Speech

In a prior spectrum speech, I compared spectrum reallocation to my packed minivan—everyone fighting over seats, a struggle to balance competing needs, and someone in the back dramatically announcing they never wanted to go on this trip to begin with. And as a mom of six, I can tell you—my eight-seater minivan is truly at capacity. No amount of rearranging is going to create a ninth spot. Spectrum is different. We’re not stuck with a fixed number of seats. We can reconfigure, modernize, and make more room.

Historically, when evaluating structural rules such as broadcast ownership limits through a public interest lens, the Federal Communications Commission has focused on three core policy objectives: promoting competition, ensuring a diversity of voices, and supporting localism. Without commenting on specific proceedings that may come before me at the Commission, I can share a few general thoughts about how I’m currently thinking about these issues:

WTA has long been synonymous with rural broadband.  The priorities that guide my work at the Federal Communications Commission align closely with the work that each of you does every day serving communities across the country.  Those priorities include the following:

When I was a gymnast, we competed under what’s called the “Code of Points”, the rulebook that defines how routines are scored and how difficulty is evaluated. Over time, that Code changes. And when it does, athletes must adapt. Skills that were once cutting-edge become baseline. Combinations that once impressed judges no longer earn top scores. To stay competitive, I had to learn new skills, more difficult tumbling passes, more complex combinations, and sometimes routines that felt risky and uncomfortable at first.

Communications networks do not stop at national borders. Data flows across continents in milliseconds. Fiber-optic cables connect nations beneath the ocean. Wireless ecosystems rely on global supply chains. And increasingly, our digital economies are intertwined. Because of this, network security is not something any one country can achieve alone. Secure networks require cooperation, shared principles and trusted partnerships. This is precisely why gatherings like this one are so important.

Within my lifetime, the Internet has impacted nearly every aspect of the world and our daily lives—especially how we communicate. It was only a short time ago that speech and newsworthiness was controlled by a handful of TV networks and newspaper publishers. And if you held a position they didn’t want to print or wasn’t consistent with their political views, it didn’t get said. The Internet changed that, allowing anyone to bypass these gatekeepers and shape public opinion with their own views.

Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) delivered the keynote address at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society's Telecom at 30: Universal Service as the North Star event on March 5. In his remarks, Sen Markey highlighted three continuing gaps in universal service: broadband affordability, digital opportunity, and ensuring equal access to emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence. "The Telecommunications Act was grounded in a simple but powerful idea that communications policy should expand opportunity," said Sen Markey.

In the 250 years since our founding, technology has repeatedly transformed speech—from the printing press to radio, from the telegraph to the telephone, and from the television to the global internet. Every major advancement in communications technology has shifted who holds power over speech. In our current age, that increasingly means that whoever controls communications technology controls the boundaries of free expression.

Ultimately, ensuring network resiliency and security is a shared responsibility. Interagency and industry coordination is paramount. The Federal Communications Commission has an important role to play working with its federal partners, industry, and Congress, on a range of issues, including: reevaluating outage reporting to reflect modern networks; strengthening transparency around supply-chain risks; and supporting responsible space and satellite growth.

As of today, we estimate that Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program reforms have generated over $21 billion in savings for taxpayers, while advancing universal broadband nationwide. That is not a projection. That is the direct result of competition and disciplined execution. But savings alone are not the goal. Execution and long-term success matter even more. Too many past broadband programs failed because projects defaulted, providers walked away, and communities were left stranded.