Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Media (Sullivan): Hearings to examine intelligent networks, focusing on powering artificial intelligence and transforming communications.

Explore the relationship between telecommunications infrastructure and artificial artificial intelligence. That relationship moves in both directions. AI requires low-latency and high-bandwidth networks, but AI has real potential to make net— to make networks more efficient and secure. This hearing is not intended to be a referendum on the merits of artificial intelligence. Around the world, however, our allies and adversaries are jockeying for AI leadership.

To position the United States for ongoing economic and security leadership, the U.S. needs AI-supportive and AI-enhanced networks. AI is increasingly a part of Americans' daily lives. For example, in 2024, nearly three-quarters of enterprises used AI for at least one business function. In 2025, more than half of Americans reporting— reported using generative AI. These trends have been accompanied by a surge in demand across networks, and AI adoption is only expected to grow.

Most enterprises are still scaling their uses of AI, and many individual AI uses are for basic search functions. As AI use and downstream applications of AI continue to grow, demand for reliable, high-speed, high-capacity networks will also grow. Today, we will explore how the rapid adoption of AI has impacted existing network infrastructure. This includes the new demand that AI has added to networks. We will explore how widespread AI use has forced networks to evolve, requiring more capacity and more complex designs so that AI can run efficiently on those networks.

We will consider how government providers and other industries are responding to that demand. Private companies have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in network deployment in recent years. Various federal broadband programs have also provided billions to support targeted network deployment deployment and maintenance throughout the country. We will review obstacles to AI supportive networks. Opaque regulations and lack of coordination should not get in the way of network deployment, of network development, and the many downstream applications it enables.

And finally, we will consider how AI can be used to improve our networks. Zooming out from the technical questions, we must, must also ask a more fundamental question: Why must our networks be prepared for AI? First, America has a geostrategic imperative to make sure our networks are the best in the world. Now more than ever, we cannot fall behind in developing the most resilient and secure networks. Second, to reap the full economic benefits from AI and other rapidly emerging technologies— there are many of them are promising— and we need reliable connectivity for individuals and enterprises all over the country.

This is not connectivity for the sake of just checking a box or hitting a milestone. Nebraska's hardest-to-reach communities include farms and ranches that are at the leading edge of connectivity-based ag solutions. Rural hospitals depend on resilient and secure communication networks to use state-of-the-art medical technologies and reach patients in remote areas. Manufacturers rely on the Internet of Things on robotics and cloud-based systems to streamline internal processes and improve quality control. As AI adoption increases, so will the demand for reliable and resilient communications infrastructure.

Networks are the backbone along with the enormous amounts of data associated with AI are transmitted. I look forward to discussing both how networks are adapting to respond to AI and how AI is being used in networks to proactively plan for the future. Thank you. Before we begin, I would ask unanimous consent that letters from a broad range of organizations describing the need for AI-ready communication networks be entered into the record. We have a number of them.

Without objection, so ordered. Senator Lujan will be joining us shortly, but we will begin the hearing, and I would like to introduce our witnesses for today. Our first witness is Jonathan Spalter, President and Chief Executive Officer of U.S. Telecom, the Broadband Association, a trade association representing the broadband broadband providers and communication companies that build, operate, and secure networks essential for America's AI economy. I'd like to give a warm welcome to our second witness, Commissioner Dan Watermeyer of the Nebraska Public Service Commission, which oversees the telecommunication carriers and related services that support AI-powered applications throughout the state of Nebraska. Our third witness is Bob Everson, Chief Architect of Provider Mobility at Cisco, where he leads the design and development of mobile network platforms and end-to-end architectures that enable AI-driven communications networks.

And our final witness is Asad Ramzim Ali. Is that correct? Ramzim Ali, Director of Artificial Intelligence and Technology Policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator at Vanderbilt University. Welcome to you all. And we will now have the opening comments from our panel.

Mr. Spalter, I understand it's your birthday. Happy birthday. Well, thank you very much. And you're going to be recognized for 5 minutes. Thank you.

And I couldn't imagine spending my birthday anywhere else but here. Thank you. But thank you, Chair Fischer and Senator Klobuchar, as well as to the other members of the subcommittee. When I was Thinking about how to prepare my remarks today, I took some inspiration actually from a trip I took a couple of weeks back to the rafters of the Capitol Dome to take a look at Constantino Brumidi's amazing fresco.

I looked up and I saw, much to my disbelief given my day job, that there was the goddess Venus actually laying the very first American submarine telegraph cable. The scene was actually painted in 1865, the very moment that America was laying that very first transoceanic telegraph cable. The Civil War was ending, and it was then that a very visionary Congress believed that the future of our country ran through communications infrastructure. Well, they were right then, and you on this committee are so right now to expand that dialogue in the current AI moment. Moment that we're in.

Because with AI, we really are at the cusp of the next fundamental evolution of the internet. For 30 years, the internet we've come to know was built kind of like a freeway. Imagine with 8 lanes going into town but only 2 lanes coming back. And that asymmetric design was literally baked in as the assumption that— on the assumption that we human beings and our devices would always receive more data than we send. And as we all go home to binge stream Love Island while our kids are playing Roblox, that's very still much the case.

Except that as we move forward into this AI phase of the internet, that assumption is being completely shattered. Now the machines and sensors all around us require massive capacity to carry data both upstream upstream and down, which fiber broadband uniquely is suited to do. Other technologies we know are working to expand their upstream capacity, but fiber doesn't have to. It never had to. It was built for this era with near limitless capacity and low latency in both directions.

And this is why satellite and wireless and Wi-Fi and other technologies that might become available in the connectivity landscape will always hand off their traffic to fiber as quickly as they can to take advantage of its massive capacity and low latency. And it's for this reason that fiber broadband really is the circulatory system of our AI-enabled innovation economy. Thus, for us, the biggest barrier to getting AI-ready connectivity to every community isn't technology, it isn't investment, nor is it our will. We're ready. It's government, specifically permitting, waiting months, even years for permission to connect more communities to broadband.

So our asks today are very straightforward. Pass the Close the Gap Act, the RAIL Act, and the Accelerating Broadband Permits Act so we can get our shovels and our fiber network in the ground and connect more of your communities to make sure that they too are going to be part of our AI future. And let me emphasize this point. Without permitting reform to speed up fiber network deployment, not just AI, but our whole innovation economy is at risk of being put on ice. And nowhere is this more true than in rural America.

As you, as you rightly pointed out, Chair, the communities that need us most are those where your actions today can make the biggest difference. In 1865, Congress looked at a single telegraph cable on the ocean floor, and they saw the American future. We were optimists then, and we must be optimists now, with a healthy dose of pragmatism built in as well. So the question before us, I believe, as a society, is not do we stop or continue? It's the question that has been perpetually asked by innovation, and one that we've successfully answered: How do we proceed responsibly?

In ways that will most fully benefit everyone. And that is the task before us. America's broadband providers, to, to a person, look forward to working with you. And on behalf of all of U.S. telecom member companies, I really thank you for the opportunity to be here today on my birthday. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Spalzer. We have been joined by my dear friend and colleague, Ranking Member Senator Lujan. Did you have comments that you would like to make at this time? Uh, Madam Chair, thank you so much for putting this hearing together, and to the witnesses for being here. Look forward to the testimony.

Thank you, Ranking Member. Uh, Commissioner Watermeyer, you are now recognized for 5 minutes for your opening comments. Good morning, Chair Fischer and members of the committee. My name is Dan Watermeyer. I represent Nebraska's 1st District on the Public Service Commission.

I appreciate the invitation to speak to you today about the future of AI technology and opportunities. And also the challenges it offers to Nebraska and on a national scale. The Nebraska Public Service Commission is dedicated to the advancement of broadband funding. Since the early 2000s, we have administered Nebraska Universal Service Fund, which now supports the development and maintenance of broadband-capable networks at 100x100 speeds. We have also administered the Nebraska Bridge Program and the federally funded Capital Funding Projects Fund, which over the course of the last few grant cycles The broadband deployment projects have fueled the competition to build over 20,000 unserved and underserved across the state.

Over the past 5 years, we have been fortunate to receive federal and state funds. I am excited to see how this enthusiasm will grow as we develop new AI tools. AI could become a tremendous support for our agriculture producers and already has. Precision agriculture tools are fantastic ways to conserve water, monitor livestock health, and target applications of fertilizers and pesticides, saving money and protecting the environment at the same time. These AI-powered tools are the future of agriculture, but we need reliable, universally stable and available broadband in order to use them.

