REMARKS OF RACHAEL BENDER
AT THE NEW YORK STATE WIRELESS ASSOCIATION
WIRELESS FORUM 2017
NEW YORK, NY
JUNE 22, 2017
Thank you.  It’s great to be in New York.  As some of you may know, the Commission had its 
monthly open meeting today.  We had a robust agenda of seven items and I missed most of it to be here 
with you.  I feel like I skipped school on the day of the test.
Before I begin, let me share a few things about myself that you didn’t get from my bio.  I actually 
grew up in the tristate area.  No, not New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. I’m talking about New 
York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  I grew up in Greenwood Lake, New York and later Milford, 
Pennsylvania.  But I was born in Hackensack, New Jersey and my family on both sides are from across
the river, so I often identify as Jersey.  Not surprisingly, I have deep New York ties.  I’m a Giants, which 
is good.  I’m also a Mets fan, which is . . . eh right now.  My youngest sister is a ballerina-in-training here 
in the City, which means I indirectly pay rent in New York.  I think the clearest sign that I have some 
New York DNA is that every time I eat a bagel or pizza in DC, I find it completely inadequate . . . and I 
usually let everyone know about it.
All kidding aside, thank you to the New York State Wireless Association for inviting me to 
speak.  I appreciate this opportunity to talk about Chairman Pai’s policy agenda.  While I hope that you 
will be able to draw from the strategies we are pursuing at the FCC, I think it’s important to acknowledge 
that New York has been a national leader when it comes to forward-looking broadband policy.
Your ambitious New NY Broadband Project has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to 
deploy thousands of miles of fiber to connect tens of thousands of unserved homes and businesses in 
upstate New York to true high-speed Internet.  Knowing a good investment when we see it, the FCC 
identified New York’s broadband initiative as a great opportunity to leverage the impact of our own 
universal service programs.  As many of you know, Chairman Pai’s first vote as leader of the 
Commission was to partner with the State of New York to deliver $170 million for broadband 
deployment in upstate areas where residents have been bypassed for too long.  So know that you have a 
partner willing to work with you to build on this and many other initiatives.
I thought it would be helpful to frame my remarks by talking up front about Chairman Pai’s high-
level goals and priorities.  From there, I’d like to discuss a number of his key policy initiatives, 
particularly what the Commission is doing to promote wireless investment and innovation.
To get a sense of Chairman Pai’s priorities, it’s helpful to understand two things about Chairman 
Pai the person.  The first is that he was raised in small-town Kansas, not to mention being born in Buffalo, 
New York.  The second is that he is the son of first-generation immigrants, who crossed the ocean to 
come to this country 45 years ago with little more than $10 in their pocket, a transistor radio, and a belief 
in the American Dream. 
What do these two things tells us?  First, as a son of rural America, the Chairman is attuned and 
committed to the needs of communities that are too often overlooked.  Second, as the son of immigrants, 
he is a forward-looking optimist committed to the idea that America is the world’s great beacon of 
opportunity.
These principles come through clearly from both his own words and actions.
In his speech to FCC staff on his first full day as Chairman, he talked about his upbringing and 
declared that he had no higher priority than bringing the benefits of the digital age to all Americans.
2He chose to give his first major policy address as Chairman in Pittsburgh to send a message that 
technological innovation isn’t just the confined to the coasts—not that he doesn’t love innovation on the 
coasts.
And just a couple of weeks ago, he took a 1,672-mile road trip from Wisconsin to Wyoming to 
shine a spotlight on areas of our country that are in danger of being left behind by the digital revolution.
Chairman Pai believes that every American who wants to participate in our digital economy and 
society should be able to do so. And he believes that the most powerful driver of life-enhancing 
technological breakthroughs is a competitive free market that unleashes private-sector ingenuity.  To 
realize the promise of technology, we need to empower risk-takers to bring their visions to life.
This naturally brings me to wireless connectivity.  Any discussion of digital equity or 
technological innovation has to have mobile communications front and center.
Mobile broadband has been critically important for many communities that disproportionately 
find themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide. For example, a new Pew survey reports that two-
thirds of Americans over the age of 65 now use the Internet, a significant increase from the beginning of 
the decade, and a key driver of that change is that the percentage of seniors with smartphones has nearly 
quadrupled over the past five years.
