Lawrence Strickling

Agencies have made great strides toward meeting the goals set forth in d the Presidential Memorandum on “Expanding Broadband Deployment and Adoption by Addressing Regulatory Barriers and Encouraging Investment and Training” by fulfilling, and even exceeding, the initial commitments outlined in the Broadband Opportunity Council’s report.

To date, agencies have completed more than one-third of the action items and have made great progress on the remaining action items. The Council has fostered increased collaboration among agencies, identified additional opportunities to improve broadband access, and elevated the importance of broadband as a crosscutting policy objective across the federal government. However, agencies recognize that their work is not complete and will require sustained engagement and interagency coordination for many years to come. Going forward, career-level agency staff will finalize the implementation of the action items and collaborate to fulfill the Council’s mission.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) datasets clearly demonstrate these significant gaps in access to broadband infrastructure:

• 10 percent of all Americans (34 million people) lack access to fixed broadband as currently defined by the FCC (25 Mbps downstream/3 mbps upstream).
• 39 percent of rural Americans (23 million people) lack access to fixed broadband.
• 41 percent of Americans living on tribal lands (1.6 million people) lack access to fixed broadband.
• In 2015, 33 million households (27 percent of all U.S. households) did not use the Internet at home, where families can more easily share Internet access and conduct sensitive online transactions privately.
• 26 million households—one-fifth of all households—were entirely offline.

Over the last eight years, our agencies have worked to expand the availability and adoption of broadband in recognition of the increasingly important role that the Internet is playing in every facet of society. Recognizing the opportunity to marshal resources across the entire federal government, President Barack Obama in March 2015 created the Broadband Opportunity Council, co-chaired by the Secretaries of Agriculture and Commerce, which in August 2015 identified a series of executive actions that could be taken through existing agency programs, missions, and budgets to increase broadband deployment, competition, and adoption. We are pleased to report that the 25 participating agencies have made considerable progress toward completing their commitments.

These actions further the goals of modernizing federal programs to expand program support for broadband investments; empowering communities with tools and resources to attract broadband investment and promote meaningful use; promoting increased broadband deployment and competition through expanded access to federal assets; and improving data collection, analysis, and research on broadband. Agencies have completed 15 of the 36 action items and have made significant progress toward finishing most of the others. Among the completed tasks include the release of guidance in January 2016 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to its HOME Investment Partnerships Program, Housing Trust Fund, and Community Development Block Grant recipients clarifying that program funds can be used for broadband installation infrastructure and service delivery. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department clarified that broadband infrastructure and related activities are eligible for the New Market Tax Credit Program and Community Reinvestment Act community development consideration in certain circumstances, expanding options for communities seeking investment sources for broadband projects.

Let me leave you with some final thoughts about what we have learned over the last eight years as well as some issues that I believe need additional attention in the immediate and near term if we are to ensure that 5G and all spectrum based technologies reach their true potential. First, there is no longer any question that spectrum sharing has to be a major part of the solution. Second, as the airwaves become more congested, we need to develop and enforce minimal technical rules to protect against unauthorized harmful interference. Third, as a nation, and really even as a global spectrum community, we must continue to invest in research and development of technologies that will help us make the most effective and efficient use of spectrum. Fourth, I would like to see additional focus to more accurately quantify current spectrum demand, usage and projections of future requirements - for both non-federal and federal use. Technologies and business models change rapidly.

Nearly 20 years ago, the United States promised to privatize the Internet's domain name system. Two years ago, the United States announced its intent to complete the privatization once the multistakeholder community developed a consensus plan for that transition. The transition was discussed in great deal at the IGF in Istanbul in 2014 and again last year in Joao Pessoa. Today I am pleased to appear here at IGF 2016 to report that the transition is now complete and was completed as of October 1, 2016.

The United States Government now stands on an equal footing with all other governments with respect to ICANN and the domain name system. The challenge now before us is how we can expand and evolve the multistakeholder approach. Can we build on the success of the IANA transition and the outcome of the 10-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society to tackle other Internet policy challenges? To do this, we must understand and adhere to the attributes of a successful multistakeholder model.

As this conference focuses on broadband goals for the future and setting priorities for the next Administration, particularly the possibility of a new infrastructure program, I would like to offer my evaluation of what worked well in the Obama Administration to expand broadband access and adoption.

The broadband grant programs we developed and managed at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration provided an important opportunity to invest in the nation's future and spurred private investment and economic development. We learned a lot and we continue to share those lessons with communities around the nation through our BroadbandUSA program. I am very proud of the solid foundation NTIA and the Obama Administration laid over the last eight years to connect communities across America and to expand the adoption of broadband services by many Americans. But it is clear that there is more work to be done, and we need to continue to learn and build on our successes. Going forward, NTIA has an enthusiastic team of experts in place who stand ready to work with communities, policymakers and all of you in this room to continue building out the digital infrastructure needed to help compete in the global economy and narrow the digital divide. As I depart NTIA in a few weeks, my hope is that NTIA's strong record of accomplishment of the last eight years will continue.

