STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER BRENDAN CARR APPROVING IN PART AND CONCURRING IN PART Re: Communications Marketplace Report, GN Docket No. 20-60. The 2020 Communications Marketplace Report contains more good news for American consumers. Prices for high-speed Internet services are down, competition for Internet services is up, and with providers building new broadband infrastructure at an accelerated pace the digital divide continues to close. In short, the policies we ve put in place over the past few years are working. The Report also confirms that providers from previously distinct industries are continuing to converge and compete like never before. A new generation of low-earth orbit satellites are competing to offer high-speed home Internet services. Wireless providers are increasingly offering fixed high-speed services in competition with cable. Cable is competing to build fixed and mobile platforms that offer next-gen Internet and video services. And broadcasters are starting to leverage the potential of ATSC 3.0 and Broadcast Internet technologies to deliver 25 Mbps services directly to consumers. This is not like any competition we ve seen before. And it s also why I concur in part in today s Report. I would go even further than the Report does in recognizing the converged market for connectivity that now exists. The Commission s decades-old approach of viewing different technologies including mobile, fixed, satellite, and broadcast offerings as competing in distinct and separate markets no longer matches the way that Americans consume these services. As I ve emphasized before, the FCC s market definitions often look backwards to where the sector has been, rather than where it is going.1 This approach makes the FCC s job of assessing the state of competition more difficult and fails to reflect the way that consumers are using high-speed connections today and, certainly, tomorrow. Therefore, as we prepare these Reports and analyze competition in our rulemaking and adjudicatory proceedings, I believe we should do so even more mindful of the converged market for connectivity in which providers now compete. 1 Keynote Remarks of FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr at the Phoenix Center s 19th Annual U.S. Telecoms Symposium: Keeping Pace with Dynamic Industries (Dec. 3, 2019), https://go.usa.gov/xAkTD.