Of course, mobile broadband has also created millions of American jobs and provided a platform 
for a constant stream of new applications and services that improve our quality of life. Mobile has given 
rise to entirely new industries like the collaborative, or, sharing economy.  As has been famously noted 
before, thanks to wireless Internet access, the largest taxi company in the world owns no cars, and the 
world’s most popular media owner creates no content.
Obviously, the big new opportunity for the wireless industry is 5G.  This next generation of 
mobile networks is sometimes described as “wireless fiber.”  It promises exponential improvements in 
speed, capacity, and responsiveness.  Chief among the advances 5G will deliver is that it will turbocharge 
the Internet of Things (IoT).  Almost anything and everything will be connected to the Internet from our 
cars to our clothes—tens of billions of devices generating data to help keep us safer, healthier, and 
happier.  To give you some perspective on the scale of IoT innovation, Cisco projects that it will create $8 
trillion in economic value over the next decade.  That’s trillion with a T.
And the Internet of Things is just the one big 5G opportunity we know about.  We can speculate 
all day about how 5G will open up new possibilities for virtual reality and augmented reality or self-
driving cars, but the really exciting thing is that there will certainly be new innovations that we don’t 
know and have yet to imagine.
The bottom line is that the FCC is committed to seizing these opportunities of wireless 
communications to grow our economy, create new jobs, and raise living standards for the American 
people.  Under Chairman Pai, we will continue working to make sure that the United States has world-
leading wireless networks that are available to all Americans.
So let’s talk specifics.  What exactly is the FCC doing to unleash the benefits of mobile?
Typically, any discussion of the FCC’s mobile agenda starts with spectrum.  But for this group, I 
think it makes sense to break with tradition.
Infrastructure.—Clearly, unleashing spectrum is a central plank of the Commission’s wireless 
agenda, but it is far from the only part.  In fact, I think it’s fair to say that the biggest shift in wireless 
policy under Chairman Pai’s leadership is a much greater emphasis on removing regulatory barriers and 
burdens that raise the cost and slow the speed of network deployment.
When you look at the evolution of wireless networks, this makes sense.
3As we move from 4G to 5G, network architecture will shift from large, macro-cell towers to 
densely deployed small cells, operating at lower power.  And we are going to need a lot of those small 
cells.  As in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, not to mention many more miles of fiber and other 
connections to carry all this traffic.  That’s a lot of siting decisions that will need to be made, and a lot of 
possibilities for delay and increased deployment costs.
Across the board, Chairman Pai has tasked our bureau and office chiefs with reviewing our rules 
to identify regulations that are overly burdensome and in need of revision or outright deletion.  While this 
review is ongoing, we’ve already taken a series of steps to begin the process of removing barriers to 
wireless infrastructure buildout.
In April, the Commission voted to launch an examination of how state, local and Tribal processes 
affect the speed and cost of infrastructure deployment and how to improve state, local and Tribal 
infrastructure reviews, such as zoning requests.  In particular, we are asking whether siting applications 
that are not acted on by state or local governments within a reasonable period of time should be “deemed 
granted” by Commission rules.
This same item also examines FCC rules and procedures for complying with the National Historic 
Preservation Act and National Environmental Policy Act.  Obviously, we don’t want to hastily sacrifice 
our shared heritage or environment for better cell service. But when our historic preservation 
requirements are forcing a company to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for Tribal review for 
attaching to utility poles in a 15-year-old parking lot, some changes are in order. In fact, on the Tribal 
front, the Chairman and FCC staff have been conducting a series of consultations and meetings with 
Tribal leaders in order to help inform our views on how we can move forward to solve some of the issues 
your companies have been experiencing while respecting Tribal interests. We’ve also teed up questions 
on how to deal with long outstanding issue of twilight towers.  Overall, we are taking a close look at the 
costs and benefits of the review processes as currently structured and asking what changes could be made 
to minimize costs and delays.
In parallel, the Commission initiated a separate rulemaking focused on wireline infrastructure.  I 
mention it to you because it explores pole attachment reforms to make it easier for broadband providers to 
attach the wires and wireless attachments necessary for next-generation networks.  For example, it 
proposes a streamlined timeframe for gaining access to utility poles by using elements of municipal “one-
touch, make-ready” rules.  It considers ways to protect pole attachers from being charged multiple times, 
in addition to the establishment of a shot clock for FCC consideration of pole attachment complaints.  It 
also looks at ways to prevent additional excessive charges, such as the creation of a formula to compute 
maximum pole attachment rates. 
