Tiffany Moore
My name is Tiffany Moore. I'm the Senior Vice President for political and industry affairs. For the consumer Technology Association we own and produce the Yes, thank you so much for coming. This is the first panel of innovation policy of the next three days, we will have some curated conversations on the important role of policy and how it plays with all the exciting technology that you're going to see on the show floor. And so thank you and welcome. We're excited to talk about 5g. As you'll notice, when you go across around the show floor tour, there's a lot of emphasis on 5g. And one of the discussions that we're going to have today is the importance of the tech that will ride on 5g. It's kind of like this amorphous thing. But what our member companies are excited about are the technology that will ride on 5g and how we think it will improve lives. But I'm excited for us to hear remarks first, but Before we begin the panel from Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, who was the US ambassador to the Netherlands, Ambassador Hoekstra served as a member of Congress, I had the great opportunity to know him when I worked on the hill. He served as a member of Congress for 18 years representing Michigan second congressional district. He was also chairman of the House, house Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, or ranking republican on the committee. And prior to serving in Congress, Ambassador hooks are served as VP of Marketing for Herman Miller. We look forward to hearing his outlook on the importance of 5g for the US and also globally. Please welcome Ambassador Pete Hoekstra.
Pete Hoekstra
Thank you. It is great to be invited to be a part of CES. I know that the theme this year is are you ready for CES? I think from my perspective I have for having spent some time In Congress and now is part of the diplomatic corps, and watching the rollout of technology and those types of things. For those of us that are involved in public policy, and for those of you that are involved in bringing the products to market the products and services that 5g, the promise that 5g holds. The question is, is government ready for 5g? Have we done the things that enable the products and the services that you are working on to come to market and deliver the kinds of benefits and promises to the consumers that you see all around Las Vegas? over these three, four days? Is government a facilitator? Or is it inhibitor and it's not only the United States government? It is governmental organizations around the world. Let me just give you a few things to think about as you move forward through this process through these days, and try to outline and define what the role of government is, from a US government perspective. You know, what we want is we want an open, global, competitive market for 5g that functions under the rule of law is a framework that we can trust. Let me talk about a few of those things. In particular, we want an open system. What does that mean from my perspective, and having served in government? You know, one of the things and I saw this when I actually worked in the private sector, as Herman Miller was innovate. And as other companies in our industry would innovate, what we would typically or what we would frequently find is that the government was a barrier to innovation, rather than a facilitator. The things that we had thought that we were putting into cutting edge designs had never been thought about by the regulators. And so when they take a look at a new product is, well, how do we consider this because we never anticipated a solution like this. And so government would be responsive reactive, it would be frozen into the old paradigm, and sometimes it would take a considerable amount of time and effort to get them to move from an old paradigm to a new paradigm and outline and update the frame. work that we were working in. And as you talk about 5g, and as we talk about the kind of changes that it may bring in a very, very short time. The question is, isn't has government anticipated this? None of us could have anticipated this. None of us could ever have anticipated all of the changes that we saw in the teens, and here we are in 2020. And what will the next 10 years be? What we need to do is we need to get government to be at a point where it works cooperatively, coordinating with industry, to modify and update rules and regulations as quickly as possible. So we can take these solutions, and we can bring them to the marketplace and we can bring the promise to individuals to countries to the climate to the planet as quickly as possible. The United States sees 5g as a great global opportunity. What does that mean? We're not Going to have standardized rules and regulations and a framework across the planet. That's not going to happen. But what we want to do is we want to do everything we can. This is why we focused on updating NAFTA coming with a new North American trade agreement, my word focused heavily on coming up with a new trade agreement, an updated trade agreement with China, with Europe and with other countries, so that we can have a system that recognizes the changes between the individual or the different parts of the planet, but at the same time minimizes the barriers that you have as you move across the planet. Because the solutions that we are talking about are solutions that improve the lives of people and will affect the planet. So we want these to be global solutions. So it's time to knock down the barriers knock down protectionist trade agreements and those types of things. knock down other barriers that will inhibit the spread of the technologies that are going to be developing under five G. We want markets, we want competition. America believes very, very strongly, that competition strengthens us, strengthens our companies and gets us better solutions. We believe it should be driven by the private sector. We believe that there's a huge opportunity for public private partnerships. There are certain things that 5g will bring in terms of autonomous driving smart cities and these types of things, that it can't be the private sector. These things will be done in conjunction between public and private partnerships. So there's place for both of those. But what we can't have is we can't have governments behaving in a way that distorts markets. That puts at a disadvantage companies in certain parts of the world because of practices that are employed by other parts of the world. Whether it requires technology transfers or because in other parts of the world, there are massive infusions of capital and cash from government into certain technologies and certain industries, and it's happening and in 5g. We need open, free, open free market competition in five g on a global basis. As we take a look at all of the different products and solutions that are being talked about, we also have to recognize that the United States stands firmly for the rule of law for all the people that are developing the Thinking about developing or going to market or in market. Perhaps the most important thing that we stand firmly behind is the protection of intellectual property rights. If you've created it, you own it, and you should benefit from it. Your focus should be on bringing these products to market, growing your business, improving your product, delivering solutions. It shouldn't be about whether an individual, another company or a country is ripping off your technology. The fourth parameter that we have in place and finally, the fifth item is we need systems that can be trusted for the people who are Controlling big data for the systems that are managing and bringing forward the promise of autonomous driving, smart cities, improved health, whole range of other issues. And for those that deliver us, the hardware that enable those things to happen. They have to be provided from trustworthy vendors, trustworthy suppliers. Because for every time we see an opportunity with five G to improve the world in which we live We also recognize that there's a possibility that those capabilities will be used in a pro in an in an inappropriate manner and will have negative effects. So if we take a look at those five issues and we reach the appropriate solutions in each of those, but we will have is the possibilities and the opportunities that we see around us today that they will become a reality in the world for us to move forward. Thank you very much.
