The video is Available Online at cspan. Anna gomez talked about Artificial Intelligence, broadband and s. E. C. F. C. C. Authority. You can watch all of our coverage at cspan. Org. This conversation is about 20 minutes. [inaudible conversations] welcome, thank you. And thanks, everybody, for out while we were repositioning microphones. Are wired in. Welcome we are so excited to have you. Its your first encompass a policy summit in your new position. Cracks yes. [applause] i note many of you in the room have known commissioner gomez for years. In and around our industry. Ther in the public and private sector and now you have a whole new role. So why dont you tell us a little bit about all of the great experience you and how that inform the role you have today. Quick thank you for having me here. Its great to see homegrown. So it gives meet this ability to people i know. E audience and see theres a lot of Friendly Faces is quite lovely. Really enjoyed my time at the fcc. Its been a wonderfulon experience. But i do have 30 plus years of experience. It is true. And i understand the importance of balancing policies to protect the Public Interest while at the same time promote competition and innovation. Thats how i approach everything that i am■ doing. I am a Firm Believer in the power of competition to drive innovation to improve services lower prices for consumers. I believe a vibrant, strong, marketplace will promote u. S. Prosperity will also meeting the needs of all of■o those consume. This convergence of public and private action is necessary the benefits the consumers. Too that end in my career i learned a couple of things. Once is the importance of capitol collaboration to reach good policy outcomes. The second is that relationships matter. We want to make sure for publicprivate partnerships to really succeed we have to have good collaboration. Both inner agency with stakeholders a constant conversation to understand what the impact of the policies are and how to make surving the benefits for consumers. With regard to relationships toe sure we reach the outcomes of trust in our conversation to drive specific outcomes particularly on the agency front and the International Front is very important. When irtmmissioner clyburn ae ago i called my former boss to get his advice i just started this new role she is new. Thats the one piece of solid me to take every meeting listen to people and ask questions. Thats right in line with what you are saying. Its important for the Relationship Building for the collaboration to happen for the Public Private partnership tok. Recently saw you state of the net. You gave a fantastic speech for the connectivity program. Youve tked about that im andhoping you get your perspecte audit. Why you are spending so much of your time advocating. I just listen to very passionately support the program which i very much appreciate spoke earlier in support of the program. It is this a urgent now that we do need to constantly be talking about the acp the Affordable Connectivity Program is the most successful Affordability Program that we implemented in order to close the digital divide. His once in a its really once in a lifetime and its so important for all the reasons th you stated just 10 minutes ago. Their bills and congress to extend the program. They rely for the connectivity to participate in the digital society. In the economy to be entrepreneurial in order to go to school, orders go to to continue to talk about. Less competitive effects on the ans increasing cost for government. Talk about telehealth for seniors that is not shown telehealth decreases the cost half the identify as military families. 4 million are seniors you mentioned we are providing everywhere in this country. A significant portion of that is two areas that are hard to serve serve. Their high cost. The costs are very high they tend to be very rural. The don connect you are risking stranded investments. The networks will be unsustainable Companies May decide not to apply for funding from certain areas because it does not make the Business Case sustain a network over the long term. It is so Important Congress refund the program and i really hope that something they can get done. What other issues are top of mind with your time with fcc . Im very focused on how Technological Innovations can benefit consumers. Connectivitys making sure everyone everywhere has access to affordable broadband service. Public safety making sure our First Responders have what they need in order to do their job. Individual consumers get the information they need and durin. Spectrum, making sure we have these spectrum for innovation the constant new technological marvels that still need these spectrum to be implemented. Finally with immediate tip promote journalism how does this impact consumers and how can we make sure consumers understand what it is what rights they have what kind of benefits they cank at it through the lens historically underrepresented communities. I want to reach consumers where they are. Continuing the drumbeat on the acp im trying to use my position and order with consumers abouting in the benefits its critical. Ca female representation at the fcc of their background. It ise been able to reach consumers in a whole new way getting your statements and your speeches to make them more accessible to■q. I know you recently traveled to congress. Give us your■m perspective of wt you learned what did you see that most impressed you . That you wanted to bring back tells about . I guess im still recov it was terrific. Erit was such a good conference, to see a lot of Technological Innovations. Its funny to learn the floor. A couple of different impressions. First of all, Artificial Intelligence was everything. Every panel, every roundtable, every discussion centered around Artificial Intelligence. Somebody told me, people intelle when it is not even at issue, because it is the new sexy topic. Usually there is a theme to everything, but that stood out to me. I attended the ministerial program. And one of the things that is good about it that it is in barcelona is because it has ministerial. Its an opportunity for us to meet with regulators around the world. I really enjoyed those discussions because regulators around the world are facing the same issues we arewe have conveo calls and how annoying they are and how we need to do something about robocalls. [laughter] and universal service and spectrum options. Trying to think about what else basically everything we do spectrum, of course, always a big issue, big discussion. This comes back to my discussion about collaboration and relationships matter. And so, one thing i really appreciate about those types of conferences is the ability to connect with regulators around the world so that when it comes time to have the difficult discussions, we already have a basis of trust and know each other so that we can continue to have discussionsnd lead to positive outcomes. What was the perspective of the other gnment officials around the world about the work that we are doing to deploy more states . Are they surprised to hear that the u. S. Is still behind, and that we are having to spend tens of billions of dollars . Really doing the last bit of what is needed to connect everyone. Definitely. E u. S. Is so vast. Our geography, our different