As adoption of and reliance on AI technology increases, it will become even more important to ensure that all Americans have access to reliable, high-speed broadband networks. We need to ensure that rural Americans are not left behind on this. Technology moves forward. For the average citizen, AI technology is only useful if they have access to broadband connectivity. We must continue funding rural buildout or this technology simply won't be available for all who need it.

I also want to mention the importance of fiber buildout, as my partner here mentioned. While we recognize that many technologies may be able to deliver broadband to our citizens, Our commission has focused on fiber development for a few reasons. Specifically, first, scalability. Not every technology can easily meet the FCC's current 100x20 technology threshold. Meanwhile, fiber optic networks can greatly exceed these speed thresholds and are capable of meeting our needs into the foreseeable future.

I want to point out that data centers are not using wireless or satellite technology to move data. They are using fiber. Second, supporting development. Fiber is the backbone for basically all the other technologies. We need fiber-based networks to support wireless, fixed wireless, and the cable networks.

Third, reliability. Buried fiber is much less susceptible— successful to weather hazards and natural disasters. Fires, tornadoes, and ice storms in recent years in Nebraska have shown the need for resiliency that fiber can provide. Developing broadband infrastructure will not be enough if these networks are not maintained. We have heard from industry providers that although the investment in fiber itself may last for 40 years, the security required and fiber must be upgraded much more frequently to accommodate changing technology.

This to be expected as demands on the network for download and upload speeds are greatly— and latency demands continue to grow. The task that AI is capable of today will be eclipsed by what it can do 5 years from now, so long as the network is upgraded to keep it up. For that reason, I want to emphasize that new buildout must be as future-proof as possible in the face of developing technology. Chair Fischer and members of this committee, I know that you recognize the importance of maintaining broadband networks. Hopefully it is clear that AI technology is dependent on those networks.

I also think it is important to recognize that many of these networks are supported through federal and state universal service funds, and the Raskins and I represent are grateful for your work and the work of your colleagues on the USF working group. I look forward to hearing the group's recommendations for the future of USF. I know there is a discussion on how the federal USF is funded. I want to just point out that AI creates and will create significant demand on the network a network that is supported today through surcharges on voice only. Thank you for your invitation to speak, and I will gladly answer questions as you end if I can.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Next, we have Mr. Everson. You are recognized for 5 minutes. Thank you, Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Lujan, Chairman Cruz, Ranking Member Cantwell, and distinguished senators.

Thank you for the invitation to testify. My name is Bob Everson. For 30 years at Cisco, I have worked on the systems powering our nation's critical networks and I've never seen a shift this consequential. Artificial intelligence is not just another application. It is driving a new connectivity fabric that will help define US economic strength and national security for decades.

Today, I will focus on how AI is transforming our networks and how Cisco is using AI to improve them. Mm. First, AI is changing not only the volume of network traffic, but the behavior. Cisco measured a fourfold increase in AI inference traffic over 8 months.

Networks have traditionally been optimized for content flowing downstream. AI is far more two-way and uplink-intensive. Prompts, context, sensor data, and agent activity all travel back towards AI models, and the resulting connections are active longer than conventional web transactions. AI agents will amplify these effects by operating at software speed. In our testing, an agent generated 450% more traffic than a person performing the same task.

And roughly 70% of that additional traffic was inference. Meeting these demands requires more balanced network designs, greater upstream capacity, resilient paths with end-to-end visibility, stronger security, and quality of service that can be tailored to AI traffic. As models become faster, the locations where computing occurs, from centralized clouds to the edge, will increasingly affect performance, cost, and data governance. A network this fast and distributed cannot be operated solely at human pace. Through Agentic Ops, Cisco uses AI to support self-healing operations, identifying faults, rerouting traffic, and recovering at machine speed.

Our deep network models can distinguish legitimate AI traffic from anomalies, help predict and isolate threats, identify vulnerabilities, and guide operators in deploying patches. AI-native mobile networks can use spectrum and infrastructure more efficiently, adapt in real time, and enable new services. For service providers, this can also turn the network into a platform for growth, opening new revenue streams beyond connectivity through services like inference optimization, edge AI, trusted AI services, and industry-specific solutions. One noteworthy example is integrated sensing and communication, which allows AI to combine radio signals with vision and other inputs so wireless networks can connect devices while also detecting objects in movement. So support applications such as safer robotics, more efficient buildings, enhanced public safety, and even healthcare.

Together, these capabilities define a new generation of intelligent, secure, and distributed networks that carry AI, use AI to improve operations, and enable AI-native applications and services, strengthening economic competitiveness and national security. I commend NTIA for this week's call to action for 6G leadership and security, which advances the international cooperation needed to ensure trusted partners shape the 6G future. To sustain U.S. leadership, I offer three policy priorities. First, accelerate the U.S. AI-native stack. Cisco is investing across multiple dimensions of AI-native networking, bringing new capabilities to 5G Advanced today while building the foundation for 6G.

One example of this commitment is AIWIN, a collaboration among Cisco, NVIDIA, MITRE, the O-RAN Development Company, Booz Allen, and T-Mobile, which brings AI, compute, networking, and wireless together to create a secure American-led path from 5G Advanced to AI-native 6G. I would encourage Congress to lean in on American strengths in these areas. Second, modernize permitting and infrastructure. As computing becomes more distributed, permitting must enable rapid and responsible deployment. As this committee considers the future of Universal Service Fund, it should account for the evolving costs of AI-ready networks so rural and urban communities can share in the benefits.

Third, maintain a balanced spectrum policy. The 800 MHz of licensed spectrum recently made available by Congress is essential to high-capacity, high-uplink connectivity. The FCC's authorization of the 6 GHz band for unlicensed use is equally important to meeting enterprise demand. A dependable pipeline of both is foundational to American leadership, and I thank you for your efforts to rebuild it. Cisco stands ready to work with this committee to ensure the U.S. remains the world's premier destination for AI and wireless innovation.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, Mr. Everson. Mr. Ramzanali, welcome. You are recognized for 5 minutes. Chairman Fischer, Ranking Member Lujan, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for holding this important hearing.

My name is Asad Ramzanali, and I am the director of AI and Technology Policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. AI and telecommunications are deeply intertwined. Fiber networks are how data moves in and out of AI data centers. And for Americans to benefit from AI, every American must have access to that system. We must reprioritize deploying high-speed, reliable, and symmetrical networks that reach every home in this country.

Because I agree with much of what my co-panelists have said, I won't repeat them. Instead, I'll focus— I'll start with one specific threat that AI poses to our telecommunications systems, and that's cybersecurity. Well before AI, our telecommunications networks were vulnerable. A couple of years ago, the Chinese hacking group Salt Typhoon breached at least 8 US telecommunications providers, and it was actually able to intercept calls and text messages from high-profile targets, including presidential candidates. One investigation called our systems a house full of open windows.

But Salt Typhoon did it the old way, the low-tech pre-AI way. In the last year, AI has started strengthening cyber attackers' methods. We've now seen several AI-enabled cyber attacks, including at least one that breached another country's telecommunications systems. As AI-enabled cyber threats started expanding, the FCC went the other way. It rescinded the cybersecurity rules that were put in place after the Salt Typhoon.

That is the opposite of what we need to be doing. Now we have even more reason for concern. Just last week, an OpenAI model in testing bypassed its sandbox constraints and hacked an AI— the AI platform Hugging Face. I recommend 3 actions on this front. First, require telecommunications providers to secure their networks, and similar requirements should be put in place for all critical infrastructure operators.

Second, mandate pre-deployment testing of leading AI models. Testing should cover closed and open weight systems alike, but the mitigations to, to reduce the identified risks will differ. This should not become a ban on open weight models. Open weight models are critical for competition, for research, and for cybersecurity. Third, this committee should open an investigation into the OpenAI Hugging Face incident.

I'll now use the remainder of my time to talk about how America's history with telecommunications, almost two centuries of history, can actually help inform the AI governance debates of today. Since the telegraph, communications providers have been required to treat similar customers alike. That's the principle of nondiscrimination. As an example, consider that the FCC barred AT&T from blocking third-party equipment on its network, and that opened the door to, to early innovations like the answering machine, the fax machine, and even the modem that, that gave us the internet. AI models are— AI model providers are now gatekeepers in their own right, and they have their own conflicts of interest.

