REMARKS OF
FCC ACTING CHAIRMAN MICHAEL J. COPPS
PIKE & FISCHER’S BROADBAND POLICY SUMMIT V
WASHINGTON, DC
JUNE 18, 2009
Thank you for having me here today. Let me say how much I welcome the 
opportunity to speak about something—anything!—other than the DTV Transition.  
These have not been the most relaxing two weeks of my tenure at the FCC.
These summits are taking on a life of their own and I’m honored to be invited 
back this year.  I thought we had a really good session last June and this year’s, I 
understand, is already contributing noticeably to our national broadband dialogue.  I’m 
told Chairman Boucher kicked off the day with what we always expect and always get 
from him—insightful and informative thoughts on public policy that demonstrate a 
mastery of the many public policy issues confronting America at this critical hour.  I feel 
really good about our communications chairs in Congress—not only Rick, but Henry 
Waxman, Jay Rockefeller and John Kerry.  I couldn’t put together a list of four better 
leaders to head up the people’s communications business on Capitol Hill.
What a difference a year makes since we were last together.  A year ago it was 
high hopes on my part that change was coming to Washington.  And I shared with you 
my enthusiasm at the prospect of a new administration that would bring with it, finally, a 
deep and abiding commitment to building broadband infrastructure all across America.  I 
was looking for leadership premised on an understanding that so many of the problems 
we confronted wouldn’t be resolved—couldn’t be resolved—without that infrastructure.  
I believed then, and I believe now, that just as the late Twentieth century was about new 
frontiers from micro chips to outer space, the Twenty-first century would be about even 
more stunning technology innovation and accomplishment.  As I’ve said before, we 
haven’t seen anything yet, and I expect my grandkids will one day look upon the 
technologies of their youth—which you and I marvel at—as pretty primitive stuff.  
So I wanted to see us get serious about building the infrastructure for growth.  I 
wanted to see us organize and coordinate our government agencies for a full-court press 
for high speed, value-laden broadband.  And I wanted cooperative private-public sector 
partnerships to drive the build-out because they are what can turn visionary policy into 
consumer reality. And I hoped that the one thing I had been screaming from the rooftops 
for seven and a half years would no longer fall on deaf ears—the urgent, pressing, crying 
need to develop a national broadband plan.  Because without the policy, the plan and the 
partnerships, America had no shot—no shot at all—for leadership in the Digital Age.
Well, change came.  Refreshing reform breezes are blowing through the corridors 
of power all over this city.  And a huge part of that change is that we have a real, honest-
to-goodness commitment to broadband.  Not a campaign promise, not a rhetorically-
stated goal, but a genuine commitment to get this transformative technology out to all of 
our people.  
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“All our people” means everyone—no matter who they are, where they live, or 
the particular circumstances of their individual lives.  Rich or poor, farmer or city-
dweller, big business or small, young people or old, fully healthy or experiencing a 
disability—it makes no difference.  You’ve heard me say this before, but it bears 
repeating here in light of the current debate about whether our primary broadband goal 
should be serving unserved or underserved areas first.  I start from the premise that 
America as a country can be considered an underserved area.  Certainly folks in rural 
America who don’t receive broadband at all stand out.  But how about small businesses 
in both rural and urban areas trying to compete on embarrassingly slow-speed broadband 
that is all that’s available in so many places?  How about the little inner city kid trying to 
keep up with her peers on homework and research assignments?  Are we really 
responding to national need when what passes for broadband in too many areas—I’d say 
most—puts our citizens and entrepreneurs at serious disadvantage compared to their 
competitors in London, Paris, Tokyo or Seoul who enjoy broadband speeds at multiples 
of what is available here and at half the cost?   Of course rural is a priority.  But so are 
low-income residents in urban areas who don’t have access to affordable broadband 
because providers don’t find it profitable to go there.  
I’ll tell you this: if we get side-tracked into some either-or debate over unserved 
versus underserved—especially one that serves as a proxy for rural versus urban—we 
will not get a national broadband plan that does justice to America’s needs.  We just 
won’t get it.  Every person in this land, if they are to have the doors of economic and 
social opportunity fully open to them, needs to be a part of Twenty-first century 
communications.  And our communications statutes are still premised, I do believe, on 
reasonably comparable services for all at reasonably comparable prices.
Now that we have the commitment to broadband, we must make sure everyone in 
the country understands the stakes.  We’re not putting all this emphasis on broadband for 
the sake of broadband.  Infrastructure is always about enabling our economy and our 
society.  Just as those roads and bridges and canals and turnpikes I always talk about 
enabled agriculture and commerce in our country’s early days; just as the railroads and 
highways made a great industrial nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific; just as the 
interstate highways conferred mobility on us all, building suburbs and linking our cities 
and states; just as electricity and telephone service lighted our lives and made us all 
neighbors, so too will broadband enable our Twenty-first century lives.  There is no 
solution to energy dependence, environmental degradation, educational shortfalls, job 
losses, health care unavailability for so many, our declining civic dialogue—the list goes 
on—no solution that does not have a critical broadband component to it.
