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>> the type of spectrum that you can rmly expect to be coming up, and it will give carriers an opportunity to say this is where i'm going in my deployment scenarios. we'd love to see band 27 and i think 47 included in that because i think those two are, you know, useable, high-speed mobile broadband bands. so we appreciate that and we also appreciate the 10% set aside that you included in the bill. i think it will focus a lot of attention on how do we get that new service out there sooner rather than later. thank you for your help. i think if the fcc had read your bill on reasonably comparable

wireless services, we might have had a little more due thought to designing the perimeters around the data requests that they made. thank you. >> well, i appreciate that. and i was just going to add my voice to the chorus to speak about how inaccurate the data and the maps are. at the end of last year, as i think you all know, i held a field hearing to exam the state of broadband in the granite state and mapping came up frequently throughout the conversation. it continues to be a serious challenge that throws off our efforts at ensuring adequate coverage, particularly in rural areas. last week i joined a bipartisan group of senators in a letter to the fcc regarding their recently released map which shows that mast of new hampshire is covered and therefore ineligible for further it up support through the universal service program mobility fund. i will tell you, you can drive from concord, new hampshire, our state capital to our biggest city in the southwest corner of

the state, keane, along routes 202 and 9 and you cannot get cell phone coverage for most of that trip. as governor i had to try to respond to public safety emergencies while traveling that route and if it hadn't been for state police radio in the car, it would have been extraordinarily difficult. so your own members, mr. barry, testified at our field hearing about their own lack of mobile service between manchester and keane. so how can we work to address these issues so that small carriers are not overburdened and states like new hampshire are not left to bear the brunt of the digital divide? >> thank you for the question. you know, i think -- years ago my grandfather owned an old two-ton truck and every time you wanted to take out a groundhog and go a little faster you had to change the gears, but you had to double clutch it. >> yeah. >> i think we need to double clutch this data access requirement.

we need to get the right data to put this thing in a higher gear because our carriers want to build out. and so i think we double clutch that by getting all sources of federal data and information included in it. david rattle, as i mentioned to chairman wicker suggested that nti has a lot of data, they have good relationships with states and counties and municipalities and they already have some of that information. it's not been tapped, not been utilized. i think we can do a better job of that and hopefully we can come with a better map of where there is and is not. one thing that i would mention on the day that mr. romano mentioned, it's a little easier to identify where you have a fiber or a wire. wireless say lot different in their measuring device dollars and their measuring scenarios are different. i do want to thank the fcc for dha changing the wireless measuring

devices a wait from the centroid. so, we are working on it. we're trying to do better, with you i think we can use some help from some of the other agencies. >> well, thank you. and i know that i'm over time, mr. chair. so thank you and i look forward to hearing the rest of the hearing. >> thank you, senator hassen. i now recognize myself. let me direct this to mr. romano. the fcc is in its finishing stages, it seems, of the high-cost program. and as you have testified, as we know there's been insufficient funding that's resulted in cuts, uncertainty for small and local broadband providers. we know it's clearly true in rural kansas. so lack of sustainability puts the investments that have been made at risk, their future, and it creates an unwillingness or could create an unwillingness for additional investment in the

arena. this may be -- you may have answered this question in response to another senator, but what is the long-term solution for making certain that the investments made have a return and that there's another certainty that will make future investments? >> thank you, senator. there are two parts to this. answer i gave to senator shots which related to the sustainability funding itself tlifrpg your question goes to certainly related issue which is the sustainability of the networks that the providers able to invest and their reliance on the program to make their investment. we're make investments here they're talking about measurements in decades. these are assets that are going to be long term infrastructure assets over which there will be cost recovery over decades. fcc tried to reposition those for broadband in 2016, the mec sixes to resupport those. it rebuilt the engine but didn't put enough gas in the engine. we've seen in kansas the impacts have been worse than average in terms of what it means both for recover riff existing investments and then the ability

to plan for future investments. we're deeply gratified that the fcc seems inclined to take steps to mitigate some of the budget short falls that have hit carriers hardest in a number of rural states. we're hopeful that those actions will come through. but we're still going to be in the case with sustainability, come july the budget control hits again. so we'll be right back in the same thing, providers will be saying i can make ib investments for the next year, i don't know what the controls are going to be. so we're hoping the fcc will act, stabilize the ground and give us an opportunity for a conversation as soon as possible about what long term sustain ability means to these programs. >> do you have basis for that hope? >> they are talking about an order that would address some of the issues in the near term, and we understand that they're going to be asking questions about what should the budget be going forward. our hope is that will meet the standards of the act which look for reasonably comparable services and rates and the

standards for predictability and sufficiency. >> thank you. mr. berry, i want to talk about the spectrum incentive auction. cca supports the repack in a timely fashion with adequate resources provided to broadcasters to expedite the transition and prevent delays to the winning bidders. i'm an advocate for that repack and for adequate funding. cca members made up most of the winning bids for this particular spectrum. you can confirm and explain how funding certainty for relocated broadcasters translates into competitive wireless carriers expeditiously deplaying broadband? >> thank you have senator. thank you for the question and thank you for sponsoring the viewer protection act also. 60 mega hertz was the second largest auction that actually

