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 STATEMENT  OF  COMMISSIONER  MICHAEL  J.  COPPS 
 Re:  Inquiry  Concerning  the  Deployment  of  Advanced  Telecommunications  Capability  to  All  Americans  in  a  Reasonable  and  Timely  Fashion,  and  Possible  Steps  to 
 Accelerate  Such  Deployment  Pursuant  to  Section  706  of  the  Telecommunications  Act  of  1996 


 I  will  spare  you  another  iteration  of  my  broadband  thoughts  because  most  of  you  have  heard  me  talk  about  how  I  believe  broadband  is  the  central  infrastructure  challenge 
 facing  this  generation.  High  capacity  networks  are  to  the  Twenty-  first  century  what  the  roads  and  canals  and  railroads  were  to  the  Nineteenth  and  highways  and 
 telecommunications  were  to  the  Twentieth.  Our  future  will  be  driven  by  how  quickly  and  how  well  we  build  out  broadband  connectivity  to  all  our  people.  Our  role  here  needs  to 
 be  as  proactive  as  possible  and  I  believe  Section  706  gives  us  wide-  ranging  authority  to  both  study  and  act  on  broadband  deployment. 


 People  all  around  the  country  are  waking  up  to  the  economic  opportunity  that  broadband  availability  provides.  A  few  months  ago,  I  spent  time  in  Cleveland  with  a 
 coalition  devoted  to  reducing  the  digital  opportunity  gap  for  city  residents.  They  are  working  with  schools  and  local  officials  in  a  project  known  as  OneCleveland.  Together 
 they  are  developing  a  backbone  infrastructure  to  enhance  economic  opportunity  and  education  in  city  neighborhoods.  They  know  that  access  to  broadband  is  critical  to  the 
 future  of  their  community  and  the  future  of  the  country  and  they  are  doing  something  about  it. 


 I  am  pleased  that  we  are  beginning  our  next  Section  706  inquiry  today.  I  have  been  advocating  this  for  some  time.  Good  data  is  a  prerequisite  for  good  policy  choices. 
 So  I  hope  our  questions  here  will  generate  the  serious  and  substantive  analysis  that  the  subject  merits. 


 I  have  had  problems—  methodological  and  otherwise—  with  the  approach  the  Commission  took  in  the  past  with  this  inquiry.  I  thought  our  questions  were  not 
 sufficiently  probing  and  our  conclusions  were  not  supported  by  the  facts.  We  all  applaud  the  build  out  of  broadband,  but  being  number  11  in  the  world  doesn’t  indicate  to  me  that 
 our  deployment  is  either  reasonable  or  timely.  Other  countries  are  getting  a  lot  more  capacity  to  a  lot  more  people  at  a  lot  lower  cost  than  we  are.  If  this  isn’t  a  call  to  action,  I 
 don’t  know  what  is. 
 So,  for  starters,  we  need  to  engage  stakeholders  of  all  stripes—  from  community  organizations  like  the  ones  I  met  with  in  Cleveland  to  carriers  large  and  small;  from 
 equipment  manufacturers  to  state  and  local  governments;  from  entrepreneurs  with  innovative  ideas  to  experts  on  the  economics  of  network  development.  We  need  to  dig 
 deep,  beyond  cursory  zip  code  data  and  outdated  200  kilobit  standards  for  advanced  service.  We  have  to  figure  out  who  is  being  left  behind  and  why  and  then  articulate  a 
 plan  to  fill  in  the  deployment  gaps  we  identify.  This  task  is  not  small.  But  I  am 
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 optimistic  that  today’s  inquiry  is  a  first  step  in  what  must  be  a  broad  and  substantial  effort. 
 I  want  to  thank  the  Bureau  for  accommodating  some  of  the  concerns  I  have  expressed  in  the  past  and  for  broadening  and  deepening  the  inquiry.  I  look  forward  to  our 
 putting  the  record  to  good  and  productive  use  to  ensure  that  no  American  is  left  behind  in  the  broadband  revolution. 
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