We have wasted precious years—so many that it’s no slam-dunk we will put 
America back at the cutting-edge among increasingly tech-savvy countries that saw 
farther ahead than our own leaders did.  After so many generations when Americans were 
at the forefront—when we marshaled our resources, when we had private-public 
partnerships to build our essential infrastructure, when far-seeing public policy was 
coupled with the engines of the private sector, it shouldn’t have been that difficult.  But 
somehow, when we got to this present great infrastructure challenge—broadband—we 
forgot those lessons in how we built our country.  We comforted ourselves with a strange 
and unhistorical notion that the new market we lived in would, all by itself, get the job 
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done.  The times were new, the living was easy, “don’t worry, be happy, let the good 
times roll!”  Well, by losing sight of how we built the country in the first place, we put 
ourselves at serious disadvantage, and it cost us, big-time.  In the end, we short-changed 
our economy, our kids and ourselves.
But change came.  And I was thrilled by the altogether historic Recovery and 
Reinvestment Act of 2009 that returned us to our roots by doing two important things:  
First, providing $7.2 billion to NTIA and RUS to offer grants and loans to build essential 
infrastructure. Those agencies are working hard on developing the guidelines for a 
program that has the ability to do tremendous good in these difficult economic times.  I 
believe we will see an array of diverse and innovative projects that will address a wide 
gamut of our broadband infrastructure needs.  But we should recognize that this is 
basically a down payment on our country’s broadband potential.  So I was even more 
delighted that Congress charged the FCC with the second piece of the puzzle—the central 
role in turning our new national commitment into a workable national strategy.  Our 
mandate to spearhead a national broadband plan by next February is, I believe, the 
biggest thing to come the Commission’s way since the Telecommunications Act of 1996.  
If we do our job well, it will be even bigger than that.  It will be our most formative—
indeed transformative—proceeding ever.  And, I am happy to report, we’re already hard 
at work on it.  
We kicked off our broadband proceeding on April 8 with a comprehensive Notice 
of Inquiry.  I am pleased to report that many stakeholders from around the country took 
notice of our proceeding and filed comments with us last week.  We received over 500 
sets of comments totaling over 8,000 pages, so as you can imagine we’ve got a team of 
people at the Commission going through them with great care.  And now that the DTV 
transition commands at least a little less of my time, I’m finding the chance to dive in, 
too. We heard, as you can imagine, from many of the industries that daily ply the portals 
of the FCC, but we also heard from numerous other stakeholders, including academic 
experts, consumer groups, education, healthcare and public safety experts, engineering 
and Internet standards groups, state and municipal organizations, foreign governments 
with broadband experiences to share and community and civil liberties organizations, to 
name but a few.  
While we have received hundreds of comments to the NOI already, more will 
surely follow when reply comments come due on July 7th.  It’s like a huge, wide funnel of 
data and analysis pouring into the Commission.  Then the question is: what comes out the 
other end of that funnel?  Our challenge is to make sure a focused, practical, achievable 
broadband plan comes out—instead of trying to resolve every contentious issue that has 
fueled so many years of seemingly-endless debates over telecommunications—debates 
that have too often deflected us from progress we should have been making, too 
frequently deflected us from the real issues of broadband because we spent so much time 
parsing arcane language rather than confronting real-world challenges.  But now we will 
go in quest of practical plans that can be deployed in time to respond to the economic and 
many other challenges facing us.  Of course contentious issues will have to be tackled; 
but I can tell you this—if we get bogged down trying to resolve every telecom issue out 
there, we won’t get the focused, realizable national broadband plan we so desperately 
need.
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The Commission’s efforts of course must be about much more than just seeking 
and reviewing comments.  The NOI starts us off on the right track, but it’s only a 
beginning and there is much, much more to do.  My starting point is, and has always 
been, that we must foster wider civic participation in the Commission’s proceedings to 
ensure that what we do at the FCC works first and foremost for citizens and consumers.  
We weren’t designed as a special interest Commission.  When I came to the FCC, I saw 
first-hand the effort to force through rules to increase media consolidation, to the great 
detriment of localism, competition and diversity of voices. It was designed as an inside-
the-beltway proceeding—nothing new or original there, I suppose—but it turned out that 
a lot of people who were excluded were intent on being included, and we had to find 
ways to make that happen.  It was in large part the input from what I call non-traditional 
stakeholders, from people raising questions with their elected officials, from citizens 
going to town hall meetings and from every-day folks spreading the word over the 
Internet that put the brakes on the inside job.