ever occurred in the united states and is critical for our members to get 600 mega hertz deployed in their networks. it's a great pop pullgation characteristics in rural america, that's why 600 mega hertz lte is going to be a great opportunity to get high-speed mobile broadband. we need to repack. we think the 39-month time frame that congress set is the right time frame. we are very supportive of the broadcasters efforts to not only repack but do it in a timely fashion and a safe fashion. so i think additional funds, my understanding is they've identified the cost of additional funding need and i think it's reasonable to respond to that. u.s. treasury made 13, $14 billion net on that. all most $7 billion that went in the first responder program out of that auction. i think it's fair and reasonable

to get that spectrum out there as soon as possible and build those networks. >> i won't ask a question, i'll make a comment. there's been a theme about the map or mapping or data accuracy. senator wicker read a letter in which a number of us joined and if we can send a message through this hearing to the fcc in regard to the acc racist map, we're particularly now talking about the mobility fund phase two map. and i heard what mr. debrew said there's a standard place to start we can work from, but let me in particular complain about the appeals process or trying to get map changed. that puts a burden on people, first of all i think you start from a map that is improperly determined. the accuracy or the value of the map is nearly nil, in my view. but even if you start with a baseline, the ability to mod fight map, the actions that's going to be necessary for a carrier or a community to get it changed, i don't think it's going to be something that it's going to be easily done.

so my hope is we start with a different map as compared to trying to correct this one through an appeals process that i don't think will work and will leave behind the folks that we are desperately trying to provide service too. thank you. >> we might as well say it, the map is utterly worthless in terms of giving us good information. senator tester. >> you one upped me, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and kudos to you, mr. berry, for the double clutching getting out of groundhog. we used to call it granny but you're probably more politically correct. my question is to mr. gillen, and that is it's been referred to before that we need to win the race to 5g. what constitutes a win? is that people covered? businesses covered? geographic area covered? what constitutes a win to 5g? >> for us it is that next generation of innovation and opportunity happened here first. so it is a matter of having enough scale that we have enough

entrepreneurs and innovators to build off that platform. and so absolutely it will starts with the number of people covered in a timely manner. >> okay. so -- and, by the way, that's the definition i would expect. the number of people covered in one block of new york city is far more dhuntcounty that i liv and my county is bigger than a fair number of states. so the question is, is how do we get -- how do we get 5g in rural america? how do we get it there? the senator from nebraska talked about precision farming, but it's more than that. so how do we get it there? let me put it this way. i'll be more specific. will you commit to a pilot program for montana on 5g? >> i'm happy to work with your office with something that looks like i think for us 5g starts with the densest area. so it is place dollars like

missoula, town squares, and then goes from there. just like 4g and we continue to work on getting 4g more and more many montana. the job is not done by far. >> okay. so and i'm not picking on verizon but i happen to have one of your phones in my pact. have you seen the map on the ties meant that verizon puts up? i think all of them are this way. have you seen that advertisement? >> yes, sir. >> do you agree with that map? >> i've only had the chance to be in missoula which had great gufr u coverage but not the next of them. >> well let me tell you something, that's a hell of a lot different, i'll just tell you that. that's a 75 mile drive for me to great falls from my farm and i bet i don't have coverage for 25 miles of that and yet that map's all red put want to talk about that? >> yes, sir. and this is something that national cities and governments across the country are farising is that there's a real misunderstanding as to 5g, especially when they ask states to to preemptive governments with respect to deployment. the industry comes in and says we will have 5g in your

communities and throughout the state and it's the next generation broadband and we absolutely need it. really what they're doing is dense if i occasion of 4g networks in very dense city areas for the most part. just to give you an example, the state of nebraska is currently debating a preemption small cell deployment bill the same as florida passed last year and the cities led by the city of lincoln talked about lowering their rates for attachment to city-owned poles. they will willing to reduce the rate from the market rate of about $2,000 per hole to $95 per pole if the industry would agree to build out the entire state over a reasonable period of time with the 5g service. >> that isn't the problem. the the problem when you look at these bars on this phone, when i go home there are none. so we're not even close to talk about 4g or 3g or any g where i live. we're not even close. i might be able to get a text

message, but unless i'm standing in the right corner of my house with my mouth held in the right direction, this phone does not work. okay. and it's that way -- i live in one of the more populated areas of the state. go ahead. >> well, senator, get back to the eligibility map which, and you raise a really important point, it says it's covered. >> yes. >> and it says a lot of places are covered. >> yes. >> what the s.e.c. did was decide -- >> how do we fix that in the s.e.c. is wrong, they screwed up, we're getting screwed because they screwed up, so how do we fix it? >> well, you've got to get better data. what they decided was to collect data that was not what i would call -- >> who'd they collect it from? who'd they dlekt from? who did they collect it from? >> they requested parameters for the data and information from all the carriers. the carriers gave the s.e.c. exactly what they requested. we suggested that that was the wrong conclusion. what they chose was the recommendation from the two

