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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 4 / Thursday, January 7, 2021 / Rules and Regulations subscribe to enterprise-level quality-ofservice dedicated public safety data services. While the Greenlining Institute raises concerns that the record does not specify the number of public safety entities that purchase enterprise-grade services, or the affordability and competitiveness of the fees for such services, we observe several commenters explained the widespread nature of such services. For example, NCTA explains that one of its members provides data connectivity solutions for thousands of public safety entities, including police and fire departments, hospitals, ambulance services, public safety dispatchers, medical dispatch centers, and 911 providers throughout the country. Further, as noted above, as of August 2019, FirstNet was deployed in all 50 states, and nearly 9,000 public safety agencies and organizations were subscribers of the network. As Verizon explains, public safety entities generally purchase enterprise service contracts that are similar to other large agreements that government entities use to buy most goods and services on favorable terms for a fair price, explaining that some states use master agreements negotiated by nationwide purchases organizations such as the National Association of State Procurement Offices, for example. We also note that because such services were excluded from regulation under the Title II Order, that Order did not reduce the costs of such services in any case. These types of plans were not subject to the requirements of the Title II Order or the Open Internet Order 76
FR 59192, Sept. 23, 2011. However, even these non-mass-market offerings benefit from the Restoring Internet Freedom Orders light-touch approach, regulatory certainty, and likely investment incentives because they often make use of infrastructure that also is used to facilitate broadband internet access services e.g., middle mile connections. As CTIA states, robust and expansive broadband infrastructure benefits both consumers and public safety personnel, whether they rely on mass-market connectivity or enterprise offerings, because even infrastructure built principally to serve mass-market broadband consumers such as middle-mile networking increases overall network capacity, improving the experience of enterprise and government users and those utilizing non-broadband internet access service data services. Further, as broadband speeds and other performance characteristics continue to improve, the range of public safety services and applications that could
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potentially be offered over these networks expands.
23. The record reflects that the regulatory certainty and light-touch approach the Restoring Internet Freedom Order affords also likely gives ISPs stronger incentives to upgrade networks to 5G, paving the way for new and innovative applications and services that can benefit public safety.
5G networks ability to transmit massive amounts of data in real time will help enable new applications that provide immediate situational awareness to enable public safety professionals and first responders to provide more informed support and make better decisions during an emergency. For example, 5G capabilities will enable search and rescue drones and other unmanned vehicles to reach areas that would otherwise be inaccessible, and will also help enable products like augmented reality headsets that can help firefighters see through smoke, and create augmented disaster mapping that helps rescue teams get a clearer picture of the situation on the ground. The deployment and growth of 5G and the innovative applications it will enable will have clear public safety benefits, and we believe that our light-touch, market driven approach likely has, and likely will continue, to encourage ISPs investments in these networks.
24. The record reflects that improved, more robust broadband networks and services also have obvious and significant benefits for communications between public safety entities and the public. According to one commenter, three in ten Americans describe themselves as constantly online, and that the best way to reach them will be for public safety communication to also take place online. As the Edward Davis Company explains, better, faster, and more widespread broadband connections make it easier for the public to contact public safety in times of need and help public safety respond more quickly. Indeed, the Public Safety Broadband Technology Association asserts that light-touch regulation promotes extensive deployment and quick adoption of fast broadband, which enables citizens to reach public safety more easily in times of need. Similarly, USTelecom observes that increased investment has given rise to robust, reliable, and resilient networks that improve consumers access to public safety information, providing first responders and other government agencies with new and innovative ways to communicate and share, analyze, and act on information during emergencies.
25. The COVID19 pandemic has brought that point into stark relief. The
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robustness and reliability of ISPs networks have helped make possible the large-scale changes to daily life, including reliance on telework, digital learning, telehealth, and online communications with local and state officials. The record demonstrates that, even with unprecedented increases in traffic during the COVID19 pandemic, broadband networks have been able to handle the increase in traffic and shift in usage patterns. The ability of these networks to absorb major increases in traffic has allowed Americans to maintain social distancing, which experts have found to yield tremendous public health and safety benefits by flattening the curve of viral transmissions. USTelecom observes that one study showed that out of the ten countries with the highest populations in the world, the United States was the only country to not experience any download speed degradation in April 2020. Further, unlike the European Union, which takes a utility-style approach to broadband regulation and has had to request that bandwidth intensive services such as Netflix reduce video quality in order to ease stress on its network infrastructure, the United States has not had to take similar steps, despite similar surges in internet traffic.
This countrys robust and resilient broadband networks are, in significant part, the result of over two decades of almost continuous light-touch regulation, which has promoted substantial infrastructure investment and deployment. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that our decision to return broadband internet access service to its historical information service classification benefits public safety communications by encouraging the deployment of more robust, resilient broadband services networks and infrastructure over which public safety communications to, from, and among the public ride.
4. The Restoring Internet Freedom Order Is Unlikely To Harm Public Safety Communications, and Any Harm That It Could Cause Would Be Minimal 26. We find that our reclassification and rule determinations in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order are not likely to adversely affect public safety communications over broadband internet access service. First, we explain why the same protections we identify in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order as sufficient to protect openness generallytransparency, antitrust, and consumer protection lawequally protect the openness of public safety communications. Next, we find an absence of evidence of harms to public
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