Source: http://images.dailymobile.se/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/mobile_broadband_on_the_beach.jpg

• Chairman Genachowski’s Remarks, “Mobile Broadband: A 21st Century Plan for U.S. Competitiveness, Innovation and Job Creation” at the New America Foundation.
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  • Prepared Remarks of
    Chairman Julius Genachowski
    Federal Communications Commission
    New America Foundation
    Washington, D.C.
    February 24, 2010

  • “Mobile Broadband:
    A 21st Century Plan for U.S. Competitiveness, Innovation and Job
    Creation”

  • The challenge is:  we are lagging behind when it comes to broadband.

  • Multiple studies have the U.S. ranked outside the top 10 when it comes
    to broadband penetration and speed. While some people take exception
    with those studies, few would suggest that we are leading the world in
    broadband, or are even as close as we should be.

  • the rest of the world is not sitting around waiting for us to catch up.

  • Consider a study that Intel CEO Paul Ottelini described yesterday.  The
    study ranked the U.S. 6th in the world in innovative competitiveness,
    and 40th out of the 40 countries ranked in “the rate of change in
    innovative capacity.”

  • The first of those rankings is enough of a concern.  That last-place
    statistic is the canary in the coal mine.

  • The costs of our failure to lead are high.

  • As IBM CEO Sam Palmisano recently put it, “Without pervasive broadband,
    our country will not be prepared for a new world that is increasingly
    built on the fusion of the physical and the digital.”

  • For U.S. businesses to lead across the globe and for innovation to
    flourish at home, we need to invest in the infrastructure of the
    future: broadband.

    We need robust and open broadband, flourishing with applications and
    services that we can only begin to imagine.

  • It would be like having the technology for great electric cars, but
    terrible roads.

  • When it comes to mobile broadband, our goal is clear:  To benefit all
    Americans and promote our global competitiveness, the U.S. must have
    the fastest, most robust, and most extensive mobile broadband networks,
    and the most innovative mobile broadband marketplace in the world.

  • Breakthrough new devices that put the power of a “PC-in-your-pocket,”
    combined with billions in network investments have liberated broadband
     from the desktop and made it possible to imagine a world where the
    Internet is available to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

  • And some of America’s greatest innovators have clearly been working
    overtime to seize the opportunity, as the iPad and the Kindle attest.

  • Jobs in the mobile network economy – jobs building out and managing
    extensive mobile broadband networks.

    And jobs in the mobile apps economy.  According to Gartner research,
    $4.2 billion in mobile applications were sold last year – up from
    essentially zero just a couple of years ago.  The number of apps has
    crossed 150,000.

  • Last week, a New York Times article described an Arizona school
    district that installed Wi-Fi on one if its school buses. The bus was
    instantly transformed into a rolling study hall. And if anyone ever
    doubts the power of mobile broadband tell them this:  the driver says
    that bus of high school kids is now quiet.

  • Mobile broadband can be about healthcare.

    Mobile medicine takes remote monitoring to a new level. A patient’s
    heart rhythm can be monitored continuously, regardless of her
    whereabouts, and diabetics can receive continuous, flexible insulin
    delivery through real-time glucose monitoring sensors that transmit
    date to wearable insulin pumps.

  • Mobile broadband can be about energy.

    With mobile broadband, consumers and businesses can utilize Smart
    Grid-enabled information services.  A whole new world of “energy apps”
    can adjust lights, heating, and cooling from a smartphone or netbook,
    saving electricity, saving our environment, and saving money to boot.

  • Mobile broadband can be about public safety.

    With mobile broadband, EMTs can beam images of a patient wirelessly
     from the road so that emergency room doctors can review them while the
    patient is in transit. First responders can also access a patient’s
    medical records almost instantaneously when they arrive on the scene.

  • Mobile broadband can about 21st century government and enhanced civic
    engagement.

  • During the recent snowstorm, Howard County, Maryland equipped all 120
    of its snow plows with GPS receivers. A website displayed the trucks’
    positions and the status of county streets, and county residents could
    see which streets had been plowed, salted or sanded. Families who lost
    power used their smartphones as a lifeline, coordinating cleanup
    efforts.

  • Spectrum – our airwaves – really is the oxygen of mobile broadband
    service. Without sufficient spectrum, we will starve mobile broadband
    of the nourishment it needs to thrive as a platform for innovation, job
    creation and economic growth.

  • America is facing a looming spectrum crunch.

  • “Without more spectrum, America’s global
    leadership in innovation and technology is threatened.”

  • Mobile data usage is not just growing, it’s exploding.

    AT&T reports that its mobile data traffic is up 5,000% over the past
    three years.

  • According to Cisco, North American wireless networks carried 17
    petabytes per month in 2009. By 2014, they are projected to carry 740
    petabytes per month.

  • Many homes are technically passed by mobile broadband networks, but
    still cannot get a clear signal inside their home.  And a mobile divide
    is an increasingly important part of the digital divide. In Alaska, for
    example, 23% of its population doesn’t have access to 3G mobile
    broadband.  In West Virginia, at least 29% of its population lacks
    coverage.  We also see disproportionately low adoption rates among
    certain populations, such as persons with disabilities.

  • The National Broadband Plan will chart a clear path forward. And if we
    do not seize the moment, I fear for the opportunity we will have lost.

  • When you get your chance, you better make it count, because you don’t
    know when, or if, you’ll get another shot.

  • If we get it right, broadband will be an enduring engine for creating
    jobs and growing our economy, for spreading knowledge and enhancing
    civic engagement, for advancing a healthier, sustainable way of life.
    This is our moment. Let’s seize it.

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