ntia always seeks input on the departments work on emerging technologies. commerce is led the government to new andes emerging technologies but the leadership requires continued engagement for american industry and from all of you. in order to ensure american entrepreneurs are able to take risks at the global market for digital products and services we need to make sure we are charting the right path. on such issues as artificial intelligence, blockchain and 5gg we are lookingnd for industry to help us makee the right choices as a government. as i notice i've is good is a key priority for the department of commerce and the administration. as many of you know last may the president issued an executive order strengthening the cybersecurity federal networks and criticale infrastructure. among other items action against botnets -- botnets and other threats. botnet attacks can be extremely damaging at and the put the brr internet at risk as well as its users. commerce and homeland security west i website about actions that could be taken by stakeholders recogniz

we want ntia and others help us figure that out. when the taxpayer or ratepayer money is invested is not invested to overbuild. it's to reach out to the 29 million americans, 23 million, 39% rural areas that don't have access to d high-sped broadband. the $7 billion you have to remember in the market they are spending close to $80 billion a year on broadbandnd deployment, 1.6 trillion between 1996 i think it is and 2006. but anyway, the big investment is done in the private sector. there is public money that is spent. our job is to make sure public money is spent appropriately and helps close this digital divide. you want to talk about rural. my district which stretched from the atlantic to ohio. 69,341 square miles. i've got places in my district where there's one person for every nine miles, powerline. we live live this gap every day. we are trying to close it. there are multiple ways to close it but one of the best ways is to make sure that we can expedite the closure through reform siding, targeting the financial resources ratep

right now, ntia has two priorities. the preservation of the who is service, one of the pressing issues related to icahn the last several months. if you don't know much about the service, it's a valuable actual for governments, businesses, intellectual property rights holders and internet users around the world. put simply, who is it the serviceprovides easily accessible information about entities that purchase and manage domain names. this information is often the starting point for law enforcement agencies when investigating malicious on-line activity and for private sector and government actors seeking to protect critical systems from dangerous cyber attacks, which are becoming more frequent all the time. bot nets, we know those rely on who is to do their work effectively. who is, valuable is information for safe have i internet consumers making sure the website they're using is legitimate. it's a simple service, but it's the cornerstone of trust and accountability on the internet. those of you who participate in ican

every confidence that, you know, some of the other important elements of the government, the fcc, the ntia , would have weighed in in the proper time and matter. this is a leaked document, apparently, according to news reports. it should also trouble us, friendly, the other part of me, the national security council can't keep track of its own power point? [laughter] mr. walden: just saying. that's probably all i should say on that topic. my staff says i'm out of time, gotta go. mr. mcdowell: so i think originally before this news sort of broke with the state of the union coming up, as we always have state of the net around the time of the state of the union, and infrastructure being a hot topic for 2018, historically infrastructure initiatives have been very bipartisan. when i say that thinking about spectrum in particular, but it could be a number of different things involving the internet, broadband in particular. and what would you like to see happen this year? mr. walden: well, i'd like to continue to build on our successes from the past. as you know, back to 2012, we were able to free

when updating the broadband map, should ntia use form 477 data, and is that data detailed enough, and if not, how would you recommend obtaining more granular data? >> i think you make an excellent point and i think 477 is the best data so far that really is collected from all broadband providers which is going to be important so you make sure that everybody that is in the pool is submitting data. the problem is it's still self-reporting so you're still going to have to make sure that there's some way to check to make sure that there's verification and what people report is actually true, other than driving through your district and actually doing it anecdotally. i think having it spread across different entities is going to lead to confusion and not get the results that you're looking for. >> thank you very much. i have a lot more questions, but madam chair, my time is expired and i yield back. >> ms. clark, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you very much, madam chair and i thank our expert panelists for their testimony here this morning. this congress, i've had the honor o