largest carriers on how to measure coverage. and i'll tell you that in the last eight years the fcc has time and time again under several administrations said we had 98% coverage throughout the united states. >> you made the statement in your opening statement, garbage in and garbage out. there's got to be a way to get the fcc's attention on this on this issue. it's come up in almost every one of these questions. we are not going to soft problems of wireless, broadband, anything in rural america if we don't have good information. i would just say i've got 400 questions to ask you guys. i'm not going to be able to do it so i'll put them in writing and you'll have a lot of work to do. but the bottom line is if we don't get this right, if we don't do it. >> actually you're limited to 300 questions. >> 300, okay. i'll pair back to 299 with due respect. i know there's plenty of folks out there that say things like why do these guys live in rural america in they knew they didn't

have the coverage when they moved there. i looked at my grandfather's diary from 1950 and he said you know, damn it, there's no cell coverage out here. we got to do better, folks. it's not working. thank you. >> senator klobuchar. >> well, thank you very much. i think tester said it all down there. but i want to start out, i noticed mayor that you mentioned the dig one bill that i've been leading for quite a while and we're hoping we can finally get it done. it was included in the mobile now act and recently passed the house as part of the fcc reauthorization bill. as you know, this allows for better coordination between state departments of transportation and broadband providers during construction. do you want to -- i know you, i think, have a comment on this, but maybe mr. berry, do you want to add anything? and if you want to add anything, mayor, that would be great. >> i appreciate it, senator. it's nice when occasionally common sense makes its way into

law. >> really? >> tapped doesn't happen that often, so we do appreciate if the my city for example, this cy round the country, we receive federal funds to do about 10 million nds road improvements u provements and i wanted to put in conduits. very simple, makes sense we're dig upgt roads an it's no extra expense and we were told because these were transportation federal dollars that we were not allowed to put in conduit. so we appreciate the dig once bill and the new legislation and i think that's going to go a long way around the country to speed up depp employment of broadband. >> thank you. >> and same here, not only thank you for that but also signing the letter to the fcc on the eligibility map, we greatly appreciate that. believe it or not, it does have a real impact in rural america also. when you're building that road, if you can dig once, it makes a huge difference. and what we're talking about is how do you get that initial cap "x" investment down so you can use that money to build out?

i was last week with commissioner carr and chantel, which say small carrier, larger carrier for our purposes, saying that if they could decrease their costs of deployment to comply with federal rules and regulation, they could put 13 for towers just on that one area. so that's significant broadband buildout. thank you. >> different subject. mr. romano, we just got the roll call quality and reliability act passed, something i worked on with chairman thune as well as senator tester. this is all these dropped calls that have been going on in rural areas. and the president just signed it into law. and it's going to establish some basic quality standards and a registry at the fcc. could you talk about how that will be helpful? >> yes, thank you, senator. thanks to all of you who supported that bill. thank you for introducing it. to echo the mayor's comments, another case of common sense making it into law, we should have reasonable expectation that

our kaurls going to go through. that was an epidemic we were seeing in rural america, calls were not reaching rural america. and they still aren't today. there have been efforts to try to improve the situation and it's a bit like wildfire. you put it out and it pops back up in another space. so what this bill will do, and it's critical, it is it brings transparency to this marketplace. it helps the fcc, helps states ant dust troy understand who's involved in taking these calls. makes them register and finds out are they doing the basic job of completing those calls? we ask basic business registration for conducting business in jurisdictions, this bill simply does a similar thing in terms of calling those people out and making sure that we can find them if we need to to ask the questions and get the calls complete spotted thank you. >> okay. thank you. mr. gillen, in the run up to super bowl 50 ii i like to mention that we had super bowl 50 ii whenever i can, hundreds of small cells were installed to accommodate the increase in demand before, during, and after

the game. the deployment effort will lay the ground work for 5g communications capabilities in the twin cities. how do small cells help address surges in data usage? >> we should all visit minneapolis because it has the best wireless network in the city now because as a result of super bowl. and that's what they did as a city and a state to create a rate structure and the timelines to allow those small cells to be invested. you have five time more capacity in minneapolis today than did you this time last year and you saw 71 times more traffic during that super bowl than you did last year's super bowl. so in terms of where minneapolis is with that small cell fruk u infrastructure, they're ready for 5g in a way that other cities aren't today. >> how could that be helpful at all in rural areas? i can tell you we don't have that coverage in the rural parts. >> absolutely. i think it goes to part of it is starting in the rural town centers, college campuses and areas that are denser. when we're talking about truly unserved areas, we need to talk

about how the mobility fund and other programs work. and the challenge, as we said, is getting the data work in order to make sure we're funding the right places. but unserved areas we're going to need your help. in areas more dense where there's coverage today, 5g will serve rural america as well. >> thank you very much. >> that item sitting on your witness table there. >> yes, sir. >> that alone won't solve the question that senator klobuchar asked about rural coverage. >> this will be rural coverage in a town square if the. >> there's a little more traditional technology that will be used for truly coverage areas in more rural communities. >> why is that going to work in a town square and not five miles out of town? >> this is only supposed to go meters in terms of how far the signal will go. when we're talking in terms of rural mississippi, we need to go miles. >> okay. well darn. >> the technology's getting better every year. >> mr. romano. >> thank you, senator.