Here's one example. Last summer, as cloud code started becoming popular, Anthropic cut off model access to an independent AI startup called Windsurf that also did AI coding. Anthropic was Windsurf's critical supplier, and it became its competitor. That's the conflict of interest. Gatekeepers pick winners and losers instead of consumers, competition, and markets deciding outcomes.

Two, shared infrastructure, shared jurisdiction. Telecommunications has always been governed, governed by federal, state, and local governments together. Today's data center buildout has no coherent governance strategy at all, and it's provoking real backlash around the country. Dozens of shelved projects, hundreds of protests, and hundreds of thousands of signatures just this year. With few policy levers at their disposal, hundreds of municipalities have turned to moratoriums, and one state has done the same.

Instead of states subsidizing data center construction, Congress could establish a regime where local governments can charge a franchise fee so that they can compete for benefits and they retain the right to say no. Finally, telecommunications is also instructive in the form of overspending on infrastructure that leads to bubbles. Today, trillions of dollars of investment are chasing tens of billions of dollars of AI revenue. This is more than the country has spent as a relative share of GDP than on the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program, the electricity buildout, or the interstate highway system. The financing mechanisms involved are also troubling.

There's circular financing, which happened during the dot-com bubble. There's private credit, which Jamie Dimon has warned is full of cockroaches. There's special purpose vehicles, which Enron famously used, and there's asset-backed securities, which we all learned about in 2008. This committee investigated the financial engineering that enabled the dot-com bubble, but it did so after the bubble burst. In this instance, we can start those investigations now.

There are myriad other things to discuss in the AI debate. I tried to focus on the infrastructural aspects of it. I thank you for holding this important hearing. And I look forward to your questions. Thank you, sir.

I would like to recognize Senator Lujan for his questions at this time. He's bouncing back and forth with different obligations this morning. So, Senator Lujan, you are recognized. Madam Chair, thank you so very much for that. And to all of our panelists, thank you for being here and everyone that's tuning in.

I'll start with a simple yes or no question. Mr. Spaltner, can AI be transformative for the people in America if they do not have access to broadband networks?

No. Commissioner? No. Mr. Everson? No.

Mr. Ramzanali? No. The $42.5 billion BID funding appropriated by Congress has been called a once-in-a-lifetime investment in connectivity and reliable high-speed access across the country. Yet the administration has altered policies in a way that steer investments away from fiber buildout and in doing so have injected significant delays into the process. Denying states and territories the full amount of money appropriated for BEAD goes against the goal of connecting 100% of Americans across America.

Mr. Spaulding, can you explain how the BEAD restructuring notice impacted your member companies and what that means for our ability to support AI applications at scale? It has— made us all focus our minds on the additional levers that we have as an industry to accelerate our ability to not only build but invest in expanding fiber connectivity to where it's needed most, and particularly to the unserved and underserved who stand to benefit significantly from AI connectivity. Which is why, though mindful of and dutiful to the rules that have been established and working closely with state broadband offices, We are imploring Congress and other parts of the government to accelerate our ability to build through things like permitting reform. And we support—. Mr. Spaulder, what good is permitting reform if the money is taken away from you?

What good is the money for your companies if permitting reform is passed, if the administration takes the money from you? Well, we're—. You can get everything out of the way, but if you don't have any money, what does it matter? Yeah, we're— our core focus as an industry is to do whatever we can to build fiber network connectivity as far as possible. We do so mightily through private investment and through public partnerships as, as much as we possibly can.

Let me ask the question this way. If your member companies have full access to the $42 billion, will they be able to build more fiber? Well, obviously we will be able to. I appreciate that. Commissioner?

Complicated question for me. Uh, BEAD was originally put in the Nebraska Public Service Commission With the change in administration, there was a creation of the broadband office in Nebraska. I understand what happened inside of the world as far as the applications, different things. After the first application, many of our telecoms in the state of Nebraska had spent a great deal of money on engineering and then was turned back and had to reapply. They decided not to apply.

So the long story short is, in my opinion, not from the commission's opinion, but if there were dollars were spent there, we could get it in faster hands. As far as fiber. I appreciate that, Commissioner. I, I learned from Chair Fischer that I have a few things in common with you. I was a member of the commission in New Mexico, also a farmer, so, uh, I already like you, uh, Commissioner.

So look forward to learning from you as well. Mr. Everson, same question.

So as an engineer, I'm probably the least qualified up here to, to talk about this. I will say from our standpoint, um, you know, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity with the funding And, uh, getting everybody connected is really an essential aspect of things for us. Appreciate that. Mr. Ramzan Ali, as the United States considers how AI strengthens network performance and resilience, we need to equally be rigorous around the security, which I appreciate your attention to investigations and the challenge to us here in the Senate and in the Congress, um, in that space. I'm concerned that there are many decisions that are being made moving toward a voluntary evaluation framework for these high-powered models.

Leaving the security of our public infrastructure dependent on the goodwill of individual developers. In your view, what role should government play in evaluating the capabilities of these high-powered models, especially when public infrastructure is at risk based on the choices of a small number of powerful and influential developers? You asked the question the perfect way. We should not be dependent on the goodwill of private companies. We should be the ones who are deciding, the public, through their representatives and the agencies that Congress creates.

Should be the ones deciding what the standards are, should be helping making sure that critical infrastructure providers are ready when, when sophisticated AI models are released. And we should be the ones deciding when all of that happens. Appreciate that, Madam Chair. Thank you for the flexibility and allowing me to ask questions first. I look forward to the rest of your responses and look forward to working with each and every one of you.

Thank you again, Madam Chair. Thank you, Senator Lujan. Nebraska is home to dozens of growing industries that are increasingly reliant on AI in their day-to-day operations.

Operations. That's from precision agriculture, which, Commissioner, you talked about, manufacturing, logistics, freight, healthcare, financial services, public safety. And Nebraska businesses and their customers are integrating more advanced technologies like AI. They have to be resilient. You know, if we're looking at the applications, we want to make sure they're resilient.

They have to be able to have that connectivity which you talked about. Can you tell me how Nebraska's Communications Infrastructure Commissioner is ready for the complexity and volume of traffic that AI has introduced into the equation? I believe they are ready. They're working to improve it and to be ready for the expansion that's going to happen. But to talk about the resilient— resiliency specifically in Nebraska, we've had an event in the last year with the wildfires, and I spoke with several telecoms basically unaffected because they had vaults, they had pieces of puzzle that were covered.

When we had the floods and the ice storms in 2020, we were covered there. We lost very little infrastructure as far as that goes. So I have a lot of confidence that the telecoms, specifically in Nebraska and across the country, are actually ready for the AI and they're just anxious to do it. But we've got to be able to— worried about this last mile and we got to be worried about the last customer. Do you think these customers are going to have that connectivity?

That they're going to need to compete in sectors like manufacturing and agriculture. We've heard it takes that fiber. What are we looking at here when you have the basics involved with AI and how that's going to be available? Infrastructure isn't the same on every city as it compares to the rural areas. In your home, I know in Merritt, in the counties where you live, We have the infrastructure there for manufacturing, which will be much easier.

We have the infrastructure there for the first step in agriculture, someone's office, their home. But when we're going to talk about going over the hill with an autonomous vehicle, or we're going to talk about going over the hill to look at something specific— on my farm, I specifically use satellite and drone imagery to look at weeds, to look at different things. It tells me quicker than I could ever be there. We have that technology, but it's the next step is what I worry about. And I think the telecoms are ready.

But I just don't think we're going to have the connectivity to the last mile, the last animal, the last acre, but like we'd like to have. Can you tell us how important the Universal Service Fund and Nebraska's Universal Service Fund are to ensuring that rural communities have that connectivity so that they can participate in the AI economy today and into the future? It's critical. I mean, the Nebraska Universal Service Fund is what we considered partnered with the federal side. We watch with the dollars that they receive federally and the programs they receive.

We try to match and fill those gaps. Nebraska has actually reached— and my philosophy is on everything I've done in the legislature or in the commission is all about infrastructure. I would like to spend a dollar but not just have it help or serve one individual, but see how it helps the overall infrastructure of the country, the county, the city, right, you know, the entire world really. Because that's the key for me when I think about building this infrastructure is it's not just going to help one individual, But if we can do that, we will actually help infrastructure for the whole country. We all know infrastructure is an investment in the future of our communities and our country as well.

