“WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS”
Remarks of Gigi B. Sohn
Counselor to the Chairman
Before the NATOA Annual Conference
September 9, 2015
San Diego, California
Life is good. I’m in San Diego. My New York Mets are in first place in September. And my 
New York Jets are still undefeated … although that’s largely because they haven’t played
yet. 
Best of all, I’m with NATOA. 
NATOA is my kind of organization. You’re committed to enhancing Americans’ lives by 
improving our communications networks. And you do the hard work at the grass roots-
level to drive meaningful change. 
During my two-plus decades as a public interest advocate in the communications sector, 
I always saw NATOA as an important voice, and, on many issues, an important ally.
But my nearly two years as a public servant at the FCC have given me an even deeper 
appreciation for NATOA. For most of my professional life, my role was to serve as an 
outside advocate – to prod change and to shape policies, but ultimately it was up to 
others to deliver the results. At the FCC, my role has been reversed. Everyone is now 
telling my team what to do, and we are the ones responsible for implementing policies. 
NATOA basically serves both roles. As an organization, you advocate for policies that 
serve the communications interests and needs of local governments. As individuals, you 
are the people on the front lines, developing and implementing policies to make sure 
your constituents can access world-class communications.   
Simply put, your members are pioneers.  You have taken the initiative to bring fiber to 
your schools and libraries.  You help make sure that there is quality public, educational 
and governmental programming available in your communities. You help to ensure that 
people can reach 911 when they need it.   And increasingly you are actually planning 
and deploying community broadband networks.
For all of your efforts, I want to say, “Thank you.” Thank you, for all that you do for your 
communities and for our nation. 
But you didn’t invite me out here to tell you how great NATOA is – although I assume 
you don’t mind that. I’m here to talk about what the future holds for local governments.
2So let me share a few thoughts.
Without question, the landscape is changing for local governments, but in a good way.
Most significantly, the future is not in cable, but in broadband. Even the cable operators 
acknowledge this. This is good for your citizens – the broadband future has more 
freedom, openness and choice.   Broadband facilitates education, healthcare and 
economic empowerment.  And importantly for all of you, broadband facilitates good 
government and civic participation.  
Rather than wait for incumbent ISPs to build the network your cities want and need, you 
can take control of your own broadband futures.
Rather than thinking of yourselves as taxers and regulators, which has been the 
traditional role, you can think of yourselves as facilitators of the kind of services you’ve 
been begging the incumbents to provide for years.   
This is incredibly exciting, and I’m sure somewhat frightening.  But the new model for 
local governments looks to benefit their citizens through externalities, not direct 
revenues. 
You see this future in cities like Sandy, Oregon, which has about 10,000 residents. 
Without any support from taxpayer dollars, the SandyNet community broadband 
network is putting the finishing touches on a citywide upgrade to fiber, which makes 
broadband available to residents starting at $40 a month. Thanks to smart planning, the 
city manages SandyNet with a staff of only five people. 
You see this future in Westminster Maryland, a historic city about 30 miles west of 
Baltimore.   The city just launched a gigabit network that is the result of a public private 
partnership with a company called Ting.  The city finances, owns and maintains the fiber 
infrastructure, while Ting leases the fiber from the city and provides all the equipment 
and services necessary to light the fiber.   Thus, the partnership reduces the financial 
risk to the city and citizens of Westminster because the burdens and benefits of the 
network are shared. This incentivizes everyone to work towards the network’s success. 
We are making changes of our own at the FCC to reflect the shifting broadband 
landscape and make sure that we seize the new opportunities and mitigate the 
challenges. For example, we pre-empted restrictions on community broadband in 
response to petitions from community broadband providers in Tennessee and North 
Carolina.   Our Connect America Fund just committed to pay $1.5 billion annually over 
the next 6 years to ensure that rural America gets connected.   And we are in the middle 
3of a proceeding to modernize our Lifeline program so that ALL Americans can get access 
to broadband.
We at the Commission want to work with NATOA to remove barriers to broadband 
deployment, spur competition and ensure access for all. We consider you to be a vital 
partner in achieving these goals. With that, I look forward to answering your questions.