Association. Good afternoon, everyone. If folks can take their seats, i think were going to get started. Thanks again for being here. Im vanessa cinders and i have the pleasure of leading chart rers team here in washington. We really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to listen to this great lineup of speakers. Weve convened this group today to talk about a spectrum issue thats critically important to 5g and broadband deployment. Were going to start with an introduction of the plan then move to an expert panel discussion. Its my pleasure to interview matt polka of acc connects and steve berry of cca. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our briefing on this important issue. My name is matt polka, president and ceo of aca connects. Americas communications association. Formally known as the american cable association. And we are very, very pleased to be here today along with our partners at chatter and cca to talk to you u about this important issue that affects all of our members, the 700 members of aca connects that are in every state providing phone, broad band, Video Service and very, very remote areas, hard the to reach areas. Doing great job on delivering that broad band promise. But today were very happy to talk to you about our 5g plus plan because we think that this fcc proceeding thats underway is is really critical for the future of not only wireless, but wire Line Communications in our country. And if done right, with the work that the fcc can do, it can release enormous amounts of spectrum for 5g service, other next Generation Wireless Services and to propel fiber activity throughout own country and rural areas. So we support the fcc seizing this opportunity and thats why aca connects has joined with charter and with cca in this plan. Charter and cca two users current users of c band spectrum and providers of 5g Wireless Services to develop and present what we consider to be a new path with unprecedented benefits for the american public. Let me cover what those plans and those paths are. First, our 5g plus plan has two fundamental goals. As steve will cover in a moment, it frees up at least 370 megahertz for 5g services or nearly double any other proposal use iing a transparent spectrum auction overseen by the fcc. Further, it will make current c band use errs whole and provide meaningful incentives for them to forgo their existing rights. We think spectrum under this plan will be available for 5g and other service fs in urban areas in at least 18 months. And in many rural areas within 36 month, so were talking about a lot of spectrum. Talking about getting it out to the public to use quickly. Second, our plan will use auction proceeds to help support the deployment of a nationwide fiber based video Programming Network to all multichannel video programming distributors throughout the country. And based on analysis, youll hear from a firm over a fiveyear period we believe that we can readily roll out 120,000 root miles of fiber required for this network. More over, all of this fiber will not just be used to deliver high eququality video programmi but it can become a fundamental part of our infrastructure for Rural America. Supporting the deployment of 5g, enabling significant smart grid and Smart Metering applications, focusing on telehealth, Public Safety services and many other things. One final but very, very important benefit of this plan is that we believe this plan will create 100,000 jobs and another 100,000 jobs. So this plan when you study it is a win win for all stake holders certainly in this proceeding and for the american public. It provides the spectrum that we need for next Generation Wireless Services. It provides a seamless transition mechanism working with the fcc through u a process, a transparent process led by the fcc that will make both earth station and satellite operators whole through that process. It will incentivisent vise user move towards terrestrial delivery and u. S. Dollars flowing to the u. S. Treasury while advancing connectivity in Rural America. Win win. My pleasure now to turn over the podium to steve. Thank you very much. Steve. Thank you. Appreciate it. Good afternoon and thank you. We have standing room only. We have some refreshments over here. If youre not going to bother anybody if you want to go get a little bite the eat. Thank you so much for coming. Im president and ceo of cca. Cca, a little about cca. The nations leading association for competitive wireless providers and stake holders across the united states. Members range from small, medium and large carriers. Some serving less than 5,000 customers. To regional and nationwide carriers that serve millions of customers. As well as the vendors that support that ecosystem in the wireless world. Everyone will play a role in building out 5g. We know that. But these are the carriers, the operators that will pay for spectrum licenses and put it to use to serve consumers particularly in urban and rural areas of the united states. Long with aca connects and charter, we appreciate your attendance today to discuss an important issue of cband spectr spectrum. Matt briefly touched on transitioning content delivery to proven Fiber Technologies will help deploy fiber in underserved and unserved markets. This will also allow the fcc to make more spectrum available and keep the consumers appetite for demand for Wireless Services and power the 5g world. Spectrum is a finite resource. Its owned by the taxpayers. And licensed by the government. For wireless consumers, 5g services will revolutionize consume r experiences in every aspect of our lives. It will power the latest health, telehealth improvements. Distance learning. Autonomous vehicles, augmented and virtual reality. Public safety a high priority and other services that really are not imagined