Mr. Spalter, many of your members utilize Universal Service Fund as well. So I put that question to you. How important is the Universal Service Fund to be able to have that connectivity to rural communities? That need to, not just want to, but that need to participate in an AI-centric economy. And I would add they must participate in an AI-centric economy.

And one of the accelerators of that is a reformed, thoughtful USF program that can keep pace with the changes that we're seeing in our network and the needs of the communities that it's designed to serve, which is why we are very grateful for your service as chair of the USF Working Group along with Senator Luján. We're going to do everything we can to support your work to ensure that every community can get the fiber infrastructure they need, maintain it, optimize it for the long haul so that we can actually deliver AI's benefits to every community in the country. Thank you. Mr. Everson, when somebody picks up their phone, they want to make a call or send a text. The person's usually not thinking about the nature of the network over which that data is being transmitted.

Unless the call drops or unless the text doesn't go through or the email gets stuck along the way. This is largely true for end users of AI as well. Residential and businesses, they care about the quality of the data and the outcome that they have. However, they likely don't care about the network and then that allowed them to be able to use that AI model. So Mr. Everson, can you describe the need for complementary network technologies that are going to support an AI economy and especially the end users for that AI?

Absolutely. Thank you, Senator. It's a great question. The way I like to think about it is, is exactly as you said it. The user doesn't want to have to care what network they're connected.

They want access to that service regardless of where they are. So whether they're on their Wi-Fi network at home, they're on Wi-Fi at their company, whether they're out on the macro network and they're using the cellular network, or they're using satellite services as were mentioned earlier, or they're at home on their broadband connection, it should all be the same. And that fabric is really essential to our success. Thank you. Senator Klobuchar, you are recognized for your question.

Well, thank you very much, Senator Fischer, and thank you to all of you for being here today. Um, I believe that our laws need to keep up with the technology and be as sophisticated as the technology and have a coordinated approach. I've been frustrated that we haven't been able to move forward on different fronts. Senator Thune and I hope to have our bill completed, uh, over the August, uh, time period so we can have a markup immediately when we come back, um, to set some standards. And I know there's other ideas out there as well.

Because we just can't stand down and not have coordinated rules in place when it comes to AI and when it comes to content with AI. I think this technology could bring us miraculous cures. I know Mayo is using it now in some really good ways in Minnesota. But as David Brooks once wrote, he doesn't know if how to write about AI because he doesn't know if it will bring us to heaven or hell. So if we do nothing, it's going to bring us to hell, and I think we could be in much better shape if we put some rules in place.

So we're going to start with some of that with this committee, but I just don't think we can keep waiting until the next election and the next election and the next election. So I'm going to start out just asking you, Mr. Ramzan Neeli, about what steps need to be taken within the federal government to strengthen our oversight of AI that presents high risks, including the risk of cyberattacks. We've had a number of them as other states have had. We just had some water structures that was water infrastructure that were attacked. I don't know if it's AI related, by the way, cyberattack.

I appreciate your question and your long leadership on so many of the issues that AI governance includes. To answer the narrow part of it, which is how do we think about cyber and those kinds of risks. Uh, to me, there's two parts of it. You have to harden the infrastructure that critical infrastructure operators have, and you have to require pre-deployment testing so that the government and critical infrastructure providers know the scope of the threat and can mitigate risks. Those two parts both have to happen.

Okay. And Mr. Everson, in order to, uh, protect, uh, the fast pace of cyberattacks, We likely need to use AI to respond just as fast. So what steps should companies take to strengthen their own cybersecurity practices, including by using AI? Absolutely. Thank you, Senator.

You know, it's— there's no surprise that AI has accelerated the discovery of vulnerabilities and the access to those. You know, what we're seeing is also an ability using these models, if we look things like Project Glasswing and Daybreak, we were actually able to identify with early access there— our team gave me a fascinating stat— they were able to go through 1.8 billion lines of code in 5 weeks' time, which is unprecedented. So there is a balance that it gives the good guys really good tools to use. From our standpoint, there's some really basic recommendations to get to the point of your question. Number one is is patching.

Patch, patch, you know, install the patches. Number 2 is identify the products that aren't patchable. There's a lot of tech debt out there that needs to be upgraded. Multifactor authentication to limit people having access to the network. And then a zero-trust architecture, which, you know, doesn't just rely on a perimeter, but everything that happens in there requires authentication.

Okay. Mr. Spalter, can you talk about the changes and updates our telecom infrastructure infrastructure needs to support what's coming at us with AI or what is already here?

I think that the fundamental physics of what the technologies that comprise fiber technology are already in place, which is the symmetrical capabilities at scale and at speed and at low latency to be able to do the throughput that AI is going to be required, not only to support the infrastructure but more importantly human beings they're going to be needing it, which is why we need to deploy more fiber as more broadly as possible. And that's why I'll go back, hopefully not as a broken record, to the essential need for permitting reform. I'd also say that—. And just could you explain, you see this at the state level, federal level, how do you see this going if you could wave a magic wand? If I could wave a magic wand, we would move aggressively right now to pass the bills before Congress Congress, uh, that you are evaluating not only for federal land where we can at least have shot clocks and deem granted for previously analyzed projects, but also extend at the state and local level, uh, more efforts, some of which are being analyzed right now by the FCC, to apply to wired broadband, therefore fiber broadband, the same, uh, types of approaches on state and local permitting that we've been successfully able to do in 2018 on wireless networks, which is one of the reasons that we were able to scale 5G as quickly and take global leadership on it as quickly as possible.

Just one last question since it's for the witness from Nebraska, Madam Chair, if you don't mind. Um, um, Mr. Watermeyer, I know we have a mutual friend of, uh, in Minnesota, and, uh, you know, we Could you just expand on what Mr. Spalter was talking about at the local level of what you think we should be doing to protect? As you know, there's some very small towns and small counties and small communications networks. You're exactly right, Senator, and thank you for the question. And we have more than just one friend in common, I'm pretty sure, in Minnesota.

So, um, Mr. Spalter had reached a little bit of a point there. He talked about how the state's role is, and I don't want to get into the weeds and suggesting anything at the federal level, but I do have a lot of confidence in the stakeholders that are here today and many of them that aren't that really know what they need to do on the weeds. But the states are going to have a role in this, I believe, and they should have. I mean, even our commission deals with all the utilities, and we're talking about this very thing all the time with them. Do they have— have they generated enough revenue to cover their costs in cyber and all the different things?

And then if a black sky event would happen, are they ready and are we talking? So I think there's a role in the states to do this. I hope we're not preempted completely at the federal level. So that'd be my answer, Senator. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. Senator Klobuchar has always been a strong leader and advocate for many of these issues and always for rural areas in the state. So thank you. Senator Capito, you are recognized. Thank you, Senator Fischer, and thank all of y'all for being here.

Mr. Spalter, you're, you're singing my song here on permitting. I noticed in your, in your statement you said the primary constraint on America's AI infrastructure is not technology. It's governmental permitting, is the single largest roadblock. Most people think of permitting reform in terms of energy development or possibly transportation systems, but the communication systems and the AI systems are as important, and maybe in some cases, as you're making the case today, more important to be able to move quickly and swiftly. You probably know I am the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

We have been in active negotiations with the Energy and Natural Resources Committee at the committee chair and ranking member level for really months now to try to get to some of the permitting issues that you, that you talked about. You mentioned shot clocks, public lands. Are there other things that you think permitting reform would help in the industry to be able to build out as quickly the infrastructure that's needed? Yes, Senator, I think that there's several initiatives that we can actually move on very, very quickly. With respect to federal lands, if we can simply allow previously analyzed projects to be deemed granted so that we can move swiftly to transit lands that are managed by the federal government.

I think there's also going to be opportunities for us to, through not only legislation but also through regulation, to, as I mentioned before, to ensure that state and local communities can have the tools and leverage they require to be able to speed up permitting for wired broadband infrastructure by applying, by applying the same approach that we've successfully been able to do on the wireless side through FCC regulation. But we can't stop there. We also need to make sure that while we're actually speeding up permitting, we're not taking the foot off the gas and supporting the networks that we're finally able to deliver through a thoughtfully reformed USF mechanism. And we so grateful for your work in that regard. Well, thank you.