that's one point i think is important to make is there are many tools in the toolkit to solve rural broadband challenges. small cells may offer help in small towns. the average density of our customer base is 7 people per square mile. we're talking about 35, 40% of the u.s. land mass. it's going to be difficult to get them out there, we hope that they will, but it's going to -- the term dense if i occasion has been used a great deal today. dense fied finer network to feed those small cells. at the end of the day in rural america you're almost talk about a fiber to the home network because those cells will need to be several hundred feet apart in order to achieve the promise of 5g in rural areas. it's going to take an integrated solution of wired and wireless networks to achieve the universal broadband that we're talking about. >> senator capito. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank all of you. i think we've worked with just about everybody on the panel, again, for echoing what many of my colleagues have said. but i've now figured out how to

get rural broadband to west virginia. host the super bowl. it's that easy. but i was recalling a conversation as i was listening to your testimony several years ago that i had with our major provider, and i said, what is it going to take? what is it going to take insisting like center tester was. two things, time and money. i get tired of hearing the same thing, time and money. that's what you all are telling us, time and money. so we try to focus the money, we have a rural broadband caucus senator klobuchar's on. it's bipartisan, we have -- we have the desire. but i hear about 5g develop men and i know 5g obviously the president's decision this morning to disallow a merger because of security reasons around 5g tells me how important that is on one end and mr. gillen you've spoken to that. but it also tells me when you keep talking about density in town squares and college

campuses, we're still not -- they're going to have 5g but we're still not going to even have the ability do a lot of what we want to do. so i'm as frustrated as i'm sure you all are and everybody else is to try to get to that last -- that last mile. so let's talk a little bit about the census track. we we have that same issue. we have a broadband council in our state that's asked people to do a self test to see how fast. el flunkco. the results are terrible. we know the data is not reflective and better yet when they're paying their bill the service to receive is not matching with what their data test is. so what would it take? is now it's like if one person serving in the census track, the whole census track. what would be a better metric? 50%? 51%? mr. romano. >> i would submit actually that this geo coding opportunity or the geo coding method say good opportunity. the fcc is requiring those

carriers that receive universal service support through bee goe code got the latitude and longitude to every location to which they're installing fixed broadband. but fixed broadband, you're then required to show you actually have the service that you're saying you're delivering to each of those locations. if we can get to that level, and it's going to take time because there's a transition, trying to go back in gee kbro code in every location installed is a huge burden. >> would you consider that a third-party verification? >> it's not. each carrier is going out and geo coding. when they do a new instatation to a rooftop they're geo coding what they've installed service and reflecting what they installed. it's it is still carrier reported. the verification process when you're talking about universal service dollars or infrastructure funds you're going to need toet up a more robust challenge process. making sure that you're not having to prove a negative there isn't service there but rather the provider who says there is

service there comes forward to validate, yes, there is service there such that you should not put federal dollars towards a program continue to investigate there. >> so the other thing is money. we talked a lot about the universal service fund and the connect america fund and where those dollars are going. we had the stimulus package, the west virginia stimulus package was $126.3 million. and guess what? a lot of it was wasted. it was a wasted opportunity for our state. and sort of embarrassing too in some ways some some of the stories came out. so i put together an act called the go act, a gigabit opportunity act which is trying to use the tax code to drive investment to these last areas. so the governor could designate, much like he's going to be doing under these opportunity zones that we created in the the tax reform bill where the governor designates these deserts of development. so you could -- the governor

could designate an unserved area in the broadband area and you could create a fund that would draw investment through the tax code into those gigabit opportunities zones. so i'd ask you all to take a look at that, if you haven't looked at it, to try to drive more private investment into these areas before we give 5g to everybody else and we're still sitting there with very little and no service. my last question is, mr. gillen, you mentioned telehealth. that's really important to an elderly state. chronic conditions can be monitored so well to people who lack transportation, mobility, physical mobility themselves or any family members nearby to take them to their healthcare providers. how do you see that rolling out into the really remote areas? >> thank you, senator. that goes exactly to the challenge you just faced, those that need the telehealth the most are the one we still need need to reach. >> right. >> and what you talk about on a

global scale it's huge amount of savings and better outcomes for patients and the challenge is connectivity in places like west virginia that we do see a great promise in the ability to really revolutionize healthcare and drive down costs by bringing healthcare closer to you and not having to have to drive to wheeling or anyone where else to get care. it will be transformative when we get there. >> i know the va is moving in this direction, too, which i would highly encourage, and think that would be a good sort of test drive hif know it's being done everywhere because i've been to a couple demonstrations. but really important. and lastly i'll say, mr. chairman, one of the biggest phenomenon with our elderly is loneliness and connectivity can help with that. you know, it's not waiting by the mailbox to get a letter. just think if you could facetime with your grandchildren or something like that to try to help with all the other issues that go with your mental health as you age, i think it holds great promise. thank you all very much. >> thank you, senator capito. senator peters. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

and senator capito thank you for bringing up that statement about the elderly. i will tell you that the person who i think is most skilled at facebook is my 93-year-old mother. she is amazing with it and it is about being connected. it's transformative to her life and countless other seniors so thank you for bringing that up. each of the folks for your testimony, thank you today for that and certainly i think it's clear from the panel here we all agree that broadband internet and high speed internet in rural areas is absolutely critical. in fact, i equate it to our country's effort in the last century to make sure that everybody, no matter who you are or where you live you had access to electricity, that it was absolutely critical that we make sure that everybody had access to it in today's age of high speed internet is in that same category. that's why i'm disapointsd that it seems as if president trump doesn't necessarily share that in the fact that the infrastructure pack thanl was put before us doesn't include any, none, zero, dedicated funding for rural broadband, which i think is a big mistake.

