STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER JESSICA ROSENWORCEL
BEFORE THE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ENERGY AND COMMERCE COMMITTEE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY
“OVERSIGHT OF THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION”
MARCH 22, 2016
            Good morning, Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Eshoo, and members of the 
Subcommittee.  Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today along with my 
colleagues at the Federal Communications Commission.
            Last week I had the privilege of speaking in Austin, Texas at South by Southwest.  It’s a 
festival for the connected, a place to get a glimpse of the future.  From virtual reality to robotics, 
it’s a terrific place to see where technology is taking us. 
Last week I also spent time in California in a rural farming community in the Coachella 
Valley.  It’s a place where most roads lead to fields but where broadband has not made its way to 
most households.
            I can say with confidence I am probably the only person who spent time in both 
communities last week—and saw that they had something in common.  As dissimilar as they 
seem, they both know that the future lies in connectivity.  They both know that access to modern 
communications is no longer a luxury—it is where we create; it is where we innovate; it is a 
necessity for full participation in civic and commercial life.
            Expanding this access is front and center in our work at the FCC.  This month we will 
begin the spectrum incentive auction, which will remake both broadcasting and broadband in the 
600 MHz band.  We are also updating our universal service policies to support stand-alone 
broadband in rural communities.  At the same time, we are developing smarter policies for small 
cell siting.  We are exploring new spectrum frontiers for 5G wireless services, like the 28 GHz 
band.
            But I want to focus on two things we can do right now that will make a difference for the 
most connected and least connected among us:  We can make space for more Wi-Fi and we can 
help bridge the Homework Gap. 
            First up, Wi-Fi.  Everyone here knows the demands on our airwaves are growing.  In 
response, we are developing policies to increase the supply of licensed airwaves for auction.  
This is important.  But the best spectrum policy involves a mix of licensed and unlicensed 
airwaves.  And focus on the former should not come at the expense of the latter. 
            That’s because the 2.4 GHz band where Wi-Fi makes its primary home is getting mighty 
crowded.  The demand for 5 GHz Wi-Fi is also growing.  So before we overwhelm Wi-Fi as we 
know it, we need more efforts to secure more unlicensed spectrum.
2            There are no shortage of reasons why this is a good idea.  Wi-Fi democratizes Internet 
access.  It helps wireless carriers manage their networks through the offloading of traffic.  It 
encourages permissionless innovation—the kind I saw last week all around Austin.  And it is 
responsible for $140 billion in economic activity every year. 
But historically the legislative process has overlooked the value of unlicensed spectrum 
because it gets low marks in the scoring process at the Congressional Budget Office.  Yet this 
accounting misses the mark—because the broader benefits of unlicensed spectrum to the 
economy are so great.  So in any effort to increase the licensed spectrum pipeline, we need to 
explore a cut for unlicensed—call it the Wi-Fi dividend.
Right now at the FCC we have golden opportunity for a Wi-Fi dividend in the upper 
portion of the 5 GHz band.  We have a consensus framework for testing this band for unlicensed 
use while protecting incumbent efforts to use it to promote vehicle safety.  So now we need to 
work with our colleagues at the Department of Transportation and Department of Commerce to 
get this testing underway.   We also have unlicensed opportunities in the guard bands in the 600 
MHz band and millimeter wave spectrum at 64-71 GHz.  We need to seize them. 
            Second, I want to talk about another issue that matters for the future of connectivity—the 
Homework Gap.  Today, roughly seven in ten teachers assign homework that requires access to 
broadband.  But FCC data suggest that as many as one in three households do not subscribe to 
broadband service at any speed—due to lack of affordability and lack of interest. 
            Think about those numbers.  Where they overlap is what I call the Homework Gap.  If 
you are a student in a household without broadband, just getting homework done is hard.  
Applying for a scholarship is challenging.  While some students may have access to a 
smartphone, let me submit to you that a phone is just not how you want to research and type a 
paper, apply for jobs, or further your education. 
            These students enter the job market with a serious handicap.  That’s a job market today 
where half of all jobs require digital skills.  By the end of the decade that number jumps to 77 
percent.  But the loss here is more than individual.  It’s a loss to our collective human capital and 
shared economic future that we need to address.
            That is why the Homework Gap is the cruelest part of our digital divide.  But it is within 
our power to bridge it.  More Wi-Fi will help.  In fact, in Coachella Valley, where I was last 
week, they are using Wi-Fi on school buses—and turning ride time into connected time for 
homework.  But more can be done.  Modernizing the Lifeline program to support online access 
in households with school-aged children is critical.  And I think the sooner we act, the sooner we 
bridge this gap and give more students a fair shot at 21st century success.
            Thank you.  I look forward to answering any questions you might have.