**REMARKS**

**MICHAEL J. COPPS**

# COMMISSIONER 

# FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

# TO

# UNITED STATES TELECOMMUNICATIONS TRAINING INSTITUTE

# WASHINGTON, DC SEPTEMBER 28, 2001

Thank you, Mickey, for that very kind introduction and for inviting me
to be with you and this distinguished global audience today. And thank
you to everyone in this audience for being here in a time of such
trouble and tribulation for our nation and, indeed, for all our nations.

Permit me to say, first of all, how grateful we at the FCC are for the
hundreds of messages of sympathy and support that have come to us from
nations around the world over the past two weeks. Don Abelson, who
directs our International Bureau, has shared those messages with me, and
I can tell you they have been a source of very great comfort and
strength for your friends at the FCC. They are moving, they are
touching, and they are appreciated.

I suppose we won't get back to the kind of world we lived in before
September 11 for a long, long time. Maybe never. I use the word "world"
instead of the word "nation" deliberately, because the terror we
witnessed on September 11 was an onslaught not just against one nation,
but against civilization and humanity. Just as it has united our nation,
so is it uniting people and nations the world over. Uniting them not
just in revulsion against those who perpetrated these horrors, but
uniting them in determination to wipe away this kind of terror in such a
way that our children and our children's children will not have to live
in constant fear.

As the events of two weeks ago unfolded, we watched not only the acts of
terrorism, but we saw also the heroism of the rescuers and the quick
response of our national government. And, very quickly, we began to see
that we were not alone. Soon we heard our National Anthem being played
at Buckingham Palace; we witnessed a national moment of silence across
the vastness of Russia; we saw leaders in the Middle East, Africa, Asia,
the Americas and Eastern Europe condemning the acts of barbarism. There
were outpourings of sympathy and support from all around the globe.
Americans knew that we were not alone, and we knew this instantly,
because of the reach and power of telecommunications.

The searing experience we have been through affects each of us
personally, as husbands, wives, fathers and mothers, but also
professionally, from the standpoint of the work we do. We are in the
great enterprise of communications, and communications are key for not
only designing the world of the future, but for preventing the kind of
horror we have just come through. And if we must endure more of this,
communications are key to helping to mitigate disasters and minimize
losses.

I believe that our telecommunications and media industries performed
well and even nobly in the wake of the attacks. They mobilized
immediately. They made an absolutely heroic effort to keep us in touch
with one another on our phones and cell phones, in spite of an
incredible and totally unprecedented volume of demand and in spite of
damage to their infrastructure. Radio, television and cable \-- locally,
nationally and internationally \-- worked around the clock and shared
scarce resources and precious information. Revenue considerations were
swept aside in favor of informing the citizenry. Newspapers and
newsmagazines produced special editions and began providing information
and perspective from the outset. Satellite communications were critical
as we all struggled to make sense of, and react to, the crimes that were
committed. And the Internet provided a critically important new channel
of communication, connecting many of us when other means of
communication were made unavailable. So we owe the men and women of all
these industries a large, and still growing, debt.

The whole world was witness to the tragic events of September 11 as they
happened. It was horrifying, but the fact that we all could see events
as they occurred, and hear from our leaders and thinkers quickly, meant
the difference between an outbreak of national terror born of ignorance
and cooperation based on knowledge.

Now the challenge is to prepare for the worst. We really have no option.
We must be about the task of prioritizing what we do, of allocating
resources toward new ends, and mobilizing the great power of
communications to serve the safety and security of all our people.
Recent events do not change what the public interest is, but they do
focus us on the most fundamental pillar of the public interest, which is
the safety and security of the people.

I suggest that each of us has an obligation, in the aftermath of
September 11, to take another look at what we are doing as regulators,
both within our countries and in the global arena. Each of us needs to
reassess our priorities and strategies to make certain that they are in
conformity with the requirements of safety and security for our people.
Telecommunications are a bridge not only to our economic future, but to
our security future, too. So I believe there are new questions to be
asked, new initiatives to undertake, and that they involve everyone in
this room in important ways. At the FCC we are trying to address these
questions.