We need to find a way to make sure that citizens are priority number one in the 
context of the national broadband plan.  This is a different proceeding than media 
ownership, to be sure, and new ideas and formats and venues will be needed.  But I want 
to tell you, and to assure citizens across the land, that this broadband proceeding is not 
going to be business-as-usual.  It is not going to be an inside job.  It is going to be open 
and public and backed by sufficient resources at the FCC for wide citizen participation, 
communications and outreach.  We need to do this across the whole wide gamut of issues 
over which the Commission has jurisdiction—but broadband is going to be the place 
where we start.  I’m not just talking about more of the same old, same old that we have 
occasionally tried in the past, but something on a whole different level.  We are learning a 
lot as a result of our recent immersion in the Digital Television Transition.  In a way, we 
took this isolated regulatory agency sitting on the banks of the Potomac and turned it into 
a vibrant grassroots organization.  That’s how we spread the word, informed consumers 
about what was coming and what steps they could take to minimize the disruption that 
was bound to occur given the spotted history of the Commission’s and the industry’s 
previous DTV efforts.  There are some lessons from this recent experience that can 
inform our broadband effort.  Data will drive a lot, but let’s remember that data includes 
the experiences of everyday citizens, too.
So I believe that, beginning with the broadband proceeding, we can transform the 
old FCC into a new, more consumer-oriented and consumer-responsive agency.  New 
technologies, techniques and non-traditional outreach can put the focus of this 
Commission where it was supposed to be for these past 75 years. This effort to create a 
more transparent and open FCC must not only be different in degree from what we have 
done before; it must be different in kind. So for my remaining time at the FCC, I am 
going to be working on this, first as regards broadband and then applying it across all our 
issues and items.  I will be having more to say about how we get this process going in the 
days just ahead.
On a related outreach note, I am pleased that we are announcing today our Eighth 
Indian Telecommunications Initiative Workshop in Rapid City and Pine Ridge, South 
Dakota, from July 27th through the 29th.  This event is part of the Consumer and 
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Government Affairs Bureau’s ongoing work with Indian Country, but this year’s sessions 
will focus laser-like on broadband needs and it will build off the reality that Native 
Americans are in dire need of better policy and more help if they are going to be 
participants in Twenty-first century communications. I am looking forward to 
participating in the Workshop and to getting out in Indian Country to better understand 
the realities upon which we need to build.
As I hope you can sense, we have started the broadband train down the track.  In 
addition to the NOI, the Commission is moving smartly ahead on data collection, 
consumer surveys, and the international comparisons mandated by the Recovery Act.  
Our July 2nd agenda meeting will provide you with many more details about all of this.    
My pledge is to do everything I can—while I am Acting Chair and then working closely 
with our new Chairman when he is confirmed—to make this process open, inclusive, out-
reaching, data-driven and something we can all be proud of.  You got a sense of 
Chairman-designate Julius Genachowski’s dedication to making broadband happen at his 
confirmation hearing on Tuesday.  I have no doubt that we share the same goals here. 
When I was named Acting Chair in January, I said that I wanted to re-energize the 
agency, get it working on broadband, and be in a position to hand it off to the next 
Chairman better than I received it, chugging along in the right direction. I believe the 
train is on the tracks, it is headed in the right direction and it’s moving forward at a pretty 
good clip.
Let me touch on two other telecom issues recently in the news.  First, and this 
brings up some not-so-good news, the FCC announced Friday next quarter’s Universal 
Service Fund contribution factor—an all-time high of 12.9%. Definitely not great news 
for the Universal Service Program, the industry, or consumers. We all know there are 
some solid reasons for such a high number—the state of the economy has consumers and 
businesses reconsidering expenses and cutting telephone lines and services in an effort to 
cut costs. That leads to lower revenues from which to receive contributions. And on the 
demand side we’re seeing more consumers turning to our Lifeline programs that 
subsidize service for low-income consumers.  With a decrease in contributions and an 
increase in demand comes an increase in the contribution factor.  One thing the 
Commission can do is redouble its efforts to make sure that contributors to the fund are 
paying in what they are supposed to.  I’ve asked our Enforcement Bureau to look at their 
current efforts and identify where we can be doing more.