As you know, the BID funds are getting ready to come out. Some of them, I think, are out. It's taken way too long. We complain constantly about that in this committee and at home. But there's a thing called non-deployment funds, which are the funds that are not going to come out immediately because of the way this administration has reworked the program.

So I would go to my own home state of West Virginia that has a lot of physical challenges in terms of being able to build out, more expensive, and so the actual deployment and permitting is more difficult for us in some ways. Senator Wicker has had a bill that I'm on, on the non-deployment funds, to allow those to come back to the states, the original funds we were supposed to get, to come back to each individual state so we could use this for the leftover BID money that would strengthen these AI networks and let that be a permissible use. Do you have an opinion on that, Mr. Spalter? Yes, we do. And first of all, we all appreciate the work that you and Senator Wicker did to advance that bill.

We think that there is a need for speed to delivering guidance to the states on non-deployment funds and their uses. I know the states are waiting, and we've heard from our colleagues at NTIA that that guidance will be forthcoming. We hope in September. We believe that any, any dollar should be accelerators of the fundamental purpose of the BEAD program. And we, we supported this body's determination that fiber should be prioritized in that program.

Nevertheless, we think that those dollars can be used purposefully for things like resiliency, cyber training, focusing on using dollars for accelerating permitting, and also for modernizing our NG911, our architecture, all of which will be additive and turbocharge the ability to optimize fiber deployments and also every other technology that will ride on them, including satellite. Yeah, I do think it fits quite nicely with the permitting reform effort as we see it moving. Mr. Everson, do you have an opinion on that?

On permitting? Well, permitting, I'd love to hear because I'm sure you all are involved with that. So let's start with permitting and then non-deployment funds. Okay, thank you, Senator. So on permitting, you know, I kind of look at this from maybe a simplistic perspective as an engineer.

There are a lot of things that need to be done to build out the infrastructure that's required. And so the sooner, the more that we can speed that permitting process along, the better, because we then we can get to the work of deploying those resources. From a BEAD standpoint, what I would say is that, you know, number one, We need to make sure that everyone's connected and everyone can share in the good fortunes here. And so we want to see that. And then if there's any funds left, we'd love to see that invested in the resiliency and security of these AI networks.

All right. Thank you all very much. And I look forward to hopefully having that permitting reform bill across the line. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Capito.

Senator Rosen, you are recognized. Well, thank you, Chairman Fischer, and I want to thank you and Senator Lujan for holding this hearing. Witnesses, thank you for being here today. I want to talk a little bit about AI networks and fiber because we've heard from witnesses today how important high-speed, low-latency connectivity is for AI networks. So, Mr. Spalter and then Mr. Ramzanali, what are the biggest barriers you see to our network infrastructure meeting the moment on AI?

I can begin. Well, thank you for that question, Senator, and it's good to see you again. Uh, I think the primary barrier that we have to accelerating the AI opportunity, not in terms of only its scale and development at the infrastructure level, but as importantly its ability to actually have a positive impact on human beings, Nevada and beyond, is the perennial challenge that we're still facing on sluggish permitting. The question isn't whether we get the approvals, it's the delay and the time that it takes. And there are many levers that you have, Senator, to actually pragmatically and thoughtfully accelerate the, the ability for us to get the permits that we need to build fiber broadband into your rural and other communities.

Thank you. Mr. Ramzanali. I'll agree with that and add that when I look at it from the highest level perspective of the network The failures are that it doesn't reach all of the people in Nevada and around the country. It needs to reach rural communities. It needs to reach low-income communities.

We need to make sure that the highest communications networks are available to everyone. Thank you. I appreciate that shout-out for Nevada because, uh, we're the 7th largest state and the most mountainous state in the lower 48, so getting out to those deep rural communities is particularly important. And I want to just say I agree with my colleagues because we hear about the issues with permitting in Nevada. More than 87% of our state is federal land.

87%. And under this administration, we've unfortunately seen unprecedented cuts in staff to the federal agencies that approve the permits for telecom networks across federal land. Agencies are understaffed, under-resourced. Many don't have the technical resources to act more efficiently. So Mr. Spalter, with this environment in mind, will you continue to work with Congress to support federal agencies and, and make the permitting process more efficient for projects with limited, if any, environmental impact, like many telecom projects?

Absolutely. The number of horror stories that we've heard about federal land permitting are incredible. It's almost like you can sit around a campfire with a flashlight under your—. Your face. And 87% of public land, it is really— talk about sluggish, it just stops us.

But the good news though is that you have very solid legislation to advance more thoughtful, pragmatic, common-sense permitting, and that there are— there are efforts, and we are talking to the agencies about extending things like categorical exclusions for previously analyzed projects. There's more that we can do, but there is a fierce urgency of now and getting it done. Thank you. And I'm going to talk a little bit too now about network cybersecurity because network intrusions, we know they're increasing. And of course, with increasing AI sophistication and use by, well, everyone, our networks are going to be more and more vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks.

So what I really want to ask is that to Mr. Ramzan Ali, how do we avoid a comprehensive and undetected cyberattack attack across our networks, like what we saw with Salt Typhoon? I think that's a great question. Salt Typhoon was pre-AI. It was low-tech. They used stolen passwords and equipment that wasn't updated.

The way to think about this is, as I said earlier, the two sides of the coin. We have to harden our infrastructure. The cyber defenses have to go up. And that means enabling critical infrastructure operators to use AI to their defense. But it also means pre-deployment testing on AI models so that we know what the threats that are coming look like.

Thank you. And would you agree that we should really be staffing up and strengthening CISA, our Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, that protects— helps to protect that public-private critical infrastructure? I completely agree. Without a fully staffed government, uh, that, that has agencies like CISA, but also the Cyber Safety Review Board— there's many parts of government that need to be strengthened and given the capacity to deal with today's moments. Thank you.

I appreciate that. And, um, I just want to ask one last question to Mr. Spalter. Um, what can Congress do to help ensure the lack of network capacity does not widen the digital divide as AI tools become more integrated into everyday life? We're seeing it every day. Um, what suggestions do you have for us?

Uh, three. One is to ensure that we can move forward on, um, thoughtful, swift permitting reform. Second is to use the USF working group process to ensure that the future networks that are going to be required to meet the moment that AI capacity is going to require will be thoughtfully worked through. And the third is another piece of— this is to ensure the security of our networks in so doing by, uh, making sure that you can reauthorize CISA 2015 so that we can talk to each other and to government to ensure that the networks that we're going to be deploying to the communities that need them can be as secure as possible. Thank you.

I appreciate that. I yield back.

Thank you, Senator Rosen. We've been joined by the chair of the committee, Senator Cruz. You are recognized.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We are in a strategic competition with China to lead the world on AI.. And winning that race requires massive capital investment to build the networks that will power tomorrow's AI applications. When we talk about permitting, it is often on the energy or resources consumption fronts, but building out the networks to connect new AI infrastructure faces many of the same hurdles. Mr. Spalter, first of all, happy birthday.

I understand today is your birthday. Thank you very much. So we held a giant hearing for you in celebration.

Um, for your members, to what extent are outdated, slow, or duplicative permitting requirements at the federal, state, and local levels slowing broadband network deployment? And, and how many years on average does fiber construction take to reach a given rural or remote location, and what percentage of those delays are due specifically to permitting? It is the singular biggest barrier, block, and pebble in the shoe of our innovation economy. Fiber networks can only be built at scale and at speed if we can equally give attention to permitting reform. We can deploy networks in weeks, sometimes in days.

We are ready-equipped and have the capital and the will to do so. The challenge though is that we are seeing in many instances that we're having to sit and wait for months, sometimes years. In Big Bend, one of our members had to wait 2 years to get a permit from one of our federal land agencies over a debate about whether there was a forest in the Chihuahua Desert. This is illustrative of the kinds of challenges that we're facing at scale, which is why the legislation that you're considering here is so vitally important. Well, thank you, and I can verify firsthand there is no forest there.

Uh, Mr. Spalter, in addition to new builds, your members are investing heavily in upgrading their existing networks to keep pace with growing data traffic. Are permitting delays slowing those upgrade projects as much as new construction, or are these bottlenecks different from what you see with Greenfield deployment. Permitting delays are an equal opportunity offender. We are seeing both for new projects but also for upgrades where simple projects that will require simply replacing literally a strand of fiber can sometimes be delayed for months. We've seen that in states like Utah where we could easily establish new approaches, either categorical exemptions for broadband stepping forward to allow previously analyzed projects that have been previously permitted to proceed on a deemed granted basis.