Tiffany Moore
Thank you so much. Thank you so much ambassador. I will now be joined by our esteemed panel, who will kind of delve a little deeper on the importance of 5g some of the challenges, but very much more importantly, the opportunities that 5g can bring. And so as we assemble chrome move over to the so I'd like to briefly introduce our panel. Oh, you have our wonderful pictures and names of here but, but just briefly, but we have some incredible talent here on the stage. First, we have Melissa Ty associate General Counsel, emerging technologies horizon. We have Latoya Thomas, Director of Policy and Government Affairs, Dr. On Demand. Jane stankiewicz, Executive Director of Communications policy at Intel, and john Godfrey, Senior Vice President public policy. Samsung, we accidentally sat in order. I am Tiffany Moore, we are rule followers here. But first of all, thank you for joining the panel. If you look on the show floor, 5g is everywhere 5g 5g. We're so excited about it. And it's kind of like it's tangible. It's morphus. And so one of the things that when we are challenged with our member companies, like how do you talk to people about 5g? Like, how it's important how it's actually going to change lives? And so kind of in your roles, like, why is 5g so important? How does it fit into kind of what your company is doing? Would love to kick it off? Start with the john. Okay.
John Godfrey
Yeah, I love to talk about 5g. There's a couple of different ways you can talk about you can talk about as a technology and a capability and an infrastructure that's coming. Or you can talk about what it's going to enable in our lives and probably the ladder is is the more important, but right now we're in the phase where companies have invented Technology and we are deploying it. And we've got to do you know, the hard work of rapidly making this new infrastructure available, and the devices that use 5g. So I think the first thing for policymakers to focus on is going to be removing impediments to Investment and deployment in 5g and getting the, you know, getting the spectrum available, getting the rules of the road in place for for rapid deployment of the equipment. But 5g is, you know, it's a generational change beyond 4g, there's a reason why they increment these only about once every 10 years. It's a new set of technical standards. And you can think of it as faster, meaning more data can can pass through the wireless networks in a given amount of time. And as well as the wired backbone behind that wireless network. It's also far more devices in a given area, beyond just every person having five Phone, but maybe everything in that area being connected as well with a sensor or some kind of communications. And then finally low latency very, very rapid response from the network. So that instead of 10s of milliseconds, it's single digits and milliseconds. And taken together that creates phenomenal new capabilities that innovators can then build new applications and services on top of which will, you know, we'll get to in a minute,
Jayne Stancavage
exactly. Yeah, just to build on what john said, I think that the key here is to make sure that we actually get the deployment out there, because that's when the innovation truly happens. So if you look back a decade ago, and look at like 4g, it wasn't until you really had the deployment out there that you had all these innovations that people came up with, and those built upon that network. So let's put the infrastructure in place. have the capability there, and let let the innovators come up with the innovations It really is generational shift. And not just for the research, john said, but it really is much different type of architecture. And it's less I think, a communications network, and more this combination of communications and compute, and really bringing that compute capability closer. So it's really changing the game. And it's also not just human centric. A lot more vertical industries will be playing in the space time we could ever have imagined.
Tiffany Moore
You coined it perfect is a game changer. And John talked about speed, and kind of what that's going to allow and you're one of those innovators and companies that are looking at 5g as to how it can help with what you are offering.
