5G Technology

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I will talk for a few minutes today about 5G technology and taxpayer money. We have all heard the term ``5G.'' 5G stands for fifth generation--fifth generation technology. In short, what 5G means is incredibly fast data transmission--data going from my cell phone to the President's cell phone, my internet to your internet, and the ability to connect a lot of different devices at the same time.

Through 5G technology, which is wireless technology, we will be able not only to transmit data very quickly, but we will also be able to transmit huge amounts of data--almost breathtaking amounts--and it is going to have a huge impact on American society. It is going to have a huge impact on the world.

In some respects, it is going to change the world. If technology has changed the world thus far--and indeed it has; among other things, it has made the world smaller--5G is going to change it even more. For example, you will be able to use your smartphone to open your garage door. You will be able to use your smartphone and be a mile away but turn on your coffee maker. We will be able to do surgery by internet. Surgeons will be able to be in one place 1,000 miles away from a patient, and that surgeon, through robotics and other means, will be able to transmit the data to operate on that patient.

Driverless cars are going to change the world dramatically--not only the way we get around. It is going to change our need for roads; it is going to change our tax base; and it is going to change the insurance market.

5G is going to allow farmers to be prewarned about encroaching diseases. Farmers will not have to wait to see their crops attacked by certain diseases; through 5G technology, they will be able to know and predict that those diseases are coming. It is going to help us feed the world.

5G technology is going to allow our young people to have virtual apprenticeships. If you are a young woman or a young man and you are right out of school and you are offered an apprenticeship or an internship, let's say in San Francisco, and you are living in Duluth-- say you are a student and you say ``I don't have the money to move to San Francisco, and I don't have the money to live in San Francisco,'' you will be able to do an internship through technology.

It is going to be 100 times faster. In terms of the amount of data, I don't know how to quantify that, but it is going to have an extraordinary impact on wireless technology.

What are we talking about here? When my phone calls the President's phone, what are we talking about? Really, we are just talking about radio waves. We are talking about radio waves. A radio wave is nothing more than electromagnetic radiation. I don't want to get off the subject here. When my phone talks to the President's phone, we are just sending radio waves through the air. Sometimes you might have heard that referred to as a spectrum. That is basically how a cell phone and the internet works, except with 5G, the speed with which that data is transmitted and the amount of data will be substantially larger.

Who owns those radio waves and the air through which those radio waves travel? According to Federal law--the Federal Communications Act of 1934--we do. We all do. The American people do.

The Federal Government, through the Federal Communications Commission and other agencies, including but not limited to Congress, regulates those radio waves going through the air, which we call spectrum, but those radio waves and the air through which they pass are owned by the American people. Just like a national park, just like the oil and gas offshore in Federal waters, just like the Rocky Mountains, they are owned by us, the American people.

Now there are certain types of radio waves that are owned by the American people that are perfect for 5G technology. These radio waves and this spectrum, if you will--I will use the term ``spectrum,'' but remember, I am just referring to radio waves moving through the air. This particular spectrum that is perfect for 5G technology is called the C-band. I don't know why they call it that, but that is what they call it. It is between 3.7 gigahertz and 4.2 gigahertz. Don't worry about what that means; just know that this part of the overall spectrum is perfect for 5G. It is perfect because it strikes a balance between coverage and capacity. And this C-band, if you will, is not too hot, not too cold. It is just right for 5G. It is critical to our development of 5G technology.

Since the American people own this C-band and since many of our wireless companies want to develop and offer 5G technology to the American people, given those facts, the FCC is going to play an integral part. The FCC licenses spectrum to companies that want to use it. In other words, if you are a wireless company and you want to use a portion of the spectrum--the radio waves going through the air that are owned by the American people--you go to the FCC and say: I want to license that spectrum, and I want to pay for it.

By law--not by custom; by law--the FCC says: OK. To be fair, we are going to hold an auction, and everybody who wants to bid on this portion of the spectrum can submit a bid.

In the last 25 years, the FCC has done an extraordinary job, by the way, of getting spectrum out to the private sector and getting the American taxpayer paid for its property interest. In the last 25 years, the FCC has conducted over 100 of these auctions. The FCC has brought in $123 billion for the American people--billion. That is nine zeros. I have met with folks at the FCC who handle the public auctions. They are incredibly experienced. They know what they are doing.

Let me get back to the C-band. When we left off, we were talking about the C-band being perfect for 5G. We have a lot of wireless companies that want to lease it, if you will--want to license it--and the FCC is there in the middle. You would expect that what we would do in this instance is what we always do--we hold a public auction.

It has been estimated that if we hold a public auction, if the FCC holds a public auction and tells all the wireless companies that want to bid to come on down and bid, it will bring in $60 billion for the American people--$60 billion. Do you know what we could do with $60 billion? With $60 billion, we could put 1 million kids through college for all 4 years. With $60 billion, we could hire 1 million new cops for a year. With $60 billion, we could build 7,000 miles of interstate. With $60 billion, we could make sure that broadband reaches every crevice and corner of America because right now it doesn't.

If you are in a rural area right now--I don't want to overstate my case, but in many instances, if you are in a rural area, you don't have the same broadband both in terms of reach and coverage and speed that people have in a large city, and that is true even before we get to 5G.

