STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER BRENDAN CARR

Re: 	Partitioning, Disaggregation, and Leasing of Spectrum, WT Docket No. 19-38

A few months ago, I had the chance to meet Whitney from Lambert, Montana.  Her family runs a farming and ranching operation in the northeast corner of Big Sky Country.  The area is famous for being the farthest place in the country from a Starbucks.  It’s about 190 miles to the closest green-aproned barista.  A run to the grocery store is a 100-mile drive round trip.  The nearest big city, Billings, is five and a half hours away.  

Yet Whitney is an Instagram star.  She makes money by using her smartphone to produce and upload what have become viral videos.  She calls one of her more famous videos “CrossFit for Cows,” https://twitter.com/DirtRoadDreamr/status/686318702980141057.
 and it’s been viewed millions of times.  It shows Ghost, one of her 1,200 pound Herefords, rolling a straw bale across a snow-covered field.  Whitney can get 4G LTE when she’s in the field because there’s a cell tower not far away that was put up to cover a highway that runs through the area.  But there are still too many people in rural America that can’t get a 4G LTE signal.

And that is why the FCC is working on a number of fronts to help close this digital divide.  We have allocated up to $4.5 billion to bring 4G LTE to more Americans.  We have streamlined broadband infrastructure rules.  And we have sought comment on expanding the FCC’s existing geographic coverage requirements. Amendment of Parts 1, 22, 24, 27, 74, 80, 90, 95, and 101 To Establish Uniform License Renewal et al., Second Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 32 FCC Rcd 8874, 8911-18, paras. 100-23 (2017) (seeking comment on extended, renewal term service obligations).


Today, we tee up another option for increasing wireless service in rural America.  As required by Congress in the MOBILE NOW Act, we seek comment on how our spectrum leasing and related rules can help promote wireless deployment in areas that might otherwise go unserved.

Now, everyone may not have the same social media skills as Whitney, but they should at least have the same opportunity at next-gen connectivity.  So I support today’s Notice, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on these important issues.