Latoya Thomas
Yeah, certainly we look at it as an enabler. As I guess I sit up here and I represent healthcare, working for Dr. On Demand. There are two things that I think about in my my everyday world. One is how it enables healthcare and there's numerous lenses that you can look at, whether it's your ability to connect more people, depending Upon the hats that they wear, they could be a consumer, a patient, a caregiver, a healthcare provider in a brick and mortar outside of a brick and mortar, nationally, internationally, you name it, and what kinds of devices that you're connecting 20 years ago, we were using carts. I'm sure you've seen them. I'm sure none of them are on the Showcase floor today. That's where another conference. Now we're using smaller devices, smaller sensors, in home capabilities that people feel comfortable with. I think the second thing that I do within my own job that I do that I think about 5g is who benefits from it used to be about convenience for maybe a few 20 years ago. Now we're looking at this convergence of telecom policies that enable 5g but also increased and covered healthcare policies for Medicare, Medicaid, and other health care beneficiaries that you wouldn't necessarily have assumed could get access to these tools with a certain capability. So we're looking at it from numerous lenses.
Melissa Tye
suit for Verizon. 5g isn't just about doing what we already do, but faster, our ambitions are far greater. And that's why we've been saying that. We believe that 5g will usher in the fourth industrial revolution. And, you know, Verizon, we build the network. We're not really the folks that are putting the innovative use cases on top of it. Hopefully, some of you all are doing that. But we are working with some of those innovators around the country to demonstrate and to explore what the 5g network can can make possible. So we've got five, I believe, yeah, five 5g labs around the country. And each of them kind of focused on different use areas, often tied to kind of the industry in that area. Like for instance, LA is focused on entertainment. New York City, we have one in New York City that's focused on media and finance. And so we are working with innovators to see what's possible, we do believe that things are possible. And again, it's not just about downloading movies faster. And a few of the use cases that we're particularly excited about, or that I use when I'm talking to friends and family who may not be as familiar with this are things like, changes to accessibility. So we're working with a company called wayfinder. And what they do is they provide an indoor navigation for people who are blind or have low vision. And basically it uses augmented reality and voice to help people navigate indoor spaces like train stations or malls or things like that. So that kind of autonomy that 5g can potentially enable. I think it's really exciting. We're also working with healthcare companies and we're working with one company called meta bead and what they do is they enable surgeons Take a 2d scan of a tumor, Tran and change it into 3d, and then overlay it onto a patient so that as a surgeon is operating, they have the scan and they can see, you know what this game looks like and what's happening. And I think that's actually a good area. One of the most important use cases for 5g is haptics, which means anything involving touch. And people are much more sensitive to lags when you're when it involves touch than we are to sound or vision. And so anything involving haptics I think, is going to be really big for 5g and metaphase is a good example of that. So those are just a few, a couple of use cases that we're pretty excited. I
Tiffany Moore
Melissa, listen, if you would just touch like, for a moment, like 5g is not something that's far away. It's happening now like you all are deploying networks. And so kind of for the audience, where have you all deployed like where have we said We said
Melissa Tye
early in 2019, we said we're going to hit 30 cities by the end, which was, I'll be honest, I was a little surprised. It seemed like a big number. But we did we hit 31. So I'm for 2020. Our goal is to reach 50% of the population. So, you know, we, we restart our 2019 goals, I'm confident that will reach our 2020. Well, I'm also confident that when we say that we think this is the fourth industrial revolution, you know, we've, we've backed up our predictions so far, and I think we'll continue to do so. So, again, there's 31 cities, and I'm not going to list them all but they are more urban and some suburban ish areas. And you can go on our website and learn about them or if you want to talk afterwards, I can let you know where you can find it near you.
Tiffany Moore
And so we've got the networks, they're being you know, being deployed, we're going to have to You're in 2020. It's 20 2020. Now and so there's a race kind of to deploy that. Now that we have deployment, like what does it mean for Sam's? Like, like, how does this How is this the difference maker, particularly from Samsung's perspective?
John Godfrey
Well, one way is we're supplying the 5g base stations, some many of the 5g base stations that Verizon is deploying, so they're a customer, and they're putting our base stations up. And one thing I want to make sure everybody here knows is that the millimeter wave 5g base stations are very small, they're about the size of a child's backpack. Don't don't believe myths. If you hear that they're the size of a refrigerator. They're not there. They're small, you can put them on a corner of a building or on a light pole. You know, we've been building those for quite a while now. Samsung had the the world's first regulator approved 5g base station and it was for Verizon. On the handset side. Samsung is By far the leader in 5g smartphones, we announced last week, we've now topped 6.7 million 5g phones worldwide. And we're selling to all the US carriers we're selling all around the world. You can also come to our booth here at the show and see the world's first telematics control unit five g telematics control unit for a car. And this morning, BMW announced they'll be putting it in their cars. And we also have the first 5g tablet in our booth. So it's a lot about devices as far as what people are going to do with them. So look, you know, 10 years ago, I remember when 4g was coming along, and people, some people were a little skeptical. They said, you know, why do we need to open our email faster or download a song faster? They didn't imagine that the world would change to streaming once you had the capability of streaming all the time, or that we would see ridesharing that we'd see so Social Networking become the, you know, 24 hour a day presence that it is. And it would not be if if you could only do it sitting at your desktop computer. 4g made the internet available in your pocket, what 5g is going to do is make the equivalent of fiber available in your pocket. And the applications that are going to be built on 5g. We really can't say today what they're going to be just as people did not predict ride sharing or social media.
