Park City, UT – The Rural Wireless Association applauds FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel for her support of rural broadband deployment and rural operators as we move towards 5G services and beyond.  In her keynote at the Rural Wireless Infrastructure Summit in Park City, Utah, Chairwoman Rosenworcel discussed the Commission’s 100 percent broadband adoption plan as well as the billions of dollars that have been appropriated through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to fund broadband deployment in underserved and unserved areas, which comprise many rural areas across the United States.  While NTIA will be taking the lead role in managing those dollars, Chairwoman Rosenworcel noted the important role of the FCC in creating the accurate broadband data maps that NTIA will rely on in funding rural areas for broadband deployment.

In her remarks, Chairwoman Rosenworcel also mentioned how the upcoming 2.5 GHz auction will involve licensing spectrum primarily in rural areas so that rural operators can further deploy needed broadband in their service areas.  She also called out a draft Report and Order that will be voted on at the July 14 FCC Open Meeting that will provide needed spectrum to rural and Tribal operators by creating better incentives for licensees to partition and disaggregate their spectrum licenses, under a program dubbed the Enhanced Competition Incentive Program.  Chairwoman Rosenworcel also signaled her commitment to work closely with Congress to fully fund the FCC’s Reimbursement Program that will support many rural operators’ transitions toward more secure communications networks with the removal of Huawei and ZTE equipment from those networks.  Lastly, the Chairwoman signaled her commitment to ensuring the security of our networks through the promotion of Open RAN and open interfaces.  Specifically, the Chairwoman Rosenworcel complimented RWA’s Open RAN Resource Guide that assists rural operators in understanding the Open RAN ecosystem and ways to deploy networks that improve communications security through deployment of open interfaces.

The Chairwoman’s message is available here.