the question for you, though, is that i've heard from many local business leaders in michigan that have reached out to me about the rural utility service community connect grant program which prioritizes grants to communities that have zero or very little access to broadband. certainly an important goal, but they have identified a problem with that grant and i want to run that by you and get your thoughts on it. as it currently stands, if any one household within the applicant's defined geographic area has broadband service at or above 41 mega bites speeds, the entire community becomes ineligible to be considered for those funds. while it's important for these grants certainly to target communities most in need, the 41 speed threshold has not been updated in years, it's spacially below fcc's definition of broadband coverage of 253.

so what i'm considering now is some legislation that will modernize the grand program. the eligibility cutoff is intended to be the base minimum for broadband coverage and preserve the program's ability to prioritize the underserved rural communities but it's my understanding that 4 swun no longer a bare minimum. do you think that the 41 speed threshold currently used by the usda should be updated? that's to anyone. what do you think about that? >> well, i'll start out. thank you for your question. i do think we need to take the law seriously and the words reasonably comparable, you know, they add -- there's -- there's a little bit of fuzziness on the ends but there's no way that 4 swun reasonab1 is reasonably comparable to what you can get in metropolitan areas. they track speeds and prices in major metropolitan areas and i think there's needs to be something in place that make sure that speeds in rural areas get ratcheted up as those go up

in metropolitan areas. there needs to be a connection in there. >> any others agree? >> yes, senator, thank you. we do agree. our members have actually made effective use of the community connect program as its constitute sod far, but i think a refresh and update would be helpful to make sure that we're continuing to raise the bar. your question also goes again to this point of do you disqualify an entire area simply because one location may be lucky enough to be snerved there's some cases this goes to the homework app. you have a school that happens to have gotten the state regional network together but the surrounding community doesn't have service. that would disqual it, if i understand the parameters of the community connect grant appropriately. so it's a good point toeda one well take and he we look to working with you on that. >> mr. berry. >> again, i go back to reasonably comparable service, but also data. how you can set a standard, how do you know what it is unless you have qualified data. we may be to the point that a

third-party vaerifier and data collector puts money in their budget for data collection and producing a new broadband map. maybe the time has come so we have a third-party verifier that would collect the data, information, authenticate it and provide that information to every agency in the federal government saying this is where there is and is not broadband coverage. and they could put the speeds with it. and, you know, 41 is, in most urban suburban areas would not be considered useable video streaming capability. so you have some definitional problems there and i think the data is the key to whether or not you can make that happen. >> so it's pretty clear that this is simply a worthless standard to have 41 as part of it, that we should be modernizing that. any idea as to where we should set that threshold or any advice? >> i would say -- i wouldn't say it's a worthless standard when you have no connectivity at

all -- >> well, yes. >> that's a pretty important standard. so we're still going back to, you know, no connectivity versus, you know, 41. 41 sounds pretty good. but it would be nice if you knew where those speeds were and where that connectivity level was and have in that in a map that you could utilize for all different types of funding programs, not only the rus program, but the fcc program. and the other two sources that you're going to make available, which is under the budget act, $20 billion there and then you've also identified additional funds that will be in the infrastructure bill. we don't know what they are right now, but wouldn't it be nice to have the ability to put all these programs together on a -- on a map that says here's how we can reach those most unserved areas in the united states. >> right. thank you so much. >> thank you, senator peters. senator blumenthal. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thanks for having this hearing.

i want to talk a little bit about urban areas which in, my view, are as important as rural areas in lack of adequate service. ellen katz who is the consumer counsel for the state of connecticut recently testified at the house energy of commerce on closing the digital divide with regard to the gap in hartford. she called it the homework gap. i think that's a common way of putting it. her report observed that many students lack adequate broadband at home, they go to fast food restaurants or they sit outside in all kinds of weather trying to pick up wifi from another building in order to do their online schoolwork.