Tiffany Moore
And then from a chip makers perspective, he talked a little bit about kind of what it means. But if you could like, give us some examples of like the differences of what 5g will enable for from your perspective,
Jayne Stancavage
I think it goes back to some of the different use cases. So basically, five G's. John's right about the millimeter wave but there's also low band and mid band and they have different characteristics, different capabilities. And so as a chipmaker, you need to be able to support various capabilities, various bands and much different attributes, right? Like what would happen with a gigabit of spectrum and millimeter wave is different than what might happen in one of the coverage bands. But you'd still have to support those capabilities. And I think the other piece is, we really have to be thinking about the people because it's not just the people with the capability in their pocket. It's with the industry's with that capability. What happens if it's a factory floor, and all of a sudden, you don't need all those wires. What happens when you have compute much closer to that end user, whatever it is, whether it's a person or a machine. So as a chip maker, we not only have to support the different tuning ranges and the different frequencies, but also those different use cases that are coming and they're very, very different.
Tiffany Moore
Well, one of the things that we all need for 5g future to be successful is spectrum. You know, we don't have enough of it. You're all familiar with spectrum, either it's licensed or unlicensed. You generally have to get it from the governor. Women, and we always want more. And so I know that our companies on behalf of CTA and our member companies, we're always eager to really make sure that we have enough spectrum in the pipeline. And you all kind of mentioned there are different, different bands with different characteristics. And so kind of as you look at the bands that are kind of as you look at 5g deployment and what's important for your companies, kind of as we look at what the FCC might be doing, what they might be doing in the future, what you can actually speak to, what are some of the kind of bands that are more most interesting or necessary for kind of what you all are pulling together for for 5g,
John Godfrey
while the United States is doing really well in the millimeter wave, and has set aside very large amounts of spectrum there. What's great about that is there's so much capacity of, you know, data throughput there, you can have really, really fat channels. The problem with the very high frequencies is Energy doesn't propagate as far. Actually until about 10 years ago, people didn't really imagine that it would even be possible to use that spectrum for mobile operation. The breakthrough that has happened that has made it possible is to make massive antenna arrays that can electrically steer a beam and an achieve coverage that way. Also, the signals will bounce off of buildings and go around corners and things like that. So the the millimeter wave very high frequency spectrum is the eye popping data rates with my Verizon 5g phone. I've gotten the highest that I've personally gotten is 980 megabits per second from the Verizon network in Washington DC, which is mighty good. But the low bands, the you know, spectrum that the United States reclaimed with the digital TV transition, that propagates a really long way but doesn't have as much data carrying capacity because the channels are smaller. Really interesting spectrum is that the US is behind the rest of the world on is in the mid band where we haven't allocated as much. And that has a nice compromise between carrying capacity and propagation range. So the US really needs to move faster there.
Melissa Tye
And we believe so unsurprisingly, Verizon has some pretty strong views on spectrum. And totally agree with what john said, we've The US has done a great job on millimeter wave. And that's what we've primarily deployed on so far. But 5g will involve all levels of spectrum low, mid and high band. And we really think now is the time to transition to looking at mid band and making sure that that's in the pipeline, and that's available, and particularly the C band and the FCC has done a great job so far. We believe it's important that the an auction happens this year. And we think the FCC is poised to do that. And where we and I think there's broad consensus among industry that it's important that it happened this year. But we think the band has the most potential for mid band for 5g and so that's why we're really focused on pushing that as much as possible in 2020.
Jayne Stancavage
I would agree that mid band is is absolutely crucial in terms of what the US needs to do right now, we, as john said, done a great job with millimeter wave spectrum. But unless we can either grow spectrum, which can make a lot of money if you can grow spectrum our find some way to change the laws of physics, we absolutely need access to mid band spectrum. So we are laser focused on trying to make sure that we have spectrum within 37242 hertz available as soon as possible. Make sure that option happens and that we have the licenses so we can deploy those services. And we also are looking for unlicensed access and six gigahertz.
John Godfrey
Yes, those are some some good bands. And I will also add citizens broadband Radio Service 3.5 gigahertz spectrum. Yes, the FCC has allocated it in a really interesting way. Where part of there's there's parts that has sort of an unlicensed or unlicensed like capability that anyone can go in and use, as long as they're under the control of a database that tells them that they're authorized to operate in that place. That's mainly to avoid interfering with military radars that operate in the band in some places. And then in between the unlicensed like access and the highest priority. The military radars is a a licensed section and the FCC will be holding an auction next summer on that. And so there's a lot of flexibility for different business models. Be tried out in that spectrum. So we're looking forward to that coming along this year.