We could even give the money back to people. We have 140 million taxpayers in America. If we gave $60 billion back to 140 million taxpayers, that is about $430 for every taxpayer in America. I am not suggesting we do that. That is above my pay grade, making that decision. For a lot of people, $430 isn't that much money, but I have a lot of friends who would say $430 is a lot of money.

But in the middle of what I just described, we have a hair on the biscuit. We have three companies--and I am not disparaging them. Two of them are headquartered in Luxembourg, and one is out of Canada. They are foreign satellite companies. They have gone to the FCC and they have said: Look, we are going to make you a deal. We know we need to get this 5G, this C-band spectrum, into the market as quickly as possible. We will do the auction for you.

It doesn't matter that the FCC has already done 100 auctions and brought in $123 billion. These three foreign companies have gone to the FCC and said: Let us do the auction for you because we can do it better and quicker even though we have never done a public auction.

Then they told the FCC: By the way, we want to keep the money. We can do it faster than you, FCC. Even though you have done 100-plus auctions and we have never done one, just trust us. We can do it faster than you, and we want you to give us the spectrum and let us keep the $60 billion.

The FCC is considering doing it.

My State has a lot of oil and gas. The Federal Government--the American taxpayer--owns the seabed of much of the Gulf of Mexico. Periodically, on behalf of the American people, the Federal Government leases that seabed to oil and gas companies to explore for oil and gas. When the Federal Government leases the land, the Federal Government takes an upfront cash payment and a portion of any oil and gas that is found.

Can you imagine what would happen if I went to the Federal Government and said: Even though I have never done an oil and gas auction, I can do it faster than the Federal Government even though the Federal Government has done thousands of them. So I want you to give me all the minerals in the gulf and let me do the auction and keep the money.

Can you imagine the reaction if I approached the Federal Government? The people in charge of those oil and gas leases would do one of two things. I would end up in either handcuffs or a straitjacket. But that is what is being proposed here, and for the life of me, I do not understand why the FCC is taking this seriously.

An article just came out a couple of days ago. I will read the first sentence of it. It came out of a periodical called Market Watch on November 11, just a few days ago.

It starts: ``A big step in the U.S. deployment of 5G wireless could take place by year's end as the Federal Communications Commission is expected to back a plan from the satellite industry for auctioning off radio spectrum.''

They called a couple of investment bankers. One investment bank group is called Height Capital Markets, and another one is called Beacon Policy Advisors. I don't know where they are getting their information, but they are saying that the FCC has already agreed not to do a public auction but to let these foreign companies have the spectrum and get the $60 billion.

The article goes on to explain that these three companies--these three foreign companies, the two Luxembourg companies and the Canadian company--spent $515,000 lobbying regulators and lawmakers on its auction plan.

Then I go back and I look at another article that came out not too long ago, and it talks about one FCC Commissioner. It sounds like he is already sold. He was asked about the idea of just giving the spectrum to these foreign companies and letting them keep the money.

Here is what he said: ``Most of the criticism of what is known as the CBA proposal''--that is the proposal by the private companies--``shows a lack of understanding of how the Internal Commission works. . . . [D]on't let anyone try to lecture me on the commission's . . . efficiency and timeliness.

This Commissioner goes on to say:

If someone or some entities make a profit for being at the right place at the right time, I will live with that outcome. In the grand scheme of things, if it is a contest between speed and government trying to extract a significant piece of the transaction through a lengthy process, I'll take the speedy resolution.''

Are you kidding me? What planet did he just parachute in from? This is a current member of the FCC. Somebody needs to tell him about the President's Executive order, right here: ``Buy American and Hire American.'' It doesn't say ``hire Luxembourg companies.'' I have nothing against Luxembourg companies; I just prefer American companies. It doesn't say ``buy Canadian companies and hire Canadian.''

I can tell you what is going to happen if the FCC does this. First of all, the American people are going to lose $60 billion. No. 2, they are going to get sued. They say they can do it faster--I don't believe them--but I know this much: I know a little something about litigation. I used to do it for a living. They are going to be tied up in court for about 10 years--I can tell you that--because the Federal Communications Act requires a public auction.

I can tell you what else is going to happen. The people who live in rural communities are going to get the little end of nothing because we won't be able to control who gets this C-band. I will bet you that the companies that end up with it start--and I hope I am wrong--and remain in the cities. So if you live in the country, where I was raised, you won't get the benefit of 5G.

Also, if we give it to these three foreign companies and they get to decide who gets the C-band, how do we control who ends up with our spectrum? What if they give it to Huawei? What if they give it to a company that violates our national security and our national intelligence?

This is a really bad idea, folks. There is a bill that has been offered. It is a bipartisan bill in the House. I am going to sponsor it in the Senate. It is offered by two Republicans and two Democrats. The bill is very simple. It says: Do the right thing. This spectrum belongs to the American people. This C-band belongs to the American people. That $60 billion belongs to the American people. I am asking my friends at the FCC to do the right thing. Do what you have done 100 times already, and let everybody bid. Let everybody bid. Take the $60 billion that you get from the American people, and let's spend it on something the American people need.

I thank you for your time and attention.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source