These are simple, practical, progressive solutions that actually can allow us to move forward as a nation and not allow the Chinese to get out in front. Well, I hope your words prove prescient, and I hope that they foreshadow bipartisan agreement to get this done. Let's shift. Mr. Everson, beyond network efficiency and resilience, how are Cisco's AI-driven networking technologies helping your carrier customers differentiate their service offerings in a competitive marketplace? Put, put differently, are you seeing AI create new service offerings rather than just providing faster or more resilient networks?

Thank you, Senator, and I'm so glad you asked this question because this is one of the exciting things about this. As, as AI shifts from primarily training dominant to more inference dominant, there's a huge opportunity for telcos to play an important role besides just carrying the bits. And so we see them providing services in the tokens generation side of things. One of the exciting things we're doing with AT&T in our home state initially is we built out a service offering called AI Grid. Where they're actually serving AI capabilities, AI models, and AI outcomes from their network to their enterprise customers.

So it provides low latency, very high secure services, and allows them to move up the stack to deliver value. And what does this mean for economic growth and for jobs? Uh, it's, it's actually a really fantastic story for that, uh, because now they're able to move up that value chain, deliver more value to end customers. It makes the employees more efficient, more effective with these AI models enabled there and, and will drive growth. AI workloads and use cases range widely from optimizing networks to powering machinery on factory floors to enabling real-time diagnostics at rural hospitals.

Each demands something different from the network. There's no question that fiber is a wonderful technology under ideal circumstances, but given how long buildouts would take at a nationwide scale, putting all of our eggs in that basket would leave many innovative network use cases, not to mention entire regions of Americans relying on them, waiting for years until shovels broke ground. Mr. Everson, can you speak about how embracing the full toolkit of network technologies available today, including fiber, but also wireless, satellite, and others, will enable greater connectivity and access to AI across all America, not just in data center hubs, and on a faster timeline than a fiber-only approach. Thank you, and I couldn't agree more. You know, I mentioned earlier, but the user shouldn't have to care where they're connected or how they're connected.

They should get the same level of service. That requires this fabric of cellular connectivity, Wi-Fi connectivity, fiber connectivity, satellite. All of these need to work the same.

Uh, okay, final question. Uh, Mr. Everson, Cisco has visibility into network traffic patterns across the industry. Based on what you're seeing, is the 800 MHz spectrum pipeline and the Working Families Tax Cut sufficient to meet the U.S. carriers' 6G capacity needs? So, so number one, thank you to, to everyone for the 800 MHz. That is enormous, um, and, uh, in, in a global imperative, but obviously a domestic imperative.

I think, uh, what I would say is it's a great start and a significant chunk and, uh, and merits further evaluation after that. Very good, thank you. Thank you, Senator Cruz. Senator Blunt Rochester, you are recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And thank you. Thank you also, Ranking Member Luján. And thank you to the panelists. Mr. Everson, AI applications are becoming more integrated into everyday life, from education and healthcare to businesses and manufacturing. And as they do, Americans will increasingly depend on broadband networks capable of handling the demand.

Cisco has projected that AI and agentic AI will drive consumer network traffic up by roughly 6.6 times by 2035, about 64% more growth than we'd see without AI. What investments or network upgrades will be necessary to ensure broadband networks can keep pace with the AI-driven demand? Thank you so much, Senator. It, it, you know, the, the capacity is one story, and you, you illustrated that very well. And so we need to keep upgrading and enhancing our fiber capacity, cellular network capacity, all of these different pieces.

We also need to account for sort of the differing traffic patterns as well. So while we're re-engineering those, you know, the, the traffic pattern is shifting to where, you know, primarily we're consuming content on our phone or, or, you know, at home or whatever. Now, as that context and everything has to go up to the cloud, we need more lanes going upstream as well. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Spalter, you've written that only fiber offers the superior capacity, reliability, and future-proof scalability that AI demands.

I'd love for you to expand a little bit more on that for the record and talk about what what, uh, what policymakers should keep in mind as we're looking at the long-term trade-offs between fiber and other broadband technologies, uh, as we increase, uh, AI-driven economy. Thank you for that question, Senator. Uh, AI-related traffic will increase demands across every layer of our communications ecosystem, uh, not just fiber, but also Wi-Fi, satellite, mobile, and beyond. What is essential though, as we think about empowering the pump on allowing greater capacity across our communications ecosystem, is that it will always be fiber that will become the backbone for every other technology to transit their higher capacity and lower latency. Traffic that AI will require.

So in policy terms, this means that while we, we have to create incentives for evolution of all technologies, we must do more through things like USF reform permitting to get more fiber as extensively as possible so that it can support every technology that has applicable uses. Thank you. And Mr. Ramzanali, the Trump administration's rewrite of the BIDPA Bead program's rules didn't just open the door to satellite as a lower-cost alternative to fiber, but it also deemed some homes and businesses already connected, excluding them from funding eligibility altogether. President Biden's NTIA allotted enough BEAD funding to reach nearly 6,000 homes with higher-speed internet and fully connect Delaware. Our state would have been fully connected.

If I could ask you, the Trump administration has cut that funding by about 74%. This disproportionately impacts rural communities like those in Kent and Sussex County in Delaware. Looking ahead, how will lack of access to reliable high-speed internet impact Delawareans' ability to participate in in an increasingly AI-driven economy? Thank you for that question. If we don't connect those thousands of homes in Delaware that are not connected, it means that they're missing out on the economic benefits of not just AI, but the access to the internet.

It means that when their kids have homework assignments that they need to access the internet or to use AI, they don't have that access. It means when telehealth visits or being able to ask questions of various tools, They don't have that access either. So these are real-world limitations that are being put on thousands of people in Delaware, but around the country. We shouldn't accept that. We shouldn't accept the state of the country where not every American is connected to high-quality networks.

Thank you. I can tell you, you know, when folks make decisions about what is eligible and what is not, if you're just driving through one of our counties, you can already predict where your call is going to drop. Where you're not going to have access to service. And to your point, this is the cost of doing business. This is the cost of our health care.

This is the cost of even connecting to our neighbors. And so for me, making sure that we're all connected is a priority. And I thank you. I thank the panel, and I yield back.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Young, you are recognized. Mr. Spalter and others, welcome. Mr. Spalter, we're going to cover a lot of ground here. So prepare, please.

Uh, um, Indiana just landed a, a quantum tech hub under the CHIPS and Science Act, and our state is poised to play a critical role within the nation's, uh, quantum corridors, it's called, with significant investments of both quantum computing and artificial intelligence. How important is robust fiber infrastructure to support not only AI but also next generation quantum technologies, and what does that mean for America's global competitiveness? It is not just indispensable, it's existentially important to not only the success of the Quantum Corridor but to our ability to scale next-generation quantum networks in such a way with speed that we can actually outpace our very well-funded and determined competitors, including the Chinese. We just yesterday had a webinar with the director of the White House Quantum Coordination Office, and we explored exactly what are going to be the policy levers that can accelerate our ability as a nation to win, including in Indiana. And that's going to be about prioritizing more fiber buildout and policy mechanisms can incentivize it, including permitting reform.

And so we are really eager to work with you on passing various bills before this committee to get that done. I'm so glad you, you, uh, checked permitting reform there as well. I will say, and I advertise this to all that will listen, uh, I think we're very close in terms of bipartisan, uh, coalition. I think it needs a nudge from the powers that be to get it across the line, maybe make some principled accommodations, but I think we're close to enabling that golden age the president talks about. Um, long-haul fiber networks use facilities called fiber huts to keep signals strong over long distances.

These important facilities are often left out of our conversations related to communications infrastructure. Because fiber huts are sited in many states and local communities, different rules for permits and construction can slow down new projects and broadband deployment. How do different state and local rules affect the building of these facilities? And what— most importantly, what can Congress do to make the process faster, and more consistent.

We're going to see increasing innovation as to how we can accelerate fiber optic networks and optimize them, including fiber huts. Oftentimes these can be as small as 8 by 6 feet placed in a, in a rural area, yet many times rural state and local rules will treat that tiny fiber hut in the same way that they might have a a significant large advanced manufacturing facility in terms of permitting processes. If we can move forward swiftly to pass legislation like Close the Gap Act, the RAIL Act, Accelerating Broadband Permits Act, and ask every committee of Congress that's considering permitting reform to include broadband in its consideration, we'll be able to actually get the work done. Fantastic. Two groups of questions, two minutes left.