We have finally fulfilled the promise the United States made nearly two decades ago to privatize the Internet domain name system. We took the final steps with the expiration of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions contract with Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as of October 1 and last week by modifying our cooperative agreement with Verisign to remove National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA's) role in authorizing changes to the authoritative root zone file. I know many of you understand the significance of this historic moment in the evolution of the Internet. But I think it is also important to understand it in the context of the development of the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance and policymaking. This transition is a powerful testament to the strength of the multistakeholder model and what it can achieve.

After the community completed the IANA transition plan, there were those who tried to delay or block the transition at the eleventh hour. Of course, there will always be those who are not happy with the outcome. But if you believe in the process, you must respect the process. However, you do not show respect for the multistakeholder process when you wait until the process is over and the community has reached consensus and then propose major changes in the plan without ever asking the community to consider such an option. You do not show respect for the multistakeholder process when you do not participate for two years and then afterward say you object to the outcome.

I want to talk about a topic that we have made a top priority during my seven years at [National Telecommunications and Information Administration]. I know many of you here in this room and watching from around the world are familiar with multistakeholder processes through the work of [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers] and the [Internet Assigned Numbers Authority] stewardship transition. However, I want to spend a few minutes going into more detail about why we see this as not just as a tool for global technical Internet issues but also as a potential alternative to address a far broader set of policy issues.

The US government, including our Congress, has long championed the multistakeholder approach as the preferred tool for dealing with Internet policy issues. At NTIA, we will continue to trumpet the advantages of this approach wherever we can, both domestically and internationally. I ask all of you who support the model to help educate others about it and to push back against the ignorance sometimes displayed by opponents or skeptics of the approach, few of whom have ever actually participated in the process. We all want to protect Internet freedom and promoting the multistakeholder model is central to that protection.

For almost 20 years, Democratic and Republican Administrations, with bipartisan support from Congress, have worked closely with businesses, civil society groups, governments, and technical experts to develop a multistakeholder, private sector-led system for the global coordination of the Internet domain name system (DNS). The National Telecommunications and Information Administrations (NTIA’s) announcement in 2014 initiated the final step in the privatization process by asking the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to convene global stakeholders to develop a transition plan. The two years of effort by the Internet multistakeholder community to develop the transition plan reflect truly historic and unprecedented work. The plan developed by the community has strengthened the multistakeholder process and holds ICANN even more directly accountable to the customers of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions and to the broader Internet community. The proposal also ensures the continued leadership of the private sector in making decisions related to the technical underpinnings of the Internet.

The time to transition the IANA functions is now, and I urge this Congress to once again demonstrate strong support for the multistakeholder process related to Internet governance.

Two months ago, we passed an important milestone in a nearly 20-year effort to privatize the Internet domain name system (DNS). We announced on June 9 that the transition proposal developed by the Internet multistakeholder community meets the criteria we outlined in March 2014 when we declared our intent to transition NTIA’s stewardship role related to the DNS.

While this was a significant moment in this journey, we said in June that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which currently operates the IANA functions under a contract with NTIA, still had work to do to implement key action items called for in the transition plan. On Aug 12, ICANN informed NTIA that it has completed or will complete all the necessary tasks called for in the transition proposal by the end of the contract term. NTIA has thoroughly reviewed the report. We informed ICANN today that based on that review and barring any significant impediment, NTIA intends to allow the IANA functions contract to expire as of October 1. The IANA stewardship transition represents the final step in the U.S. government’s long-standing commitment, supported by three Administrations, to privatize the Internet’s domain name system.

I come here today to speak out for freedom. Specifically, Internet freedom. I come here to speak out for free speech and civil liberties. I come here to speak out in favor of the transition of the U.S. government’s stewardship of the domain name system to the global multistakeholder community. And I come here to speak out against what former NTIA Administrator John Kneuer has so aptly called the “hyperventilating hyperbole” that has emerged since ICANN transmitted the consensus transition plan to us last March. Protecting Internet freedom and openness has been a key criterion for the IANA transition from the day we announced it in March 2014.

The best way to preserve Internet freedom is to depend on the community of stakeholders who own and operate, transact business and exchange information over the myriad of networks that comprise the Internet. Free expression is protected by the open, decentralized nature of the Internet, the neutral manner in which the technical aspects of the Internet are managed and the commitment of stakeholders to maintain openness. Freedom House reported that “Internet freedom around the world has declined for the fifth consecutive year ...” Its prescription for defending Internet freedom is to encourage the U.S. government to “complet[e] the transition to a fully privatized Domain Name System.” What will not be effective to protect Internet freedom is to continue the IANA functions contract. That contract is too limited in scope to be a tool for protecting Internet freedom. It simply designates ICANN to perform the technical IANA functions of managing the database of protocol parameters, allocating IP numbers and processing changes to the root zone file. It does not grant NTIA any authority over ICANN’s day-to-day operations or the organization’s accountability to the stakeholder community. The transition plan goes beyond any authority that NTIA or the U.S. government has today by enhancing the power of stakeholders to ensure ICANN’s accountability. For example, the U.S. government has no ability to reject an ICANN budget or to remove an ICANN board member—two of the new enumerated community powers.