While I hope the rise in the contribution factor is just a blip that will come down 
as the economy recovers, the reality is that we need comprehensive, holistic reform of 
Universal Service. Not just because the costs to consumers of not fixing it are increasing, 
but because it is time to bring this program into the Twenty-first century. What we have 
is a Universal Service Fund intended for the Twentieth century goal to assure that all 
Americans have voice service. I’m not suggesting abandoning voice, but Universal 
Service just has to evolve to address the communications needs of the Twenty-first 
century—and that means broadband. We must transition the current system to support 
broadband in those areas where consumers and providers are challenged by economics, 
geography, demographics and technology. That is no small task to add to our greater task 
of devising a national broadband plan. It’s going to be a steep climb and we will need to 
put everything under the microscope, from who receives Universal Service funding, how 
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and why, to who contributes to the fund, and to ensure that it is cost-effective. The 
present system, which by-and-large achieved its purpose of getting plain old telephone 
service (POTS) out to so many Americans who otherwise would not have been served, 
has to change.  The POTS were fine, but now we need the PANS, too—the Pretty 
Awesome New Stuff.  The present system cannot and should not endure as it is.  
Congress and the Commission each have roles to perform here, and the tools we are 
developing and the data we are collecting to inform us on the national broadband plan 
can also enable us to consider Universal Service reform based not on anecdote or easy 
generalization but on cold, hard facts.
The second “other telecom issue” I want to touch upon, and which is much in the 
news recently, is exclusive arrangements between wireless carriers and handset
manufacturers. In the fast-changing wireless handset market, too, we must ensure that 
consumers are able to reap the benefits that a robust and innovative competitive 
marketplace can bestow.  I appreciate the concerns that have been expressed on Capitol 
Hill and elsewhere, and I agree that we should open a proceeding to closely examine 
wireless handset exclusivity arrangements that have reportedly become more prevalent in 
recent years, and I have instructed the Bureau to begin crafting such an item.  The 
Commission as the expert agency should determine whether some of these arrangements 
adversely restrict consumer choice or harm the development of innovative devices, and it 
should take appropriate action if it finds harm. 
We should always be concerned about potential gatekeeper control. That is why, 
from the very beginning, I have supported an open Internet, Internet freedom, network 
neutrality, or whatever you want to call what it is that we need to keep the Internet 
dynamic and transformative for consumers, innovation and competition.  It is also why I 
believe the Commission should adopt a fifth principle of non-discrimination in addition 
to the four principles that we got the FCC to adopt.
For the last year or so I haven’t gone anywhere without mentioning the DTV 
transition.  This isn’t the occasion to look back on how the transition went because as 
I’ve said several times, the transition did not end on June 12.  It is a continuing process.  
In any transition this big, there is going to be disruption and a period of adjustment.  We 
are in the midst of that now, trying to help the consumers and stations who haven’t quite 
made it yet.  But I feel very proud of what we were able to accomplish in the past five 
months in terms of reducing the level of disruption.  And the thing I’m most proud of is 
something relevant to our discussion today—the crucial importance of public-private 
partnerships.  At last, we had the public and private sectors pulling together on DTV in a 
coordinated, purposeful way.  And it made a huge difference.  But don’t believe me.  
Here’s what my friend and long-time broadcast journalist Harry Jessell had to say:  “I 
count myself among the skeptics who believe the government can never get anything 
quite right and that its attempts to work with industry are more likely than not to go awry.  
But not today.”  If we can do it on DTV, we can do it on broadband.  Harry might not be 
with me on the broadband part, but I think there are some lessons to be learned and 
applied here if we’re going to get it right.
Finally, I hope you all have noticed some sense of renewed energy, outreach and 
communication with the 1800-some wonderful public servants with whom I get to work 
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every day at the FCC.  That’s another group we haven’t listened to enough.  As Chairman 
for the past five months, I am even more in awe of these good folks than I was in my 
once (and future) days as Commissioner. We had not in recent years enabled them to do 
what they are capable of doing.  I’ve been trying to change that.  Not by some vast and 
chaos-inducing reorganization of the Commission, but by changing the tone, opening up 
frayed lines of communication, making sure everyone feels encouraged to step forward 
and tell us what they’re doing and thinking, and making sure everybody is talking to 
everybody else in a cross-cutting manner befitting the cross-cutting nature of the issues 
we are addressing. 
Taking stock of all the issues I’ve talked about today, I remain an optimist.  I’m 
an optimist because we have such vast resources in this country—in both the private and 
public sectors—to draw upon.  I’m an optimist because I believe communications will be 
a central driver of Twenty-first century progress and prosperity.  I’m an optimist about 
the new Commission taking shape, an FCC willing and enabled under our hopefully 
soon-to-be-confirmed Chair, Julius Genachowski.  I’m an optimist because our country is 
getting back on the right road—the road of partnering and innovation and stepping-up-to-
the-plate to tackle problems that went unaddressed too long.   
This country works best when it works together.  That’s how it’s always been.  It 
is time to dust off the partnering and creativity that have always brought America through 
and put it to work one more time.  Can we make it happen?  As someone once said, “Yes, 
we can.”  
Thank you very much.