Please welcome Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, in conversation with David Faber, journalist and anchor at CNBC.
It's a smattering of applause, not bad.
Not bad. See how it is at the end.
All right, let's, I don't know, we got 20 minutes, so we'll try and move quickly.
100-day highlights. Want to give me a few?
Yeah, look, we've been off to a quick start. I think like a lot of officials across the Trump administration, we've moved very, very quickly and, you know, frankly have a little bit of an advantage there. I was general counsel of the FCC before becoming a commissioner. I actually started as a staffer all the way back in 2012. So, I've been there for over a dozen years at this point. Some of the key highlights that we're doing: one, working to unleash new high-speed internet build. I think as a lot of you may have remembered in the last four years, a lot of these internet infrastructure bills got tied down by regulatory tape. We're looking to change that. We can get more into that, but just the highlights. Two is spectrum. You know, the airwaves are such a valuable public resource right now. Obviously, your smartphone continues to take more and more data. Everything that we do is mobile. And the reality is China has sort of sprinted out to a lead on us when it comes to these airwaves. That's not good for national security, it's not good for our economy, and so there's a lot more that we are starting to do on spectrum. We already have a couple early wins there. National security, we can get into that. We stood up a new council on national security at the FCC. Obviously, in my view, the CCP sort of never sleeps when it comes to trying to infiltrate our networks, our devices. There's a lot that we're doing there. So, everything from spectrum to infrastructure to national security, we're working across all those. And I guess the last highlight I'll say is deregulation. We've launched the largest deregulation initiative in the FCC's history. We've titled it 'In re: Delete, Delete, Delete.' We're seeking comment on that. We're doing a top-to-bottom review of all regulations. We've already proposed to close something like 2,000 dockets. So, it's been a pretty busy first 100 days.
What do you, when it comes to dereg, we'll just start there. What are your expectations and or hopes in terms of how quickly and what it would mean if you were successful in overturning any number of these as you just elicited?
Yeah, I think you can really help unleash private sector investment. We have so many rules on the books. I mean, look, we got rules that continue to regulate telegraph services, if you can believe it. We've got the Code of Federal Regulations, which is the rules the FCC regulates, and it's a stack of books about this big. You can, you know, stack it up like this. My goal would be to sort of chop that down pretty significantly. I think that would go a long way to giving people the incentive that they need because in this space, and like a lot around here, it needs billions and billions of dollars of investment. So, we want to try to provide a bit more certainty.
Yeah. Um, ooh, that was very loud. And spectrum as well. Let's spend a little time on that. I mean, I've had, you know, John Stankey's come on, the CEO of AT&T, complained about the Defense Department, my words, complained, not his. But there seems to be a desire for access to more. You know, what can you tell us in terms of the efforts you're making that would actually free some of that spectrum up for the use that it needs, that would help for commercial purposes?
Yeah, exactly. I mean, when you think about, obviously as a general matter, data demand continues to increase like a hockey stick, but when you put AI, which is the next generation use case, that hockey stick just goes straight to the ceiling. So, the reality is we're short spectrum. And when you look at the prime, what we call mid-band spectrum that's needed for all these great new use cases, something like 60% of it is available to the federal government. And a big chunk of the remainder is available for Wi-Fi unlicensed use. We love Wi-Fi, we like the unlicensed use, but the reality is for that sort of true 5G experience, that true 6G experience, something like only 7% of that prime mid-band spectrum is available for that high-power 5G. That's where the US is really behind. You know, China does not have 7% of their mid-band spectrum for high-power use. They have a lot more. And so, the reality is we've got to work with the Department of Defense, we've got to find a way to move spectrum that they have been using into the commercial marketplace. And really sort of Chairman Ted Cruz has been leading on this. He's got a great piece of legislation. And the mover here is reconciliation. If we can include spectrum in the reconciliation bill, because just to back up for a second, our authority to actually auction spectrum, which is how we get it into the commercial marketplace, lapsed a couple years ago. So, if Congress can restore our spectrum auction authority in reconciliation, it'll score. And it'll score probably north of $80 billion. So, when you look at what the administration needs to get done in reconciliation in terms of paying for the border, paying for tax cuts, if we can get spectrum auction authority in there, that's $80 billion to the positive.
Is that your expectation that it will be in there and that that will happen?
It is. It's got to happen. I mean, look, it's again, $80 billion. We're looking in the couch cushions right now to try to get this done. So, if you can get $80 billion, that's a pretty good thing. But we need it for the economy, we need it for national security. Again, we've walked into this sort of cul-de-sac on spectrum. We've got a lot of unlicensed, which is great. We've got a lot for the government, which is great, but we're really short right now on that high-power 5G 6G spectrum for the country.
And you mentioned, of course, the revenue-raising opportunity in terms of the telecom companies that would be willing to pay for that spectrum. But can you explain to me and to the audience, you've got Starlink out there. And I want to talk about satellite with you as well. That is gathering up customers at a fairly rapid rate. And as soon as he gets the next rocket going up, he's going to be able to launch way more satellites, a lot more capacity. But he's not paying for his spectrum, is he?
