STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER JESSICA ROSENWORCEL APPROVING IN PART, DISSENTING IN PART Re: Accelerating Wireline Broadband Deployment by Removing Barriers to Infrastructure Investment, WC Docket No. 17-84. Our networks are changing. Carriers are providing new services and faster speeds. Consumers are enjoying new ways to connect and communicate. It’s important that we embrace this change because it’s about more than technology, it’s about using communications to expand opportunity for everyone across this country, no matter who they are or where they live. That might be a lofty sentiment—but I think it’s what this agency needs to do. Moreover, it reflects our sacred duty under the law. Unfortunately, I believe the bulk of this decision falls short of this statutory mark. Let me explain why. When a carrier wants to make big changes to its network, this agency had policies in place to ensure no consumers were cut off from communications. In other words, leave no consumer behind. We had rules that required carriers to educate their customers about network alterations and simply answer calls about how their service might be changed when old facilities were swapped out for new. Today the FCC guts these basic consumer protection policies. It tosses them out. It says we don’t need them. So what does that mean? Imagine a grandmother living in a rural community. Her service provider wants to make big network changes because the cost of serving that remote area with traditional network technology now exceeds the revenue. That makes sense for the carrier. But for our grandmother, she just wants to know that her phone, her health monitor, and her alarm system—all of which rely on her current network—continue to work. She wants a heads up. She wants to be able to navigate change and understand what will require a new contract. She wants information about what will involve a new service and at what cost. But today the FCC says she doesn’t need her carrier to provide her with this information. That’s because she can check the FCC’s Daily Digest and figure it out for herself. Who are we kidding? This is mean. It’s not just mean to my fictional grandmother, it’s mean to millions of Americans who will find that their carriers can switch out services without advance notice or consumer education, leaving them scrambling to find alternatives, reconfigure their homes and businesses in order to keep connected. It didn’t have to be this way. I dissent. At the risk of being technocratic, I will approve one aspect of today’s decision. I believe this order rightly rejects calls that we entirely forbear from our obligations under section 214(a). This is the correct call. By honoring this section of the statute, we acknowledge that providing service and opportunity to all is fundamental. So this discrete aspect of today’s decision has my support.