I was asked to spend a few minutes describing how the Commission works.
The first thing to highlight is that the FCC is a regulatory body
independent of telecommunications companies. Our role is to promote the
public interest of our citizens \-- all of our citizens. Our Congress
makes the law; we follow it. That means we are the expert agency that
implements the directives of the Congress. We do so in an open and
transparent manner. Any citizen can participate, and we encourage more
of them to do so. Everything we do occurs in open meetings or is
published for anyone to read. The federal courts may review our
decisions upon petition from affected citizens, and the courts have not
been bashful about asserting this prerogative.

The FCC oversees telephone, cable, wireless, broadcast, and satellite
communications. I am one of five Commissioners, although one
Commissioner slot is temporarily open. The President appoints us and the
Senate confirms us. We may only be removed in special circumstances, and
never just because we disagree with the President or any other
government official. Three of the Commissioners come from the party in
control of the Executive Branch, and two are from the opposition party.
Commissioners are strictly prohibited from owning a financial interest
in any company that we regulate.

We conduct our business in three main ways: (1) rulemaking; (2)
licensing; and (3) adjudication. [Rulemaking]{.underline} involves a
process of making or changing the regulations that govern
telecommunications industries. The public has full access to the
Commission as we debate new rules, and always has the right to
participate in the debate. All of our decisions are published.
[Licensing]{.underline} and spectrum allocation involve granting
permission for people to operate broadcast or wireless services. We
generally assign spectrum through auctions. [Adjudication]{.underline}
occurs at the FCC much as it does in a regular court, with a special
judge and the ability to appeal.

Congress has set our basic policy outlook at the FCC. It has told us to
encourage competition; to create only those rules that are needed to
serve the public interest; and to ensure equal access for all Americans
to communications services. In whatever we do, we try to follow these
three mandates.

I am new to the FCC, but I am not new to international cooperation. I
want you to know that I am particularly interested in promoting
international cooperation in telecom, both in long-standing areas of
common concern and in important new areas created by the events of
September 11.

My premise concerning international cooperation is simply this: We have
much to learn from one another. I come at our international dialogue
from the perspective that most of us have enjoyed some successes as
regulators, and probably most of us have endured some failures, too. Let
me tell you where I [don't]{.underline} come from: You're never going to
hear me say, "Do it just the way we did it in the United States."
America has a long record of regulatory involvement, and that record
contains our share of failures as well as successes. Often we can learn
as much from studying our failures as we can from talking about where
things went well.

The U.S. Telecommunications Training Institute, under the dynamic
leadership of my friend Michael Gardner, has encouraged just this kind
of global exchange. That is why it has been so successful; that is why
it has been able to make such a profound contribution to moving global
communications forward. I am truly looking forward to working with USTTI
in the months and years ahead.

While I have been at the Commission for only a few months, I have been
working on international issues for a long time \-- first in the U.S.
Senate, then in the private sector, and after that for eight years at
the Department of Commerce during the Clinton Administration.

At the Commerce Department, my focus was on promoting international
trade. I worked to enhance our country's appreciation of the importance
of the global economy to our own prosperity, and to involve America's
enterprises, particularly our small and medium-sized enterprises, in
global trade. And while I did this across the whole spectrum of our
country's many business sectors, telecommunications and information
industries were at the forefront of what we were trying to accomplish. I
think we made impressive progress during those years in working together
across national boundaries and cooperating in the important task of
building commercial ties and designing investment and regulatory
climates to bring the wonders of communications to people everywhere.

Finally, let me say that the FCC is here to serve the public interest,
and serving the public interest includes being responsive to the
perspective of [international]{.underline} regulators, who have so much
to teach us. You don't have to convince me of that. I know it's true.

My door is open. Please come and visit me and let me know how you think
we can work more effectively together. I also want you to know my friend
Paul Margie, who recently joined my staff as Spectrum and International
Legal Advisor. Paul joined us from the staff of Senator Jay Rockefeller,
where he was a formative influence on Capitol Hill in working toward
enlightened telecommunications and information industries policy.

Thank you for listening, and I look forward to a long and productive
relationship with you.