Even with fingers and toes crossed, we were not able to host our 5th annual Women In Telecom fly-in in person this year. Between ongoing Covid spikes and a slow return to the Capitol after January 6th, it just seemed prudent to gather virtually once again. Thank goodness for broadband connectivity and the ability to gather remotely!
Even though mute buttons have a way of holding back some of the discussion for many groups, that is not the case with our women leaders in the rural broadband industry.
We started the event with a terrific panel of Capitol Hill staffers who are on the frontlines as Congress deliberates any potential new broadband funding in infrastructure legislation. From the Senate we were joined by April Jones with Sen. Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) office, and Olivia Trusty from the Senate Commerce Committee; and from the House, Meagan Foster with Rep. Welch’s (D-Vt.) office and Kate O’Connor with the House Energy and Commerce Committee. These four policy gurus shared their thoughts on the status of infrastructure legislation moving forward, the importance of and frustration with mapping efforts, the need to reform the USF contribution system, and generally their sincere interest in hearing directly from NTCA rural broadband providers on what is happening on the ground with broadband deployment- the challenges and the opportunities.
We then pivoted a few “virtual blocks” later to the FCC when we were joined by Carolyn Ruddy, Chief of Staff for FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington. Carolyn has a most intriguing resume with time spent in the private telecommunications world in addition to having been a political appointee at the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), and now her leadership role at the FCC.
We had a chat about the different but critical roles those three agencies play in broadband deployment with insights into how to work with each agency. We also talked about the Commissioner Simington’s thoughts regarding broadband deployment as well as additional areas of interest to him including spectrum issues and cybersecurity. When we talked about how to increase the number of women in the tech and telecom field, Carolyn noted that telecom is fun and ever-changing and that this should be part of the pitch to encourage more women to come into the field. We’ll continue to use our Women In Telecom umbrella to spread that message. I am looking forward to gathering with this group again in person at our Fall Conference in Nashville. I Can’t wait!
On a separate but somewhat related note, this week started off with more leadership discussions on infrastructure legislation when Adam Jorde and I had the opportunity to join Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for an event on Capitol Hill. Now I will not lie, the morning would have been a little bit less stressful for me if I had realized that the event was in person and not on Zoom with a mere 30 minutes to spare. Thanks to light D.C. traffic and a fabulous Uber driver, I was able to walk in the door without panting and even managed to time it so that I could spend some time with both senators and Adam and share our perspective on building future-proof networks and not using federal funds to overbuild existing investments with federal dollars.
All the way around, infrastructure is the word of the day.