Tiffany Moore
And there's interest also by horizon on three dot five.
Melissa Tye
Oh, yeah, no, I'm we're definitely interested in tvrs. And, you know, honestly, we're supportive of all the initiatives around mid band. I think the cvrs is a great start to get the mid band ball rolling, I would say that we're more focused on mid band, because like I said previously, I think that has the most potential for 5g. And that's really where our focus is right now.
Tiffany Moore
You touched a little bit on six gigahertz, obviously, I know CTA recently filed comments. I think everyone has a strong interest, particularly, we believe in an ecosystem where licensed and unlicensed can kind of live together we consider myself kind of the innovation band. And so what do you think you touched a little bit about 60 yards? What do you think the best mechanism mechanism is? To allow unlicensed devices to operate and succeed,
Jayne Stancavage
I think there's different portions of the band. And when you look at them, you have AFC frequency control that would basically avoid using in certain situations. And then there's also low power indoor use. There are certainly a lot of strong views around this. But it's really incredibly important, as you said, to make sure that we have both licensed and unlicensed develop 100% moving forward. We add intelligent, strongly advocating for this and trying to move things forward on this. And really, I think at this point, it's it's time for the rubber hit the road, we really need the FCC to be moving forward on this very quickly. So that way, we can actually get that out of the spectrum out there and allow this use case because the technology innovation is happening. And as the ambassador said, it's sort of having that regulator regulatory infrastructure in place, so to allow it to happen. So now we Have the technology available, and sort of at the starting line, and we just need access to the spectrum. So we can actually do something with it.
Tiffany Moore
And as you mentioned, both license and license are important. And just to clarify, I think I said in the
Melissa Tye
last one that we're mostly focused on six gigahertz, I'm n c band just want to make sure that's very clear, because I that's very clear instruction on that. But, um, in terms of six gigahertz, and, you know, definitely what Jane said in terms of a balanced approach between licensed and unlicensed. And we've waited with the FCC that we support a significant portion of the lower portion for unlicensed, but asked them to take another look at other parts of the band for licensed just because there is really a dearth of mid band spectrum for licensed uses, that we think anything with potential should be looked closely at.
Tiffany Moore
And as you think of kind of what we're talking about six games hertz. How do you think kind of unlicensed spectrum will help innovators such as doctors on demand to kind of offer greater services? Certainly,
Latoya Thomas
you know, I think one of the things that we've seen is this convergence of telecom policy enabling more 5g, but also in healthcare policy to healthcare and other related policies, enabling you to do more for healthcare, whether it's health care providers being able to operate outside of their state boundaries, and being able to increase capacity to serve more patients. Companies like Dr. On Demand, being able to leverage those policies, but also recognizing that federal government policies as well are enabled broad and enabling broader coverage for government programs. For the first time, we're actually seeing more coverage from Medicare Advantage beneficiaries than we've seen in 20 years. We're also seeing similarly with Medicaid beneficiaries at the state level. It's worth noting also that 86% of Medicaid beneficiaries own a smartphone. So having five G's Certainly enables their ability to manage their own care manage chronic conditions 69% of them own tablets. So we can't overlook those that might be income strapped. But when we talk about connecting devices earlier, last year, I forget that we're in 2020. So last year, Dr. On Demand had the great fortune of partnering with both Humana and Walmart offering for the first time a primary care benefits so that those four which they go with 30%, I believe of Americans currently don't have a primary care provider or can identify who their primary care providers are. And with these two partners, we're working with them so that you can get virtual capabilities and use our health care providers and enabling a more comprehensive health care experience. But from a connectivity perspective, we're also offering through those partners and through others, the ability to connect peripherals and other wearable devices either through our Medicare beneficiaries knowing that 75% of those that are enrolled in Medicare right now are using devices and wearables to track their own health to manage their own chronic conditions. We're working with our partners to make sure that things like your wearable device, many of you were using the the Apple Watches or you're using Fitbit, or you've got BP cuffs, maybe you've got a thermometer that needs to be attached and tethered to your virtual care capabilities. Leveraging 5g to enable more of that allows us to provide a much more seamless but also a quality enabled experience. So
John Godfrey
if I could give a specific example of exactly what Latoya is talking about Samsung's CEOs keynote last night one of the main I actually thought everybody liked the little robot ball that actually my favorite part of the speech was our partnership with Kaiser Permanente on cardiac rehab. The That the New England Journal of Medicine has actually published the results of the pilot project we've done with the trial that we've done with Kaiser Permanente. And we were able to get patients who had had heart surgery and went home, were supposed to go through something like eight or 10 weeks of the rehab program where they do exercise, get their heart rate up, report to their doctor that they've done it, where they actually have to go to the doctor's office to do it, and report to the doctor how they feel. It's a great way of detecting how well patients are recovering from heart surgery. And if there's a problem, heading it off before they have another heart attack and have to go back to the hospital. But most people don't complete the eight to 10 weeks of rehab because it's a hassle have to go back to the doctor's office. But you can do it remotely by sending people home with a wearable connects wirelessly to their phone. It's managed by the doctor in advance and we got more double the rate of completion, which will, it will make a big difference in the rate of hospital reentry, and the complications from from heart surgery. And that's just that's just one example. But I really like it. Because it's not just theoretical. It's something that's been published in a medical journal. And, you know, we're building it out further now.
