and doing his work serving americans. We saw literally in days huge spikes in traffic. By mid april the traffic was about 30 of our normal baseline but still our internet has continued to sustain, thrive and do his work. Thats not an accident, peter. It is because of the years of serious investment and innovation that is going into our networks. Raising over 7 billion annually to make sure our network is on unparalleled globally. A couple of smart bipartisan policies that have encouraged both our investment intervention with great cocktail for success and we have proven our worth, i think, in ways that have been profound. Host to help us explore some of those issues that your Member Companies are facing, cat, all the washington post. Thank you for having me pewter. Let us dive right in. I wanted to ask about some of the inequalities that this moment also exposed as schools and as workplaces should go online and a put more of the spotlight on Digital Divide in our country. To address those accessibility gaps in some inner cities and roll areas what steps do you think washington lawmakers need to take . Guest it is an important question. Vital question. And it is a timely question cap. The fact is even as we have huge success in delivering the promises of broadband to every part of our nation there are still americans left behind, americans living in Rural Communities and americans whose income can support the access to broadband. We are taking that challenge very seriously. We have committed as an association and Member Companies to close that Digital Divide and what we need to do recognizing that it is hard to get broadband to some places in america given the vastness of our rural areas and we want to stream broadband on the ground or on top the ground and across mountain ranges and across vast, vast expanse of distance where there simply is no distance to deliver despite the billions of dollars that we are investing every year. We need congress to work with us and strengthening the public, private partnership and a commitment to universal service to provide adequate resources and the funds that will be necessary to put the broadband Infrastructure Investment debate behind us and close the Digital Divide once and for all. I think we can do it. Im optimistic we will. After all, if covid19 had shown us anything the Digital Transformation that we have been able to experience just in the last couple of months is that we cant imagine a future where there will be any community not connected to the internet. If we want to close the Digital Divide, we not do it now. I thought it was interesting that you mentioned we cant imagine a future where every american cant get connected to the internet and do you think this pandemic has underscored that this internet is an essential utility . Guest i think it has underscored the essential list of this technology and the wonder of the technology and the need for all americans to have it but i dont agree with the idea that this technology should be considered the utility. After all, there is a terminus competition across the country for Broadband Services and consumers everywhere have a vast array of choices, not only in terms of providers and in terms of the technology that delivers the internet. We also know that we should be extremely proud of just in a generation of an amazing amount of innovation and investment that is gone into creating this remarkable technology, compelling technology to wrap it in the red tape of regulatory strictures and the overhang and to bureaucracy that would be required if we were able to make it a utility would take us backwards, not forwards. It was a generation ago, 1996, when a bipartisan consensus almost unanimously decided because of that 96 telecom act we should move on for treating our technologies like a regulated monopoly and stoke the engines of competition and that bipartisan lifetouch framework from that created that consensus gave us the internet that has taken us to unimaginable heights of innervation. It has served us so well through this pandemic to go down these ideologically rabbit holes that some easily want to do by making our internet another utility like our water or electric services and it would not take us forward but take us backwards. That wont benefit our nation and wont benefit our competitive innovation and will not benefit our families, students, enterprises, services and they need them to continue to innovate and to grow. We need even more exciting generations of network with 5g. Host Jonathan Spalter, you said no to categorizing the internet as a utility but youve also called for publicprivate partnership. Is that through usf . Is that through an infra structure bill . How do you see that . Guest there has been an ongoing public parker partnership but the National Policy goal that we have established which we call universal services, universal service fund with components like lifeline, highcost programs, rural Healthcare Programs have worked very well to actually expand the ability of broadband to serve americans where it is needed most. Right now it is great news, peter, that we are on the cusp of moving forward for the Game Changing new program called the rural Digital Opportunity fund. In the end of october there will be 60 million auctioned off in what is called the descending auction that will deliver Broadband Services to underserved communities in Rural America and 6 million homes are potentially going to be served by this fund and then we will move forward to extend that program into future phases. In the longer term, what we need is a National Contact to understand that the job is fully then the remaining 1820 million records who do not have broadband because of the distances that they live from Broadband Service, Rural America and it will require serious attention by congress and serious resources. We need Congress Finally to invest and we need them to put Political Capital on the table and the actual capital on the table that will get the job done finally and provide the resources to allow the Digital Divide to be in our Rearview Mirror as a nation so we can move forward with the truly connected to understand and realize the benefits of the universal service for all. Host can you attach a dollar figure to that amount that you think is needed . Guest there have been some model liens that we are trying to work hard to establish with the resources will be required that had been some congressional estimates so you have been advanced in current legislation before congress but the amount is 100 billion. We know that it will take a lot of effort and will take serious work but on the context of the broader investment that we need to make which we know is in the area of 1 trillion, 100 billion to get the promise of universal service for all americans to allow everybody to realize the benefits of our Digital Transformation seems to be an adequate to the task of getting it done and working with congress to do that evaluation, whether it will be the resources, the speed and the timeline to get this work done. Host lets go back to kat Kat Zakrzewski