Here we go. Cybersecurity and, uh, the risk, perhaps increasing risk, that bad actors with access to sophisticated advanced frontier AI models will utilize them for nefarious purposes, including to initiate cyber or ransom attacks. How important, sir, is the ability for government and the private sector, including broadband providers, to share cyber threat information in real time. The clock is ticking, sir. We are currently authorized through CISA 2015 to do that information sharing through September 30th.

It needs to be reauthorized for the long haul, given the increasing sophisticated and advanced threats that we're facing. Without that ability embedded in CISA 2015, we will have not just one hand tied behind our backs, but two hands tied behind her backs. Well, you anticipated my last question talking about the expiration of CISA 2015, so I'll give you in the remaining 45 seconds an opportunity to unpack a little bit more, if you can, how expiration would impact potential mitigation and response capabilities. How—. I'm sorry, what?

How expiration of CISA 2015 would impact mitigation or response response capabilities. Mr. Everson seems eager to offer a response. Is that accurate, or were you just adjusting yourself in the chair? Thank you, Senator. You know, one thing that I will say— I'm probably not the best person on the policy— but the thing that I will say is that your point around threat intelligence is one of the number one priorities that we have at Cisco.

We actually— one of our big strengths is that we have an enormous threat intelligence organization. If we didn't have that, we would not have the level of sophistication on cybersecurity. If I, if I could also, that one of the reasons that we need to keep pace with AI innovation and not slow it down is because it's the very AI tools and models, both frontier and open weight, that are becoming part of our defense mechanisms. We need to be able to advance them in order to be able to protect our neighbor— our networks. Against very well-equipped, very well-financed, resolved, uh, adversaries, proving once again these are national security issues.

I keep saying this committee is a national security committee. So when I'm working on merchant shipping, Department of Commerce, it's a national security issue. It's a national security issue. This is not about creating jobs. It's a happy byproduct of a national security play.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Senator Young. We've been joined by the ranking member of the committee, Senator Cantwell. Senator, you are recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much to you and Ranking Member Lujan for holding this important hearing and your continued focus on these important communication issues. I, um, want to thank my colleague from Indiana who just spoke about how this is a national security issue. He and I worked on the first federal role for our government in AI policy and got that implemented. And every day I am thankful that we got that started. I think almost— I don't know now, I think it's probably 6 years ago.

But anyway, we are here today and we continue to see a fast-moving environment. And the question is, what are we going to do to step up to that, both from the security point of view and from a competitive point of view? So artificial intelligence— we saw last week with OpenAI's disclosure of an unprecedented security incident. One of its advanced models broke out of the sandbox and created a complex cyberattack against Hugging Face. So AI can design viruses, toxins, biological weapons.

It can be used to design entirely new pathogens that are difficult to detect and counter. And today's hearing comes at an important moment as AI accelerates new capabilities that are being unlocked every day. But we still need to compete. So Mr. Ramzan Ali, is that how you pronounce it? Ramzan Ali, you brought this up in your testimony about the Hugging Face making it abundantly clear that we needed to have regulation on these, not self-certification, but some regime, and that it might often need us to look into this from an international perspective too, because we're not just regulating this technology for what might happen in the United States, but what, uh, maligned actors might do, uh, with this technology as well.

So what, what, what do you think that we need to do to make sure that we get this right, particularly, um, I think this committee knows a lot about cybersecurity. I think over the time I've been on the committee, we've had many, many hearings about cybersecurity. I wouldn't say we necessarily it's a whole-of-government response with many different agencies, and we continued to see attacks on the private sector, telecom sector ill-prepared to, to respond. And we also saw it on our pipeline system. So, but that makes that look like child's play.

This makes that look like child's play. So could you elaborate on what you think we need to do to address issues like the biological threats? Where AI could provide a step-by-step instruction for engineering of novel resistant supercharged superbugs like that. Could just— it could just go off and do that. The advanced AI models could be really key in solving some very important programs, but also could be used for uranium enrichment and nuclear bomb trigger designs.

And so if that gives a lot of people On an international basis, access to more information and proliferation. What do we do about that? And then just on this cybersecurity model that, again, very familiar coming from a very big software state. We all know that software can be buggy. But now we're not talking about buggy software.

We're talking about software that writes itself, goes attacks systems, creates big holes. It's almost like it's a chemical itself in the kind of damage that it could be doing corrosively within our cybersecurity network for safety, and we wouldn't even know about it. So that's a lot, but we invited you here because we thought you could help us with this and what are the things that we need to put in place. It's a lot, but this is the core of the problem. So I appreciate you highlighting it and your longstanding work on these these issues.

I think about this in a few different ways. First, all of the critical infrastructure systems that we have today need to be hardened. Second, pre-deployment testing can help us become aware of the types of threats that are coming. And this is the role of government. Government has biologists, it has nuclear weapons experts.

The national labs that we employ have those kinds of experts. We should be deploying all of them to help understand what the threat landscape looks like. Third, each one of those threats that you described has its own supply chain and ecosystem, and we need to look at it from a systems lens. When we talk about the biological concerns that you raised, there is a question about what are models able to do? What does that look like when you're able to do one exploit after another?

But there's also a whole host of other things that have to happen, including integrating with cloud labs, getting access to biological agents. So we should be looking at every part of that and worried— I'm worried that we're not looking at every part of that and doing as much as we can. Both the last administration and, to its credit, this administration have made progress on some of these questions. But we have to do way more. I think you're exactly right to say that the landscape is changing, and we're still moving incrementally in some of these domains.

We shouldn't be fearful about these national security organizations within our government being involved in trying to get this right and protect us. Is that correct? I think some people are proposing there's like this self-certification model, and we just have to go fast. I think this—. And I think what we have to go fast on is all of us coming together on what are the right security layers to protect our citizens and our nation and to advance our competitiveness.

And so that often does take some of the smartest people within our federal government, particularly when you're dealing with some of these biological or nuclear weapons. That's exactly right. The scale of the problem we're talking about when it relates to safety and security is not commensurate with a self-certification voluntary regime. We don't put up with massive safety, national security concerns with paperwork being the response in any other domain. Well, it certainly hasn't worked out in aviation, I can tell you that.

But you—. You—. We—. We're just advancing too fast, if you ask me. Even in aviation, you have to have— if you, you know, are trying to understand the interaction between hardware and software.

But in this case, I think that what hasn't been amplified is how dangerous the cyberattack universe is, just that in and of itself, and how promulgating, I guess, is the right— I'm not sure if that's the right word, but I'm going to use it— promulgating of the attack that AI could be. It could be quite significant on its own, you know, going through a system. It would be incredibly disruptive to our lives if we have to consistently worry about AI-based cyberattacks disrupting banks and hospitals and telecommunications systems, because that's just happening as a regular part of our life. We should not accept that future. We should try to avoid a future where those kind of attacks become commonplace.

And what— and what—. Well, we—. I don't think we've quite got the cyber regime correct yet today, because we are still seeing attacks and a lot of personal information still being exposed. And I, I think we continue to want to work with our telecom industry to make make sure they're making the investments that keep us going. Um, but just to— I see I'm over time, Madam Chair.

Could I go on one? Uh, what—. How do you—. How do you suggest that we— what, what, what areas do you suggest we engage on an international basis to get an international regime? What areas would you suggest?

The international part's the hardest. Uh, that's where there, there's going to be diverging, uh, interests that we have figure out. One of the oldest existing international organizations we have is the ITU, which started as the International Telegraph Union, because we needed to come together to figure out a system that works for a technology that doesn't respect borders. That's where we are today, and the threats are much bigger, and the issues at play are much larger. We do have to figure something out.

There was a lot of work done in the last administration. This administration is doing a lot not. All of those feel insufficient. So I think we need to rethink how we approach this and start from what are everybody's interests. And I do believe there are shared interests in safety and security.

I agree, but I think we have to think about some of these nonproliferation regimes that existed and how they functioned and what we have to do here as well. And so we'll look forward to more questions, but thank you for this very important hearing. Thank you, Senator Cantwell. Senator Lujan and I are going to ask just a couple more questions before we close the hearing. Artificial intelligence has really presented a new array of challenges and opportunities for networks, and one challenge is the change in the profile of network traffic that AI has prompted.