Well, satellite spectrum is different because it's shared spectrum.
Whereas sort of the terrestrial AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile spectrum, it's exclusive use spectrum. So, that's why you pay for it. But satellite historically has been different. But I do think the space economy and giving a boost to the space economy is probably the top two or three issues at the FCC in terms of an economic agenda. The reality is for too long, Elon and others could build rockets faster than a government agency could move license approval from one desk to the other. So, we have a space bureau at the FCC. And one of the first things that we're doing is just trying to accelerate that organization's work. And that's going to be great for Starlink, yes, but also hopefully for Kuiper. There's also other.
How do you view them as competitive threats to the terrestrial players right now, both obviously for broadband?
Well, at this point, it's more complementary. I mean, when you look at our goal of bridging the digital divide, you know, Starlink is not going to be a great competitor in the urban areas or the suburban areas. But when you get out to the rural areas, just take, so that's President Biden's plan, this $42 billion program called BEAD. Some of the estimates for that program and in similar programs, we're looking at something like $100,000 in taxpayer support per home connected with fiber. So, when you're looking at cost per location of $100,000, and Starlink can do it for something like, you know, $800 or less, that's where I see it. But the one area of real convergence is direct-to-cell. So, right now we are looking at changing our rules to allow direct-to-cell technology to be at higher speed, more power. So, you don't even need that Starlink dish anymore. Wherever you are, you can get something. It's going to start as, you know, basic text, maybe get some sort of imaging as well. But I think that that future is going to be important. So, I think flash forward a couple years from now, hopefully one of the things I'll be most proud of is our work to boost America's space economy.
I want to understand the economic side of it as well, though. I mean, to the extent that you're expecting you're going to be able to sell spectrum to the AT&Ts, the Verizons, the T-Mobiles of the world, and they're competing against Starlink, which is using a different form of spectrum, but nonetheless is sort of not having to pay that number. I mean, I don't know. I'm curious as to how that changes your view and or the auction, for example, of that versus, well, they're like, well, what about Starlink? Shouldn't they have to pay?
Well, right now it's very complementary. So, T-Mobile has partnered with Starlink. So, Starlink's actually using T-Mobile spectrum. AT&T and others have a deal with a company called AST SpaceMobile based in Midland, Texas. I was just there with Senator Cruz a couple weeks ago seeing their operations. And Apple also has a deal, I believe, with Globalstar where they're doing some technology, too. So, it's one of the originals. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, right now it's a very sort of complementary environment, and it works. Look, we got unlicensed spectrum that people don't pay for, we got licensed spectrum that they do, we got satellite spectrum, which is shared. So, what you pay depends on the type of spectrum you get. And it's working pretty well right now.
And what about Project Kuiper? Is that a real thing, do you think?
Yeah, they just launched I think 20-some-odd satellites. I'd like to see them go at a bit faster cadence. They do have a build-out obligation eventually at the FCC that's going to come up in the not-too-distant future. I, you know, hope and expect that they're going to hit that. But the more the better, because look, the biggest threat is going to be the competing satellite system that communist China is putting up. When you step back and you think about Belt and Road, you think about Huawei, ZTE, what I view as sort of CCP spy gear in these networks, when they can pair that Belt and Road with a global internet platform, their version of Starlink, coupled with their content moderation technology, that's a real geopolitical threat. So, we want Starlink to go fast, we want Kuiper to go fast, we want them all to succeed. There's a little bit of domestic debate about, you know, why are you helping out Elon Musk's Starlink? Is it sort of a weird thing with the government? But I don't sort of play that game. If we need every single US-based provider to get going and to make progress.
You mean you don't play that game? What game is that?
Well, some people say, well, look, you know, you can't give Elon Musk 100 wins out of 100. You got to sort of strike some sort of balance, or people will say there's a conflict of interest there with his DOGE work. That's not my view. If Elon is right 100 of 100, I'm going to agree with him 100 of 100. If he's wrong 100 times, he's going to be wrong. But I'm not trying to strike some artificial balance to avoid criticism for doing something that's, you know, too pro-Starlink or anti-Starlink.
This just came to mind given you were talking about timelines in terms of use of spectrum, and I may have completely missed it, but let me ask, because for a long time Charlie Ergen and DISH had an enormous amount of spectrum, and they were on the clock. Are they still on the clock? Is that still an issue?
Well, look, I do think that at the spectrum that Dish has, we have to find a way one way or the other to get that spectrum into use. You know, we had a deal back in 2020 to put some binding commitments in place to make sure that spectrum actually got put to use to benefit consumers. About a year or so ago, the Biden administration gave an extension on that. You know, we'll look at that. But again, I think the bottom line is that spectrum needs to be put to use to benefit consumers.
There was a hope at the time it was awarded that it would be in full use now, and it's not. And it's not. Is that disappointing to you?
What do you have in terms of power to be able to do to make sure that spectrum is better used?