Tiffany Moore
That's amazing. And so we talked a little bit about the kind of federal spectrum and let's assume we get the federal policy, right, we get the spectrum, what we need, it's deployed, we then have to deal with infrastructure, obviously, a local, state, US state local level, decisions that are made on the states that play a huge role and in being able to deploy 5g. One of the things that our CEO mentioned in his keynote this morning is the launch of our US US state scorecard. And one of the new things that we are looking at as how states are prepared for 5g. There's a lot of kind of regulatory barriers towards Getting actual deployment. You talk about small cells, the importance of citing requirements, there's environmental assessments that need to be done. And I know that a lots of it has been done. It's kind of federal level to kind of clear the underbrush to make things a little faster. But then they're also state local, kind of regulatory timelines. And can you speak a little bit to how kind of those timelines how important that is to getting that right, so that they can quickly deploy 5g?
Melissa Tye
Sure. So um, it's hugely important. You know, I mean, I think there's there's three things that we think about when we think about how we're going to deploy 5g one is spectrum which we've covered. Another is fiber, which we haven't. We have time we can get to that. But then small cells are the other one and really, that's at the state and not even just we say state and local, but really, it's the local level. And, you know, there are in the same way that the federal government has the FCC in particular has taken action To kind of clear, I think the outliers and that are posed challenges to efficient deployment. Many states have as well. 28 states so far have passed small cell legislation, but for the most part, we're working with localities and you know, sometimes it's a city government, sometimes it's a county and sometimes it's even neighborhood associations. It's really really at the hyper local level. And, and you know, when you are working with that many governmental organizations, it takes time and so, you know, more time that takes and the farther apart we are in reaching a solution, it means that the longer consumers are waiting to experience the benefits of this conductivity and some of the use cases that like Latoya and Donna are talking about. So it is really important. We are reaching out to communities and We want to partner we want to make this a win win for both Verizon and the community itself. But it's important to, to work efficiently to get this technology to consumers as quickly as possible. And the quicker we bring it to one locality, the quicker we can get to the
Tiffany Moore
next. Because in some instances, it's just about the application process or fees or different things or having a common application streamlining, and just making things run a little bit more efficiently. So that kind of companies when they come in and want to do this work, that you kind of understand, you know, what's required and what's needed,
Melissa Tye
right. I mean, so, you know, the, the way we used to deploy our networks was these big macro towers. And so you'd have an application for a tower and you'd submit it. But when you're talking about small cells, and you're talking about putting them, you know, one or many on per block, you can't have your having one application, her antenna just doesn't really work. So it's things like that, like streamlining that that process. And I think what helps a lot, frankly, is having conversations up front, before we even get to that point. So the communities know what we're trying to do and understand why. It's not that we're just trying to run roughshod over necessary rules around applications and notices and things like that. It's just it probably doesn't make sense. And it's not serving anybody to file 200 applications that all say the same thing, but change the location by 200 feet, each one. So it's things like that. And again, I think having conversations up front can help with all of that and to make sure that the communities feel good about what we're doing and the benefits that we're bringing and how we're going to ensure that their needs are heard and met, but also try to bring this to consumers as quickly as possible.
John Godfrey
You Tiffany part of one of the issues human nature, it's human nature to some time for many people to be uncertain about change. Maybe not here in Las Vegas at CES, I think this population loves change and innovation and is excited about things that are new. But there, you know, there are people who maybe it's hard to believe there are people who maybe don't get excited when they see a new technological capability coming along. And they ask,
Latoya Thomas
I think CMS might be one of those people.