In a third proceeding, the Wireless Bureau has collected comments on a petition filed by 
Mobilitie, which seeks guidance on how federal law applies to local government review of wireless 
facility siting applications and local requirements for gaining access to rights of way.  The main issue 
being examined here is how can we prohibit excessive charges for access to public rights of way.
As you can see, the Commission has been focused on these issues, and Chairman Pai is 
committed to moving forward in a thoughtful, helpful way.
Spectrum.—Now, back to the issue I skipped over a few moments ago: spectrum.  As evidenced 
by his five years at the Commission, the Chairman is firmly committed to making available sufficient 
amounts of commercial spectrum to meet consumer demand.  In a nutshell, the Chairman believes we 
need an all-of-the-above approach to spectrum, looking at low-, medium-, and high-band spectrum to 
identify possibilities to put airwaves to more efficient use.
With respect to low-band, we recently wrapped up bidding on our incentive auction, which will 
reallocate 70 MHz of spectrum in the 600 MHz band from television broadcasters to licensed wireless 
providers.  In New York, five wireless companies won 70 licenses, and we have already issued 55 
4licenses to three of these carriers.  Operators already have indicated an intent to quickly deploy, especially 
in rural areas, meaning better service and more consumer choice is on the way for many New Yorkers, 
particularly upstate. 
When Chairman Pai talks about an all-of-the above spectrum strategy, that also includes 
promoting unlicensed spectrum—the platform that gave us WiFi and Bluetooth.  We are pleased that the 
incentive auction is also making available 14 MHz of spectrum for unlicensed use.
Chairman Pai has been particularly aggressive in his advocacy of using high-frequency spectrum 
previously thought to be unsuitable for mobile use.  He helped drive the 2016 rules opening up significant 
swaths of millimeter-wave spectrum for 5G use.  This move has given U.S. operators a clear path to be 
the first in the world to launch next-generation services, but we’re not done yet.  At Chairman Pai’s 
direction, we are considering possibilities for opening up even more spectrum for 5G as soon as possible.
Empowering and Protecting Consumers.—In addition to freeing up spectrum and facilitating 
infrastructure deployment, the Commission also has a role to play in empowering and protecting 
consumers.
In particular, we want to make sure that every American has access to wireless broadband 
connectivity.  Forget about 5G.  Many Americans still lack LTE coverage where they live.  That’s why 
the Commission has adopted rules to move forward with Phase II of our so-called Mobility Fund. We will 
take money that was being used to subsidize wireless carriers in areas where private capital had already 
been spent to build out networks, and redirect that spending and more—$4.53 billion over the next 
decade—in order to bring 4G LTE service to rural Americans who don’t have it today.  And we’re doing 
it in an efficient, fiscally responsible way by using a competitive reverse auction to allocate these funds.
Another key way the Commission looks out for the public interest is by harnessing the power of 
communications technology to promote public safety. The Commission has played a critical role in the 
effort to create a nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband network—an initiative now known as 
FirstNet.  We’ve given FirstNet a license for 20 MHz of broadband spectrum.  We transmitted basic 
technical requirements to FirstNet for the network.  And our spectrum auctions have produced billions of 
dollars that will be used to fund construction of the public safety network.  In fact, the Commission voted 
just a few hours ago on the state opt-out process so we can keep moving on deployment.  And I want to 
make clear that, looking ahead, the Commission will continue to work with FirstNet and do what we can 
to help ensure the success of this project.
* * *
Let me close where I started.  As you may recall from my opening celebration of the “other” 
tristate area and my roots, I lived in Greenwood Lake, New York as a child. My grandfather still lives 
there. Greenwood Lake is about 75 miles from here, but the vibe is understandably very different.  There 
are only about a few thousand residents and the only thing that would make you think of the City is that 
Derek Jeter owns a house there.  And, again, I grew up a Mets fan, so that doesn’t necessarily impress me.
Here’s my point.  New York City is known for being at the cutting edge of innovation.  But New 
York as a state launched an ambitious project to bring digital opportunity to all its citizen no matter where 
they live, because your leadership understands that if the digital economy isn’t working for every New 
Yorker, it isn’t working the way it needs to.
The same is true of our nation.  America isn’t the land of opportunity for those who live in one 
particular area of our country.  It’s the land of opportunity for all.  Please know that you have a partner in 
Washington committed to bringing the benefits of wireless communications to all our citizens, and on 
behalf of both Chairman Pai and myself, I look forward to working with you all to make that happen.
Thank you.