yet. While theres a lot of hype around the 5g services, these will not be possible without additional allocations of spectrum. Wireless fiber as i like to call it, the air waives that actually power the Wireless Services. The cband between 4 gig hurts, 500 megahertz represents a critical turning point in the future of the connectivity in america. All carriers must have low, mid and high band spectrum while low band propagates great distances and high band gives you the potential for blistering speeds, mid band spectrum has c band has a unique balance supporting blend of distance and capacity. C band will be particularly important in deploying 5g services in Rural America. The 500 megahertz, the size of the band is one of the last opportunities for carriers to obtain as much needed spectrum and with these large block size, sh Faster Services can be acquired. Satellite companies, the incumbents of the users of the band, have selfidentified that they are not maximize iing the potential or the use of this band and theyre willing to vacate some parts of it for consumer use. But i say that its a lost opportunity. Plain and simple. If we dont repurpose the maximum amount of spectrum possible with our pro comp the tigs plan, the fcc auction five or six licenses in every market. This will fuel competition and innovation. We cannot, that can only be done if we clear 300 megahertz or more. We can only imagine what the possibilities are. Our pro competition plan will inject a significant amount of fiber connectivity in Rural America as matt mentioned, which will help not only with backhaul on 5g, but help bring Broad Band Services to Rural America and as matt pointed out, this will ignite the investment in our fundamental infrastructure in america. Chairman pie state d the fcc plans to make a decision regarding the c band sometime this fall and we encourage him to review it and we encourage congress to use the properer guidance, oversight and stranz parnsy required to ensure that we maximize the potential for c band preserving public air ways for public good. This is a serious challenge and this is a serious solution and cca, aca connects and chart rer communications have come together with our proposal to free up hundreds of megahertz of c band for wireless use in an efficient, timely manmanueler. Our plan assures the sale of this taxpayer owned resource supports Fiber Networks and allocates through a transparent auction the guidance and expertise that only the fcc can bring. Revenues will benefit american taxpayers so youll hear a lot today about a well balanced plan to address a serious challenge and a great opportunity. So thank you one and all for joining. Again, if you need something to drink, we still have a few refreshments over here and ill turn it back over to vanessa that will keep us on schedule. Thank you. Thanks, steve and matt, for your introintroductions. I want to turn it over to nicos who has adviced acc connects on our 5g plus plan. Thanks so much. Good evening, everyone. Let me do a brief introduction. Im the principal with cartisian, one of the oldest firms in the Telecom Space with over 30 years of advising clients in the telecom sector. What id like to do is walk you through, it will be the mechanics of the plan starting with what is as steve explained before, its a very desirable part of the spectrum. The reason why is is that its not too low in the fm frequencies, its not too high so it doesnt have characteristic, not going too far or not penetrating walls. So its right in between and intuitively, if you think about it, its between the wifi frequencies. Its 3. 7, 4. 2. Its right in fwebetween so itn idea parking lot of the spectrum for wireless communications. Let me talk about how this is being used today. This is 500 megahertz of spectrum. A big part of it is completely unused. So so 180 is not being used. This is the part thats been proposed to be reformed. From the remaining spectrum thats in use, the largest part, 170 megahertz is being used for cable programming and another, so if you have the use, you get 350 plus u the guard. 370 megahertz, which is what our plan is going after. What remains in the 130 megahertz ban is known as 350. Think about radio. Religious programming and a number of other applications that are completely mobile. So our plan, which we filed in early july, by transitioning off the mvp programming to fiber, we get to release far more spectrum but at the same time, one of f the great lebfts here is rural Fiber Deployment. Ill explain more about how that deployment will happen in subsequent slides. Am also given that were able to auction, our proceeds are far greater and that allows them to end up with the u. S. Treasury. I will mention that we have calculate d that up to 29 billion r for the u. S. Trashry fr treasury from this process. Ill walk you through the mechani mechanics. The most important part is how we transition the cable programming off satellites. What you see this, on the left hand side, you see a studio beaming to a satellite and Cable Provider then distributing it over to u. S. Households. Thats extremely viable in u. S. Areas. Some of the fiber already exists and they get to be a fiber today but what were proposing is moving all the content out of fiber so we have to build fiber between the data centers and connect the cable to the remote so from there on, they can keep distributing it the same way as before. Then what happens with 130 megahert. Over that, we will be repack in its a process the satellite operators go through from time to time and we are talking about repacking all of the lower frequencies into the upper 130 megahertz so the 370 b can be free. Reimbursements will cover the cost of transition fiber and there will be inicentives for that to happen in a timely manner and from a timing perspective, up to 18 months for areas, these are the areas that already have fiber today. Think about dense metro areas where the large Cable Providers are already connected to the y data centers. Toup three years for most areas where there is might be required for redundancy reasons. Let me make a note here that when we talk about having access to some fiber so they can have internet. What our plan is proposing is not building fiber. It proposes reenforcing the connectivity of those systems so that the content can go through. So having more capacity and adding more reliability through links so that delivery can happen in very reliable manner. Out of which 120,000 miles of fiber would be constructed. Object with that investment in fiber, there will be lots and lot of jobs that will be createded. 