throughout the united states, never mind the fact that we have islands, we have alaska. We have a lot of diversity in our situation. And so regulators actually appreciate the fact that we can probably emphasize with them on every empathize with them on every single aspect that they are facing because of the fact that we are so diverse and there are still hardtoreach areas. One thing i would say is, one thing is deployment. Everybody wants deployment. I am going to say, for now. Really a mix of technologies. They are really interested in the work we are doing on supplemental coverage from space, because they see that as a possible way to reach the absolutely unreachable. Third is affordability and how to set up a program to address it that is sustainable, which is ironic given we are talking about acp. Fourth is power. One of the significant issues internationally for very, very unconnected countries is actually having adequate power to power their networks. Those are the discussions. They appreciate our experiences and i appreciate their experiences as well because they are trying a lot of Different Things that we can also learn from them. Right. We had a panel earlier that talked about a bit about how the states are working with the localities and prioritizing what encompassed describes as our broadbandready city checklist. Here are the way that cities and towns need to get ready for public funding. Ma your processes are public, nondiscriminatory, fast as possible reasonably priced. , theres certain role for the fcc to play in that, too. And we have seen that, thank you. You all voted in a big order last december on whole access. There is further notice and demand that where is participating, and so are others. Talk about the potential barrierso is your perspective on how the commission can ensure that public sector■3 fding c po . I am glad you read tonight. Infrastructure is important, fronting the infrastructure is important, but we have to get it through the permitting processes , the pole attachm■ent processe, with nondiscriminatory access. We want to make sure that the fcc does its part to make sure that this is fast and efficient and can get done in the lowestcost way possible to stretch the dollars as much as possible. So as you mentioned in december, we voted on the pole attachments item. I am looking forward to hearing more about actions the fcc can take to continue to streamline our processes and continue to encourage states,pole owners, tt transparent, as you said, and low cosand streamlined as possible. Right. Took a bit about how spectrum plays into all of this too. We had a lapse of the fccs Spectrum Authority and there is a lot going to bridge that gap, but then also the fccs role, like the bandshaare being reviee midbands of spectrum and discuss a little bit about how you see that helping to deliver running connectivity and more affordability. I cannot remember in my tenure, over the last 20 years, my first few years was doing wire line, i didnt do spectrum, when we have not been trying to find more spectrum for for telecommunications uses. For repurposing, more so recently for sharing, its a ns, constanttr or affect incumbents who are in their spectrum and dont really want anybody in there with them, or worse yet, to have to move from them. So it is very important, because we need to constantly find ways to use spectrum to its highest and best uses. But also, as efficiently as possible. So i am glad that the ntia and, i guess, the white house released that national strategy, the fcc worked with them on that ve culmination of years of work to improve Spectrum Management crisis practices. And to identify spectrum for new uses, as well as just to continue this pushing forward to find spectruit is getting harde. It is getting harder and harder to find greenfield spectrum, at least in the mid and lower bands. And i love the fact that mid and lower keeps moving up in the in the spectrum chart. It used to be that only one below one gigahertz could be used, that it b gigahertz. Technology continues to evolve. To be a part of the future. We are doing sharing now. It has two be done correctly. The stakeholders involved have to cooperate for sharing to work. But that is something we will have to continue working on. The National Spectrum strategy also talks dynamic spectrum sharing and continuing to look at that. So there is a lot to be done with spectrum. However, Congress Really needs to reauthorize our spectrum Auction Authority, because its all well and good if we identify spectrum for all of these new uses, but if we cant auction it, it is just going to be something we identify as a wish or we will have to start doing the old way of assigning licenses, and nobody wants that, there is no time for that. Importantly, the thing that i dont think we focus on enough is that, there is a preauction work that goes into conducting an auction, and if we cant even start that process until we get this authority back. So if you think about it, it keeps getting wo worse, it keepg pushed out further and further. Our International Competitiveness relies on us to have this Auction Authority back. That is a really great point to be made, we need an agency that can use all of the tools in its toolbox to meet the demands and for us to remain competitiwe going to have Congress Move on that . Do you give it a higher chance than i said before . [laughter] i am not touching that. But i hope the chances are good. There is a lot of selfinterest in having Auction Authority because, of course, it can be used as a pay for a lot of really great programs if you can identify spectrum to go with it because of the scores. And you can potentially use some of that money to fund some of these Affordability Programs. Yeah, Affordability Programs. Ribbon replace. There is a lot of needs, nextgeneration 911, that the Auction Authority bill or legislation could target for funding from the actions. And, again, the longer we postpone, the longer we dont have funding for these programs. Thank you so much for spending y■our time wh us this afternoon. This is the 10th year that we have had the policy summit. I cant recall if you have been before when you are in the private sector, but i am so happy you are here in this rolej as our newest fcc commissioner. Its really just been such an honor to work with you over the years in all the different capacities you have playedce ofs for the sector and we are just so excited about your current role. We wish you all the best. We are all here to help you, so please let us know how we can do that. I think somebody has to come in and in [applause] ■ today, watch cspanstore. Org for campaign trail1r, a weekly roundup of cspans campaign coverage, providing a onestopshop to cover what the candidates across the country are saying to voters, along with firsthand accounts from political reporters, updated poll numbers, fundraising data, and campaign ads. Watch cspans campaign 2024 campaign trail, friday nights ac 7 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan, online at cspan. Org, or download as a podcast on cspan now, our free mobile app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. American history tv, saturdays on cspan2. Exploring the people and events that tell thican story. 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