John Godfrey
And so they might ask a reasonable question. Why is this a good thing? It's on us, all of us to be able to answer that we have to be able to explain why it's going to help the community to have a new capability that will enable blind people to navigate. It will enable doctors to help people remotely, those kinds of things. I think
Melissa Tye
it's funny because there's a lot of work for Verizon. So we hear a lot of complaints when service doesn't work as well. But at the same time, when we're trying to deploy a new service people we often get pushed back and say, Well, I Its finances. I don't see why I need something new. Well, you probably didn't see why you needed 4g or LTE 10 years ago. But if I were to turn off your cell phone service, I don't think that go over so well. So I think John's right, it's I'm not saying that they should just blindly accept, but we need to do a better job of trying to help people see that vision for the future that all of us can see. And it's not just about downloading email faster or fortnight, but it's about accessibility and autonomy and bringing medical services to underserved communities,
Tiffany Moore
etc. I think you're exactly right. That's why it's important to talk about those use cases. I would kind of like to talk a little bit internationally. Ces is a global show. We do talk about global policy, and we're pleased to have the ambassador kind of give us that perspective from the US government. But Jane, you spent a lot of time traveling lately, specifically, the World Radio conference over 35 500 delegates from 193 member states around the world to discuss changes in to international communications policy. Last month, you were there for a month. What did you see? Hopefully, there was some enjoyment there. What kind of what did you see what were those outcomes? This conversation is not just happening here in the US happening across the globe.
Jayne Stancavage
Well, in terms of what did I see, it was in Sharma shake, which is one of the nicest resort areas and and I spent 10 minutes and four weeks and so 30 days 10 minutes in the sea. Every day else we know that many people and updating international treaty for weeks it was a long discussion, but I saw a lot of meeting rooms, but the US 5g millimeter wave bands are now part of global tuning ranges. So they'll be economies of scale for those within some of the bands that were decided 5g at the millimeter wave level. There was also increased outdoor access for Wi Fi and 5152 50 250 to 50 megahertz, and then some additional rules. And we also then set the agenda for the next conference, which will be 2027, where they're also looking at additional spectrum and how do we move things forward for 5g and other services at the at the next conference, but I think the big thing is we now have sort of economies of scale and the millimeter wave bands. And that will be really important because the, the frequencies are so much higher than we're used to, as john said before, that it is really important that we actually have, you know, a couple key areas to focus on so we can develop the radios and the devices that will operate around the world and those
Tiffany Moore
Let's speak a little bit about kind of the significance the reducers kind of the harmonization reduces costs for consumers and removes barriers to deployment. That's kind of some of the outcomes and the benefits of kind of WRC.
John Godfrey
Yeah, that's, that's true. It's international standardization of the spectrum bands. And as Jane said, there's there's harmonies and economies of scale, if you can build the radio components, and the digital processing components wants to work in multiple countries around the world, you know, this phone has, it's got three millimeter wave antenna elements around the back with where I guess there's three groups of four, to steer a millimeter wave beam at wherever the nearest tower is, and it's tuned to a particular frequency range. And if every country in the world uses completely different frequencies, then it's much harder to make one phone for the global market.
Melissa Tye
You know, speaking of economies of scale, and I'm see band is actually a global spectrum band and which is one of the wonderful things about it and why we're so excited for things to move on it in 2020
John Godfrey
spectrum is is global spectrums important? One of the other things that's really making 5g possible is global standards. And the wireless community has done a great job of standardizing around the world through the 3g partnership, project, 3g pp, didn't change their name. When they got to 4g or 5g. They're developing the 5g standards so that your phone will work, you know, we'll be able to talk, assuming it has the right radio, it'll be able to talk anywhere in the
Jayne Stancavage
world. She's just one thing to bring it back to the US for one moment. One of the other crucial points is the US what I said about the World Radio conferences, the bands of the US that are being done for millimeter wave now had this economies of scale so the US had already moved forward. And now we're going to benefit from the economies of scale that happened Not just the US, but all of the countries because that phone will work everywhere. And some of the countries that are smaller markets are now going to be able to take advantage of those same bands. But it's also really critically important because the US does often move very quickly. And other countries who move very rapidly as well, to keep that flexibility. And so you have this sort of tension between making sure that regulators are able to move quickly to allow these innovations to happen, and then also to allow these economies of scale benefits. So we tried to make sure that both of those happens at the international level and domestic level in countries around the world to keep this moving, moving, moving.
Tiffany Moore
And one of the things that I know will probably want to try to have one or two questions, but before I guess we'll have one last question and then maybe take one or two from the audience. I was getting ready to come over here earlier and I had a congressional staffer part of the leaders in technology We bring policy officials here to Washington. And he actually said 70, I can't wait for the 5g panel. I was like one that puts a lot of pressure on me to great job. But Congress is watching Congress wants to make sure that we maintain leadership and 5g. This is something that the White House has been paying attention to. Congress has. And so you know, part of the reason why we bring folks to CES is to kind of demonstrate what's needed and what's what's not. And so it kind of as you kind of would give advice to Congress, when it comes to 5g, what should we be doing? What should we not be doing, obviously, kind of clearing the underbrush for to reduce regulatory barriers for infrastructure, but can as you see in 2020, as they put their priorities together, kind of what advice would you give to policymakers?