spinnaker shifting gears, i want to ask you about the keep americans connected pledge which Many Companies signed on in order to keep americans online even if they werent able to pay their bills during the end of june and chairman pai has called on comedies through july but how long can Telecom Broadband Companies Continue to offer that forgiveness to customers who might be having Financial Difficulties right now . Let me start the answer by saying in very early on are members of u. S. Telecom stood tall and quickly to not only embrace the commitments of voluntary commitments that chairman pai and the fcc has asked us to keep america connected but to go well above and beyond that pledge to really do whatever was necessary to keep our customers, both residential enterprise, connected to this Important Technology called the internet. Tens of millions of dollars have been invested by Companies Like at t and verizon and century lane to do Anything Possible to ensure those impacted by this National Health emergency can maintain service with our small providers, rural providers across the country from rockford in western montana providing wifi hotspots to some of the Rural Communities that have the most Rural School Districts in the country in their service area and in west texas rerouting the sources that had been in local schools that had been closed in making those available homes where students you are not yet had access to broadband could get online and continue their educations. These stories have been seen across the country and that commitment continues and its an ironclad value that our companies have had and will continue to have to work with our customers, through good times and during these were difficult times to keep the customers first and foremost but also to work with them individually to support the needs to ensure that they can maintain connectivity. It is not always easy. Our companies are committed to do this work and it has come at a cost. Some of our companies themselves are smaller and some are feeling the financial challenges and the financial strains of this pandemic has so probably caused so many of our neighbors and friends across the country but still despite that theyre standing tall into whenever they can to continue to commit to their customers and their communities that broadband will maintain and continue to be a tool to help all of us stay connected and recharged through this challenge that we are all facing. But how long can the Companies Really commit to continuing that without perhaps additional funding from the federal government given those constraints that you just laid out . Guest it is really an individual question depending on the scale, size and resources of the many hundreds of companies that have committed to this pledge with each of them will have to evaluate data based on their specific circumstances. I know that all of our companies will do whatever they can to work individually with customers and that might be having challenges to continue services and i know as well that many of our companies and certainly our association has been working across the aisle with members of congress and administration and also very state authorities to see what can be done to provide additional resources, tools to support our customers on communities that are in need. Those are real needs and the good news is that congress has already have taken steps through the cares act to provide innovated programs that have quickly been stood up to a Million Dollars to support telemedicine that went out the door and serving Rural Communities and communities across the country in record time. Millions of dollars been allocated to the National Department of education to support our nations schools and to allow them to the technology they need for their students. There are shortterm needs but also longterm needs that you have to address to advance not only making sure americans can stay connected but that all americans, regardless of where they live or what their income will be, will be connected in the future. As there has been concern about a second wave and what the next year looks like in the united states, based on what you have seen over the last few months what steps do you think your Member Companies need to take to make sure they are prepared for the next school year or for perhaps telemedicine during flu season and the upcoming winter months . Guest let me say to your question i hope it will not be borne out in fact but that we will put the covid National Health emergency behind us so quickly. I think our Broadband Networks are part of a solution but here are the good news, networks were deluxe design for demand and the investments we made over this last veneration and over hopefully 17 have gotten us to a point where our networks are showing they cant withstand the added needs of our citizens of our customers and of our communities. We have the capacity and the network to ensure that distancelearning needs to be met until in medicine needs to be met and at the same time we can be home it can engage with our families and stream netflix and watch movies shows and do games online. Its extraordinary to see how this Innovative Community of broadband providers has stood up technologies and have come through in this National Time to continue to come through. When history reports on this era we will look back and say this was a moment of Technology Greatness and we will look back at pride. With pride and a sense of real accomplishment of what has been done and we should. Host Jonathan Spalter, just to extrapolate from cats question, has Online Education been successful . There has been some critiques about accountability and whether or not it truly is something that works. Guest i have for distance learners in my home and i know that there are challenges to adapting from a talk and talk School Environment to virtualize world of the new crop classroom and all of us as caregivers and who have members at home have had to stand up and become teachers ourselves but we have not the other students and our schools and our communities. They are the underlying broadband resources and infrastructure that is allowing our students to go online. There has been a recent study showing that of the ten largest countries in the world, peter, measured in terms of speed segregation during and through this crisis the u. S. Shared the least speed degradation of any of those ten countries and that is a testament to not just small policies but policies that have been incentivized by the intervention we have seen that a loss to continue to zoom in and continue to learn by distance. Im confident that that will continue. Host when you see a Democratic Administration elected this year as a threat to an open and free innovative network, i. E. , Net Neutrality come back into play . Guest the dna of American Innovation policy has always been based on a bipartisan vision that if we can take a light touch a restrained approach to ensuring that our internet can grow, flourish and internet providers can compete with e

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