AI is not just a new source of network demand, it's also a new type of network demand that is diffusing throughout our networks here in this country. So Mr. Everson, could you describe how and why AI is not just adding demand to networks, but it's also changing the traffic profile, the traffic patterns networks are seeing? Yes, thank you, Senator Fischer, and it's a great question. I'd love to expound upon it. With AI, you know, Traditional networks were designed really for kind of serving content downstream largely.

There's some symmetrical nature to it, but to a large extent, the predominant traffic is downstream. When you're using AI, part of the value of AI is what you feed the model to give you a good answer back. So it's called context. It's whether it's videos, photos, sensor data, maybe just a bunch of text that you need to feed up in there. And it kind of goes back and forth.

In an agentic world, that agent may go back and forth multiple different times to seek from different sources. And so it's changing the traffic pattern with more upstream because you have to send more up to the model wherever it is, whether it's at the edge of the network or whether it's in a central location. And it's also changing the persistence and the length of time of these transactions and the traffic pattern substantially. How are networks adapting to accommodate those changes?

When you look at the different patterns, that new type of traffic that's out there, how's it working? Is it working well? Are you having issues with it? Where's it working and where are you pretty ill-equipped? I think maybe at this point in time too to handle all that.

So, so the good news is that we're still in the early days of inference. And so the impact has not been as extreme. Now, the bad news is that obviously it's growing very, very quickly there. You know, there are different mechanisms. And so we've talked a lot about bandwidth and the need for fiber and the need for spectrum and licensed spectrum to allow for more uplinks.

There are also mechanisms that the operators can put inside of their networks to help sort of offload or diminish that traffic requirement where they can be involved in the inferencing chain, serving tokens, maybe with intelligent direction of requests to different models, and maybe by hosting some of that inside their network. So I guess I would say we have multiple tools in our toolkit that we're working through, and I think they're all going to be required. Okay, thank you. And Commissioner Watermeyer, What opportunities do you see for AI to improve emergency communications while making sure that our dispatchers remain at the center of the critical decisions that are going to be made when we have to have an emergency response? You talked about the wildfires in Nebraska, the bomb cyclone, the flooding, a lot of, a lot of weather events that our emergency responders go through.

So What do you see there? Well, thank you, Senator, for the question, because Nebraska does administer the underlying network of the 911, and we are really concerned. We're just at the edge of converting everything over to the next gen. AI is going to help in that in every single capacity. And even at the local level, it's going to help the training process, it's going to help the decision-making, and the tremendous amount of data that we are collecting when we switch to next generation is going to be— AI is going to play a big part in that. Thank you for the question.

Thank you. Senator Lujan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Everson, I want to pick up where Chair Fischer was asking some questions about traffic. As everyone's highlighted today, networks are built for traffic predominantly to come down, not to go up with AI.

I appreciate your response to Chair Fischer about existing technology. Those are Band-Aids.

Traffic patterns are going to change dramatically. They already have. And we're in the United States, networks are still being built predominantly for download with very little up. In New Mexico, I pay— I won't say the company— for certain speeds, and I don't get them, which is also the problem in most parts of America. I think there's a bunch of crooks out there that should be held accountable and there should be penalty on companies that are not delivering the speeds that they're promising people.

I have a bill for that. I'm not introduced to it yet, but it's coming. So for all the companies that are in the room today and that are listening, if you're stealing from people— I'm trying to be better with my language— stop it. And if you know that your networks are going down and you're taking from people, refund them, give them money back. That's not my question to you.

What are the implications if the United States continues to build out networks that predominantly are built for download as opposed to the requirements that we're seeing with the uptake with AI and other information with the flow going up?

Yeah, thank you, Senator. So, you know, plain and simple, we have to change, right? We need to get more symmetrical in the network architecture, in the underlying infrastructure, in the fiber access, in the broadband, in wireless. And so that plain and simple is part of it. There are tools as we get into AI where AI is going to make the network more efficient.

We're developing agentic ops where the network can be more flexible and adaptable. But if it doesn't have that underlying infrastructure, that underlying backbone, then it doesn't work. And Mr. Spaulding, my colleague from Indiana is asking some questions pertaining to quantum. We also know that as a result of faster speeds today, that also increases the likelihood that deepfakes, people that are out there doing bad things, preying on our loved ones or ourselves are able to do it at an increasingly pace. Quantum networks are also promising more cybersecurity, quantum security.

As the United States builds out AI-driven network practices, protocols, we're looking at these other networks and policy. Should quantum networking be part of the toolkit that the United States is requiring to be built alongside it as a future consideration? Or sorry, not as a future consideration, but as something that we should be pushing to be implemented now? The answer is absolutely yes. I think that as we're envisioning the future network and the future needs that the network will support, including the types of traffic patterns, but also use cases that quantum will deliver, we need to begin that work now, not just in terms of the technology evolution that we're seeing in the labs and now transferring to commercial, commercial uses, because other countries, particularly China, is advancing those efforts as well.

But also in terms of our thoughtful ways of developing legislative and regulatory frameworks that will prime the pump on allowing us to deliver the promise of quantum so that on the long term we can do things like USF reform. We can do things like make sure that we are prioritizing all incentives possible, including permitting reform, to get more fiber and its symmetrical speeds, and particularly importantly, its low latency measured in the single digits of milliseconds that fiber networks will be able to deliver for our quantum future. I appreciate that. And Mr. Everson, in one of your responses, I think to the chairman of the committee, you said something along the lines of people, users, you know, may not be too concerned about how they're connected as long as they're connected to fast speeds. Should users be connected if they're connected?

It's a loaded question. What I mean by that, Mr. Everson, is if people are not connected, I think people should care about that. There are people across America today that don't have access to the internet, some because there's no connection, there's no offering, others because they can't afford it. And I appreciate what I believe I've heard from everyone about their support for USF reform. I would call it USF modernization.

With all the work, with all the thoughtfulness that has got into this space, my question to you— I have two closing questions here— is one, do you believe that USF modernization is needed and that the United States should adopt it and that Congress should act? Mr. Spalter. Absolutely, yes. And we appreciate the work that you're doing and you're doing, Senator Fischer, in advancing that project. Commissioner?

Certainly, and I have a good question, Senator Lujan. I think about the network in the United States. It's like the interstate system built in 1956. 50,000 Miles were built under cooperation, no private partnership necessarily. We need to be there.

And I think USF really needs to be modernized, as you mentioned, as I mentioned, and we're primed for it now. I think the communities and the citizens are ready and they want to support it. Appreciate that. Jefferson? Uh, yes, thank you, Senator, and thank you for the clarification.

Um, yeah, I think USF has been an essential resource and something that we need to continue to look at and modernize for the AI era. Appreciate that. Mr. Ramzanalli? Uh, yes, and we need to continue to focus on its effects on low-income consumers and how they can be supported. No, I appreciate that very much.

Look, as we get to this place, uh, with the concerns that have been shared around the policy and what the United States needs to do to ensure that there's guardrails and that there's rules and that there's guidance, that it's clear that there's liability, whether it's to the companies that are developing these models that have responsibility with these agents, or it's the end user who is then taking an open model and then using it for nefarious reasons. There needs to be liability somewhere so that people don't do that, whether it's criminal, it's civil, or it's both. I also want to ensure that everyone across the country has the ability to take advantage of the promise of what this technology is. And that means we have to be able to get connected. And so I hope that we can preserve the investment, that we can see USF modernization, that everyone involved, including the FCC, does good rather than bad, that we move things in a positive way as opposed to rolling rules back.

That make it harder for everyday folks across the country. And Madam Chair, I want to commend you and the staff for this important hearing, for all the panelists that are here today. This is so important. I hope we have more conversations in this space and that good policy comes out of these conversations. So just applaud you for your efforts.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator Luján. As I said earlier, it is a joy to be able to work with you on these issues. You're very informed, you're very passionate, and, um, We agree on many, many issues, so I am feeling positive on what the outcome is going to be. I would like to thank all of our witnesses for their testimony here today.

Senators will have until the close of business on August 6th to submit questions for the record, and then the witnesses will have until the close of business on August 20th to respond to those questions. This concludes today's hearing, and the committee stands adjourned. Appreciate that.