if this problem exists in connecticut where fiber services are available in excess of 90% across the state, they must be an even bigger problem in other urban areas around the country. so let me begin with mr. resnick, would you agree that the digital divide certainly exists in urban as well as rural areas? >> yes, senator, thank you for the question. i included that in my testimony earlier today that we are seeing within urban areas the lack of broadband access by so many people simply because it's just unaffordable. as i indicated, the library in my city, the libraries in our areas are packed after school with children just trying to get online to do homework. we actually through the national league of cities had a conversation with fcc commissioner rosen war sal about this very issue and she's from connecticut and she made very

strong statements confirming that there's so many children that just do not have access to needed broadband simply to do their homework. and they are being very creative. they are, as you indicated, going wherever they can find a good wifi hot spot. but that's certainly not the answer. this is happening not just in inner cities but in suburban areas like my city throughout the urban area if the had is a significant problem to address as well. >> what's the best way of meeting that urban need? >> billion, i think we need to focus on ways to possibly reduce the costs of broadband. it's just currently, you know, if you get 10 megs of broadband service costs many families over $100 a month. that's just not affordable. communications cost for a family now easily over $400. my neighbor who's retired, 88-year-old gentleman talk about connectivity for seniors, of course he wants to have facebook to stay in touch with his grandchildren around the country, to stay involved in the

community. he spends over $400 a month for communications services and he's not getting anything special. he's getting basic service. so i think we have to address the affordability. >> the connecticut office of state broadband which is a division of the office of consumer council headed by ellen katz assessed this homework app in connecticut and the report noted that a lot of connecticut families are frustrated that a smartphone is regarded by policymakers and the public as a substitute for a home connection for broadband internet access. of course, smartphones are typically expensive and difficult to use to complete written schoolwork or write papers. i don't know how anyone could possibly use a smartphone do a paper. could you agree that a smartphone is no substitute for a home connection for broadband

access? >> yes, sir. and we were zooul absolutely disappointed that some members of the fcc wanted to include wireless broadband service as satisfying the requirements for meeting broadband deployment. as you indicated, children cannot do homework on a mobile device, especially on a smartphone. it's just impossible do paper, to do significant research. it's really going to create more of a digital divide if some students are going to be relevanta gated solely to that technology as opposed to have full broadband access to do the work that they absolutely need to do. it's just no substitute. so we do recognize that. >> it's a form of sort of second had class citizenship in the broadband world. >> exactly. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator blumenthal. senator sullivan. >> thank you, mr. chairman and i appreciate the panel's insights on a lot of tough issues for us. you know, i'm going to go back

to the -- focus which has been a lot of discussion here in this hearing. you know, sometimes we talk about rural and then we can talk about my state, which is -- i'm not sure how you would define it but extreme rural . in terms of size we're about 1 third the size of the continental united states and have 7 thune u hundred 30,000 people and dozens of communities that aren't connected by roads. so if you can put yourself in the shoes of alaskans right now, you know a hearing like this talks about 5g citing and cells and a lot of my communities don't have 2. good -- 2g in. so excuse you us if wur not getting fired up about 5g when we're not far down the line at all on some of the previous technologies. so i'll start with are you are

mr. romano but really open it up to anybody. what would -- what would be some of the most important ways in some to address this just i mean we're a big country, obviously, and connecticut say lot different than alaska and -- but what would be ways to really address kind of the challenges that we have in the most extremely rural parts of america whether it's alaska or some of the other communities that you heard here? i always look at this some ways as kind of a balance between streamlining the permitting to actually get technologies out and not delay, delay, delay, which san enormous problem with infrastructure in america, whether it's telecommunications or roads. and, you of course, funding. but looking at some of the extreme rural communities like we have in alaska, what would you say are the big issues and what are the problems that nepa,

the national historical preservation act? where do we need focus to get to deal with communities that have been left behind? unfortunately i have tens of thousands of my constituents who they never talk about 5g because they're still waiting for 2g. >> we have 13 members that cover a significant footprint in your state so we're very familiar with the challenges they face that your constituents face. alaska has some very unique challenges. but gwen e againly speaking with respect to rural challenges were we believe an infrastructure package could contain at least two, maybe three key elements. first is funding. second is permitting and third is tax incentives. there's going to be different tools in the toolkit depending on what the particular challenge is that's faced. i would suggest with respect to alaska in particular, fund saying big issue. there's just no way around it. fact is that these remote ville i ages are going to be tough to connect and build in and your build season is short, supplies are costly, all of those things drive higher costs in alaska for

sure, never mind distance and density alone. so infrastructure funding in that regard we believe looking and leveraging existing initiatives is going to be critical. in those places in alaska where we've seen the best success have been those place where's there's been predictable and sufficient universal service funding for those carriers that can invest there. villages that are left behind where universal service has not worked as well although they've tried to recalculate bra brate do so. middle pile is a challenge that's overlooked in universal service context because everybody thought about local telephone service. but we need those connections to connect rural alaska, rural montana, rural new hampshire, everywhere else to the rest of the world and those are connections are today not supported at all. those are connections that are going to be critically, increasingly critic willa as you're sending mission critical data across those wires in terms of agricultural data, connectivity, streaming video, whatever it is. that's a big challenge in alaska in particular of course.