100, 200,000 jobs is the direct kind of estimation weve made. We estimate 30 to 37 billion from the auctions. Probably a lot more than that. Cost reimbursements will be 9 to 11 billion to facile it the transition to fiber. Incentives that are going to be determine and up to 29 billion in benefits that end up with a u. S. Treasury. The rule broad band. We are talk iing about 420,000 miles of fiber which will be either leased or built in those rural areas and over 700 Cable Systems that will be connected with fiber. This is quite a large deployment and this will increase the fiber connectivity in rural areas. It will increase the reeliabiliy of internet in those areas and also fiber competition. Youll have more options. As a result of that, you can have smart grid corporations. Theyll do smart meters and Grid Operations that will be isps that would offer more higher speeds. Even the Cable Providers could be operating speeds and that fiber can become the backbone for 5g connectivity in those rule areas. Since the most significant element for 5g is having fiber to backbone those small cells. So it serves allpurposes in that regard and regarding the jobs, economists have started the effect of fiber investment. There are some multipliers that will wellknown and weve estimated with those hundred thousand direct jobs and another 100,000 indirect jobs being created from that. All. Thank you so much. Now i want to turn it over to john wilkins whos going to lead a short discussion with our experts. John is the former chief operating officer of the fcc and was a former fcc r Wireless Bureau chief. And he has a lot of expertise in these issues. Hes going to take questions. The floor is is yours. Thank you. We could take the rest of the time giving the backgrounds of the panels so were going to do the opposite and go quickly and get into the questions. Im going to go down and start on the front of the table and work back. Just quick introduchovnies. So ductions. Ross is the Vice President of Government Affairs for aca connects and you heard about aca connects mission from matt a second ago. Coming back towards me, tim donovan is the senior Vice President of ledge affair frs cca. Next to ill let colleen say a couple of words in case yu dont know him. First of all, Vice President of affairs after at chatter and i wanted to start by thanking you for being here. Within chart rer, i focus on wireless and spectrum issues and id like everything from charter here acknowledge how much everybodys excited about spectrum whos coming here but charter is a Cable Company we serve across 41 states. Were very interest nd the c band both as a company that serves millions of Customers Using c band satellite delivery to serve our customers and as a company thats moving into wireless and looking at 5g spectrum and how that can be used to increase connectivity for our customers so were really excited about this plan which we think does a lot of this, provides fiber and spectrum. Happy to talk about that. Thanks. Next to colleen is phillip. The policy director for public nonl. You want to do the two seconds on Public Knowledge . Yeah, sure and thanks, john, and thanks for charter and aca and cca for inviting Public Knowledge today. Im the policy director r for Public Knowledge. Were a consumer and Public Interest advocacy organization. Weve spent the last two decades its a way to deal with digital issues. Provide competition, bring more hois choices, competition and lower prices to consumers. And last but not least, ross from the tax payers production lines. The Taxpayers Protection Alliance is a group found in 2011. We focus on any issue related the taxpayer and customer issues and making sure the unintended consequences with state and local government actions are highlighted and brought to everyones attention and we focus on a broad array of issues including c band and spectrum issues to make sure the Digital Divide is closed with minimal taxpayer resources so im happy to be here today to discuss those broad band issues as it relates to c band and taxpayers being made whole. Thank you. So were going to launch into questions and leave some time at the end so if you have questions, hold them and well take them around 12 45 or 12 50. As im sure some of you are thinking from the overview of the plan, its a complicateded issue, but its really, really important. In the world of telecom policy, its a hugely important issue. We want to start with a couple of questions r that are more high level and make sure were not missing the forest for the trees before we go into more detailed questions. Let me start at the end of the table. Actually, we have two ross. Last name, first initial. Lets really for the audience really lay it out. Why is c band so important . And a also for members who are bringing broad band and Wireless Services across the country and in smaller and rural markets. Thanks. C band is important because spectrum is important. All of the Wireless Networks delivered today and all of the potential 5g services dont ha