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Remarks of Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate
FCC-NARUC Joint Conference on Advanced Services
Broadband Summit:  Connecting America
San Diego, California
November 6, 2008
Introduction
Good Morning.  This is an historic meeting of the Joint Conference on Advanced 
Services, and I appreciate having the opportunity to co-locate our meeting with the 
Wireless Communications Association’s annual Symposium and thank Mr. Fred 
Campbell, their CEO. Certainly, I would like to commend Chairman Martin for his 
leadership, and my State Colleagues: Commissioners Landis, Johnson, Baum, Tanner, 
and Chong.  I must take a moment to express my deep gratitude to Commissioner 
Chong first for her skilled coordination and sheer persistence in creating this 
opportunity.  I believe that our work can have a positive and lasting impact on the 
future of broadband deployment across this nation. Finally, thank you to our esteemed 
panelists, from all across the country, who will share their experiences with public-
private partnerships that have linked many towns and communities through business 
case scenarios and consensus building.  Broadband is indeed the economic 
development tool to insure sustainable growth through green technologies, decrease 
unemployment through new job creation, and provide educational tools for the jobs of 
tomorrow.  
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It has been my honor to serve first as a state member and now as the Federal 
Chair of the 706 Joint Conference, and I look forward to working with all of you to 
fulfill our mission –ensuring that advanced services are deployed as rapidly as possible 
to all Americans, and to serve as a forum for an ongoing dialogue among the 
Commission, state regulators, and local and regional entities regarding the deployment 
of advanced telecommunications capabilities.  As the former Chairman of the 
Tennessee Regulatory Authority, I understand that the states are important partners in 
the deployment of advanced services. Working together, our combined expertise can 
ensure that we will fulfill our mission of deploying broadband access to all corners of 
our nation.
The importance of our mission
Why is our mission – as the 706 Board and here today – so important?  The 
economic effects from broadband connectivity are exponential in impact; raising 
productivity of our workforce at the office, on the road, and even when telecommuting 
from home.  Just the salient economic effects are enough to get our attention.  Wireless 
providers have already invested $15 million dollars in wireless broadband, and a recent 
study by Connected Nation estimated that increased availability of broadband across 
the U.S. would have a positive economic impact of $134 billion.  However, we have a 
grander focus than merely positive revenue.  Broadband is vital to this nation’s 
information revolution, just as steel was vital to our industrial revolution in creating 
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important infrastructure for our cities and towns, like interstate highways and industrial 
parks – which brought jobs, people, and investment.  Broadband connections are the 
backbone of America’s 21st Century economy and will play a crucial role in assuring 
that our citizens compete on a global scale—no matter where they live.
With broadband, the click of a mouse allows an adult to attend class at a 
university across the nation while still holding a job across town.  Broadband is 
increasing civic participation allowing a mulitiplicity of voices on national campaigns 
as well as participation in local issues.  An entirely new advertising industry has 
developed online, with almost nothing spent on online ads in the 2004 presidential race, 
to over $100 million spent for the 2008 presidential campaign.
Broadband has a dramatic impact and has brought remarkable growth here in 
America—now at 100 million lines—and we will continue to see additional benefits 
from broadband, such as the potential to create a physically healthier nation.
A broadband connection makes the physical distance between a provider of 
medical care and the patient immaterial – allowing rural families and communities 
better access to healthcare through teledentistry, telepsychiatry, and even telesurgery.  I 
have seen firsthand how broadband enables this kind of empowerment for those who 
are the most physically isolated, from Appalachia to Alaska.  I commend Chairman 
Martin for his leadership and effort in launching the Rural Healthcare Pilot Program
and look forward to hearing from one of the funded projects today.  I also implore you 
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to think of broadband not only as a wireline issue, but to think across the spectrum, 
literally and figuratively, about how we can help ensure broadband connectivity to 
Americans.  During the “white spaces” discussions over the past year, I pressed for 
utilizing portions of the spectrum for broadband backhaul to provide both more 
capacity as well as more competition as additional broadband is deployed. It is 
important that we make sure that the next technologies, what ever they may be, can 
access and be accessed by rural Americans.  
The states and their progress
One of the important goals of this meeting is to share the best practices states 
and even localities are undertaking. My home state, Tennessee, was the first to have 
every single school connected to the internet, and we now have fiber to 70% of our 
schools – 80 out of 96 counties.  In addition, 90% of schools are using VoIP 
technology, enabling administrative savings while ensuring that our rural students have 
the same opportunity as urban students.  In addition, Tennessee saw a 37% increase in 
broadband connections in rural areas during the second half of 2007, an increase of 
133,000 broadband connections due to the good work of partnerships formed between 
government and organizations, such as Connected Tennessee, that you will hear more 
about from Mr. Michael Ramage. 
Federal Government
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It is imperative that the Federal Government continue to promote the nationwide 
deployment of broadband, and recognize, encourage, and support state efforts to 
improve the quality and availability of broadband services to their citizens.  One 
important step the Federal government can take is to implement an accurate nationwide 
inventory of broadband deployment.  Senator Inouye spearheaded this bill in the 
Senate, and President Bush recently signed the Broadband Mapping Bill into law on 
October 10, 2008.
This bill empowers the FCC to revise its metrics; creating tiers of broadband 
service instead of the single broad definition that we have used in the past, supporting 
both the mapping and tracking of broadband deployment and adoption in every state.  
This is an exciting step towards universal broadband deployment and is a great 
example of the importance of continued cooperation between Congress, Federal 
government, and the States to achieve our collective goals. 
Conclusion
Ensuring broadband access to all Americans—but especially those in low 
income or rural America – is not only important to our national economy but crucial to 
our global competiveness as well. I am proud of the deregulatory road the FCC has 
forged; serving as a “humble regulator” so that we incent investment and innovation. I 
look forward to our esteemed panelists and their enlightening presentations regarding 
initiatives occurring all across this great country and thank all of you for your 
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participation.  More than ever, a broadband connection to the World Wide Web links 
all of us to unlimited opportunities locally and globally.