STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER JESSICA ROSENWORCEL
Re: Ensuring Customer Premises Equipment Backup Power for Continuity of Communications, PS 
Docket No, 14-174, Technology Transitions, GN Docket No. 13-5, Policies and Rules Governing 
Retirement Of Copper Loops by Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers, RM-11358, Special Access 
for Price Cap Local Exchange Carriers, WC Docket No. 05-25, AT&T Corporation Petition for 
Rulemaking to Reform Regulation of Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier Rates for Interstate 
Special Access Services, RM-10593.
Our world is changing.  The digitization of our networks, our content, our commerce, and our 
lives is well underway.  The ways we connect, create, educate, entertain, and govern ourselves will never 
be the same.  
This is exciting.  But on the way to this future we are going to need new communications 
architecture and new communications policies.  That does not mean that we discard on the scrap heap 
what has come before.  After all, the enduring values in our law that have shaped our success in the past 
can also shape our success going forward.  So as we contemplate big, bold, and historic changes in our 
infrastructure, our work must be informed by the four basic values that have always been at the core of 
communications policy—public safety, universal access, competition, and consumer protection.  They 
must be the guideposts for everything we do.  
These values inform our work today.  So I am pleased to support the Notice of Proposed 
Rulemaking and Declaratory Ruling before us and commend the focus in the text on the essential values 
of public safety, competition, and consumer protection.  
First, public safety.  Technology evolves but our need to stay connected to emergency services 
does not.  As consumers migrate away from traditional copper telephony to newer technologies, we seek 
comment on how to sustain backup power during outages and emergencies.  This is important.  
Second, competition.  The competitive markets that have spurred so much technological 
innovation in the past will be the most effective means of making sure consumers reap the benefits of 
network transition in the future.  So today we seek comment on copper retirement practices and service 
discontinuance rules.  I hope the record that develops helps us understand how we can continue to foster 
competition as infrastructure is upgraded.  
Last but not least, consumer protection.  Consumers need to understand what is happening as old 
copper networks are retired and new services come on the market.  So I am pleased we seek comment on 
how to provide notice to consumers when infrastructure is retired and how to do a better job with 
consumer education.  
In short, we ask a lot of questions.  We explore a lot of complicated issues.  This is the right thing 
to do—because big change is underway.  So I look forward to working with my colleagues on these 
issues and look forward to making sure our new networks yield new possibilities and new opportunities 
for everyone.