>> just on your kind of three areas, would you kind of place one above the other or kind of all -- all of the above taxes, streamline are, the permitting processing and funding? is there a hierarchy there or just got to attack all three. >> financing funding is first because if you don't have the business case continue to investigate, it doesn't matter that i can get permits more quickly i can't build the network to begin with. where it's needed if the business case is not there are are you need funding to help make the business case. then if the business case is there, whether it's through sfund organize through the ability to make it on its own in the marketplace, you then move to permitting. the ability to it had the ground quickly, we deuce barriers and cost of deployment and get those networks working for cown sumsers. and the third piece is tax inseptembertives. tax incentives are an interesting tool, but in deeply rural areas you're not going to move the margins very much because it's hard to make any money investing in the first place. if you're not going to make money you don't need a tax break on the money you're not going to make. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. senator gardner. >> thank you, mr. chairman, mr.

gillen and all of you for your time and testimony today. mr. gillen you talked a lot about infrastructure for the sfu ture at today's hearing. spectrum say critical piece of this, the juice that's going to keep innovation running, satellite, wifi, other technologies. this committee's done a rot lot of great work under the chairman's leadership including the mobile now act that recently passed the house as part of the ray bomb's act. i wanted to say something about the name of that bill. ray is a -- was a beloved figure in the house and great person just neat for this recognition to have happened. i believe we've got to continue to keep up the pressure to free even more spectrum and help close that digital divide. that's why senator hassen and i introduced the airwaves act to free up more lonsed and unlicensed spectrum to build out the unlicensed rural broadband network. do you agree we should consider ledge lation like the airwaves act as we continue to inspect this? >> i think it should be

airwaves. airwaves is the roadmap for your country when it comes to spectrum policy. one place we have low, mid, high spectrum and we have the license to make an difference in terms of a 5g race. the other thing you've done is the rural divide to ensure that money coming in will go back out to serve the parts of plains and colorado that don't have coverage today. you get to do fruk and spectrum policy and we've not seen that before. >> following up on that rural comment mr. mr. berry the fcc release add i new map. a appreciate the attempt to improve the mapp but i continue to have concerns it doesn't reflect actual coverage on the ground in my home state of colorado because i can tell you that because i can tell you mile marker south of town that according to map has excellent coverage but somehow i don't have coverage for mile upon mile upon mile when i'm driving it. on the eastern plains, for example, near lit entire region is shown that it's served.

when i know first hand large service gaps exist. so i'm pleased about this decision, but are many of your member companies planning to participate in the challenge process is? what would that look like and what do you expect? >> thank you, senator and thank you for the airwaves act. i would add two additional bands in there if you'd like to add 24 and 47 giga hertz in there. >> put them together, sounds good to me. >> you got it. you're absolutely right. i was going to congratulate you on getting 100% kwufr racoverag because that's what the map says you have but i was premature in my congratulations. >> my neighbors think i'm nuts because i have to walk to the end of the block to get cell phone signal. >> yes. many of our carriers are going to participate in the challenge process. the problem is, the map is so distorted in terms of reality of the coverage that it will be exceedingly difficult for smaller carriers to challenge vast territories of the map. and this is one thing that we mentioned today and i think senator hassen also mentioned.

if you don't challenge it, then you're not going to be eligible for usf for ten years. because that reverse auction that is going to occur, they're going to make a decision, those areas that are not deemed eligible, if they're not challenged, the auction will occur, $4.53 billion will go out over the next ten years. >> how do we fix this and make sure we get it right? >> i suggested earlier that you need to utilize all the resources that we have available to the federal government. the nti indicated david redel said they had data points that could contribute and inform the fcc on that. i don't think we need to do that. the problem is, the 2009 stimulus act, the money went out the door before the broadband map came in. we should not, you know, commit the same error this time. let's try to get the data right as we're getting ready to provide the funds available. and i think those are some of

the areas, innovative ways that we can inform the database. >> thank you, mr. berry for that. mr. romano, when the b top program was created in 2009 many people were hopeful about the money it would bring in rural infrastructure, $100 million went to an outfit called the eagle net in colorado. i strongly -- and obviously they overbuild existing providers, failed for years to meet their service obligations and now are gone. i strongly support including specific funding for broadband and any infrastructure package, but i also want to make sure that we never again have a situation like we did with eagle net both from a competition standpoint to the fact that somehow the denver cherry creek school district was underserved under its definition. will you commit to supporting strong oversite of any new broadband dollars and robust build out for providers? >> yes, sir. that's one of the reasons we suggest leveraging suggesting initiatives as such as the universal service fund.

while it has shortcomings in terms of the data that's available, it is by far the best way of ensuring that we're targeting the money in the right place as in exist right now. also it has great accountability in the back end in the form of measuring where broadband is being deployed is being deployed. >> thank you. i'm out of time. thanks for the work you're doing in colorado. >> that you know, mr. chairman, and ranking member for holding this hearing and to our panel of witnesses for sharing your expertise and i want to particularly welcome bob, fellow wisconsinite. i'm really pleased to have a wisconsin voice at the table today. and thank you also for your membership on the fcc's broadband deployment advisory committee. i also want to associate myself, mr. chairman, with remarks of my colleagues earlier during this hearing who have emphasized the need for dedicated funding for broadband as part of any

infrastructure measure that moves forward. like a number of my colleagues on the subcommittee, from both sides of the aisle, i wrote to president trump urging him to include dollars specifically for broadband and particularly in rural america. and while i'm disappointed that he chose not to do so, the senate democrats in putting forward our own infrastructure proposal did include broadband, and i think as congress advances on a infrastructure package that we mustar address this critical need for our communities. we're not starting from scratch regarding federal support for broadband deployment. in fact, we have current or historic programs at the fcc, usda, and commerce that have supported expansion of broadband, including in rural areas. these can inform how we make future investments, so tdesc