Latoya Thomas
I'll start I'm more than one and I engage with I engage with the FCC, but I engage with other agencies as well. So when we talk about Congress, and the full jurisdiction of the the number of agencies that they might be able to reach, I think, first and foremost is, is understanding that 5g enables from a healthcare perspective enables so much more outside of a facility, whether it's the transmission of information to and from a healthcare provider, that patient regardless of what hat there were there wearing, again, can be patient could be caregiver. And we talked about the sandwich generation, those who are caring for their parents and their kids. In my instance, I'm an open faced sandwich because I care for my parents only. But if you're looking at how technology, healthcare delivery systems and the way in which we paid for it evolves, that 5g also must evolve to support enable many of those mechanisms as well. I will just add that some of those non healthcare related agencies that many of the members of Congress sit on committees that have jurisdiction over must also reduce barriers to make sure that some of those capabilities are keeping up with the evolutions that we're seeing from a connectivity perspective as well. Whether it's coverage Whether it's your ability to license a healthcare provider and and have them be credentialed, or whether or not it's just something that's just available and accessible to you, in your everyday life.
Jayne Stancavage
I think that's an important point because I've been doing this job at Intel, or different iterations for 20 years now. And frequently, you would only interface basically with the FCC or the FCC in Congress. And I think now, with the different applications that are coming and the broad swath of industries of sectors that would be affected us like what do people need to know about everybody who didn't think they needed to worry about 5g or 4g. Now you do because there's an impact. And if you sit on health care, you should know about 5g because there's implications. Agriculture. If you're dealing with factories, if you're dealing with drones, like there's so many cars, there's so many different sectors. that are going to be affected now. So if you're a member of Congress or any policymaker, you should at least know enough about 5g, I think, because there are benefits that can come. And in terms of it always comes back to spectrum. So I'll just say one other thing. We talked about the importance of getting mid band spectrum there, right away. That has to happen. And the FCC is really far, quite far along in those proceedings, and poised to make some decisions, hopefully. But we also need that pipe. And so if Congress is looking at things, sort of what comes next, what pieces are out there that we can look in the future. So let's make let's, let's let the FCC work on the bands that they already have and are progressing. But in addition, what comes next? That's what we should be looking
John Godfrey
at. We need spectrum from Congress to fill the pipeline, and also regulatory streamlining for infrastructure deployment. Many areas where government regulates uses of 5g so I won't repeat those. And then government as a user of 5g itself, there's a lot of ways that the government can, can take advantage of more mobility and higher data rates, more sensors and public safety and national defense and national security. environmental monitoring, there's, you know, there's a role for the government to play as a user and beneficiary of 5g to and you know, Congress will have to make that happen.
Melissa Tye
And then this, I think, is a little tangential to 5g. I think it's important is federal privacy legislation. We won't these technologies will not be adopted unless we have consumer trust. And I think that, well, industry is taking steps to be responsive. I think federal privacy legislation would go a long way and We've been supportive of federal privacy legislation for the past decade. And I realize it's it's probably unlikely to happen this year. But I think it's a goal that merits and continual work toward.
Tiffany Moore
Excellent. I think we have time for one quick question. There's no mic but if you can talk really loud, I'll repeat the question. The end of your debate and your country is way more advanced than others. Only building the structures, it is actually a run for the companies, especially companies because the first against it will be the leader. I think the question was on us as a, as a leader in 5g and the role of industry kind of kind of race, the race.
John Godfrey
why people do ask about the race to 5g, I think the most important aspect of the if there is a race, it's a race to deploy 5g so that innovators can innovate on top of it. That's the one that really counts and the US is, is in the game. I think South Korea has deployed a huge amount of 5g it's not a very big country. But most of the country now has access to 5g there millions of subscribers there. So so they're doing quite well. There's some other countries around the world too. But the you know, the, the companies that are that don't even exist today there a dream in a kid's garage. That will become billion dollar companies. On top of what they've invented on top of 5g, those companies can't come along until 5g has been deployed.
Jayne Stancavage
I do want to just say that we are talking, we just raised the US but having just come back from the four weeks in Egypt, I can tell you that out of the hundred and 93 countries that were there, there was broad interest, because it's not, who does the first phone, etc. It is, can we put this infrastructure in place in various countries, many countries around the world to allow these benefits to happen? Because as john says, it is when that deployment is there, Latoya talked about some of the the applications also, when you look at those, it's to the benefit of the people living in all of the countries to be able to do this. So yes, it is important to move but rather than thinking of a race with the very first one at any certain point It, can we all move these deployments forward. So we get the benefits most broadly.
John Godfrey
Although just to be clear, Samsung and Verizon were the first to deploy a 5g network.
Melissa Tye
I think we I think we beat up the next company by like, a day. That's okay. We were.
Tiffany Moore
I love the healthy competition between our companies to innovate and do their best. Please join me in thanking our wonderful panel for a great conversation. Good afternoon. Please stay around for the next session.