telecom is a significant recipient of funds under the phase two of the fcc's fund, specifically through the it's alternative connect america model program and i'm wondering if you can tell us how you believe your company's experience with this program should inform how any new resources are employed with the goal of ensuring the most effective deployment of broadband to areas that are current currently unserved or underserved. >> thank you, senator baldwin. apparently you have a lot of clout because i was made chair of a work group, so it only tripled my work, but that was okay. yeah, i think there's a lot of things that the fcc got right. i think their programs have evolved, and i think the accountability that's built into their programs, and especially the certainty -- i mean, one --

it's difficult, i think, for companies under the old universal service programs where how much money you got depended on a lot of things like how much your neighbors spent on their programs and things went up and down to really make predictable investments. with the acam program and now with some of the improvements that hopefully are coming with the legacy program, it will be easier to have more certainty in terms of how many dollars you have, and with the acam program, the number of locations are specified, and with each extra dollar that goes into there, the number of locations that get higher speed broadband go up so it's a program that is scalable in that sense, that you can feed more money into it and you automatically get more broadband. and at the end of the day, you have to report to usac how many locations you served, including the exact location within feet of where those locations are. so, usac is collecting that data

and they will then know going forward what is served. so, the program, it did utilize the 477 data in order to make sure that we weren't building duplicate networks, and i think that worked in the context of that program. people have pointed out issues with the maps, but i think at least that was a good starting point. so i think those are the types of features, i think, that are critical that any programs, if money goes to rus or to ntia, in terms of -- and in addition having specified dollars sent out for infrastructure. specifically. >> thank you. last year, i had the opportunity to meet with a variety of community stakeholders in different regions of the state of wisconsin, washburn county, green county, and eagle river, the community in wisconsin which is in the far northern part of my home state.

one thing i heard from participants in this particular round table was their frustration that the local and state planning efforts like the one they undertook in eagle river, which help identify the unique needs of an area, and how best to address them, aren't necessarily taken into account when distributing federal supports for broadband deployment. so mayor, do you agree that there should be more engagement with local and state planning processes, and if so, what steps can congress take to ensure local communities are a part of the broadband deployment process? >> well, thank you, senator. and thank you for your support of so many members of my community. it's tremendously important that local governments and counties, cities have a seat at the table. i appreciate being invited here to be part of this panel, but so often in this discussion, we are not. and you know, look at, for example, in -- and no offense to my colleague at the table who's part of the bdac and we appreciate his work on that but it's the ratio of industry

members to local government members is 10 to 1. they drafted a model, code for states without the input of any single local official. so, we do not feel right now that the fcc is serious about engaging in dialogue with local governments, and we think that's going to result in bad broadband policy, frankly. so any efforts that you can make to try and ensure that local governments have more of a voice and a seat at the table, we would appreciate. also, you cannot forget, you know, we've heard throughout the hearing today about the frustration of getting affordable broadband available in every area. rural areas, inner city areas, et cetera, and the federal programs apparently are not providing enough incentive to make the business case for the private investment that the industry is looking for, but municipal broadband does have a way of solving the needs of their communities. local governments are very good, being creative, coming up with ways of solving the needs of

their communities. mayors like to get things done, and if a problem exists and available broadband for my community we're going to get it done, if we have to build a municipal network to do it, we're going to try to undertake efforts to do it so when you're talking about ways to engage local governments and make sure that the needs of our communities are met, we should not forget about the possibility of municipal broadband systems. too often, we are preempted from doing so. especially at the state level. there was an example of, i think, wilson, north carolina, where they actually passed a referendum, the taxpayers supported building a municipal network, it was built, it was operating, it was running great service and because of state law, they had to discontinue using it. so there are plenty of examples like that where municipalities and counties want to take the effort and spend their residents' funds on these networks and state assembly does not allow them. so if there's something that you could do with respect to that, we would appreciate it.

>> thank you, senator build nguy -- baldwin, and thank you to the members of the panel and the members of the subcommittee. i will tell you that almost one fifth of the united states senate attended this hearing today, so i think that tells us of the interest we have in this subject. now, according to our procedures, the hearing record will remain open for two weeks. during this time, senators are asked to submit any questions for the record. upon receipt, the witnesses with requested to submit their written answers to the committee as soon as possible. so, we invite your cooperation there. again, thank you for a very excellent testimony and for

valuable information provided to the members. this hearing is now adjourned. this weekend, the debut of our series, 19 68, america in turmoil. we'll look back 50 years to that period marked with war, political assassinations, and the space race, women's rights,

racial strife, a fractious presidential election and the rise of the political left and right. this sunday, the vietnam war from major military, political and diplomatic developments through the undoing of lyndon b. johnson's presidency. with guests vietnam veteran and former virginia senator jim webb, author of the vietnam war novel "fields of fire" and the memoir, "i heard my country calling." and pulitzer prize winning author david. 1968, america in turmoil, live sunday at 8:30 a.m. eastern on c-span's washington journal and on american history tv on c-span3. this weekend, c-span cities tour takes you to winston-salem, north