Spectrum Wars: Why Unlicensed Wi-Fi Matters for Innovation

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
For more on the potential bottlenecks, we're joined by Cory Gardner, President and CEO of NCTA, and former Colorado Senator and Congressman. Cory, great to have you on with us this morning.
Let's talk about this here. I mean, you sent over some great notes here, which is why we included that note about the executive order out of New York. You say the AI race is actually going to be won on infrastructure and policy, not just on these flashy models and who has the best product. What is the single biggest infrastructure bottleneck for the US right now from your vantage point?

**Cory Gardner** (0:32)
Well, I think the biggest bottleneck is that infrastructure that you just identified.
It's the pipes, it's the system, it's how we get the information flow to and from the consumer to the data that it connects with. If you don't have that infrastructure, if you have congestion, then it's going to slow the entire system down. It slows investment down, it slows capability down, it certainly slows innovation down. In essence, we, the connectivity industry, cable, the work that we do, it's the dirty jobs of technology. Nobody thinks about it, they think about the end product, but we are the pipeline that makes it happen. If you don't have that infrastructure in place, then you cannot succeed in AI or an advancement of innovation that the future technologies will hold for us all.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:21)
We're spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI data centers, on chips. If we continue to have this CapEx conversation on a daily basis, are we under investing in the networks that you just mentioned, in that connectivity portion that's actually needed to connect all of the consumers and businesses to the data centers and the compute? Because I sort of have a unique seat in that I get to have these conversations on a daily basis, so I generally know what the market's thinking. First, it was the CapEx spend, then it was the infrastructure, it was the physical infrastructure, and the not-in-my-backyard and the executive orders, then it's the energy bottleneck. Just recently, we started having more of these optical conversations and the actual connectivity component, but they're very recent at best.
Is the market really under appreciating right now how much of a potential bottleneck we have there and that we're not paying enough attention to the connectivity component?

**Cory Gardner** (2:16)
Well, you can see some of the challenges in consumer prices right now. If you think about the advancements, hyperscalers that build out what's happening right now and the demand for something like memory chips, you can see that price impact it's having on everything from a Sony PlayStation to a Microsoft Surface, to the mobile handset that you're using. Because the memory is being gobbled up by hyperscalers, data centers, and other build-outs without consideration for what's happening to that consumer device, that router, that gateway, the cell phone that they're holding.
We do need to have more emphasis on, hey, let's make sure that while we pay attention to the shiny object, we're also building out that infrastructure, the DDR4 type DRAM memory that's just basic simple memory, not high bandwidth memory, nothing fancy for an AI system. It's just what we need and what so many other devices need in order to maintain lower costs and competitiveness. That's, I think, what the market has misidentified. Now, they're certainly understanding it now because of the price increases that consumers are facing. But these are all things that can be addressed by increasing supply, by the Chips Act money that was directed to help build out our supply chain, actually going to things like DDR4 or DDR5 instead of switching out to other types of productivity, allowing trade to flow in such a way that gives us more access to these kinds of memory and other pieces of infrastructure. So I do think that the market has missed some of these things, but it's catching up with the consumer, and that's the real challenge.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:45)
So Cory, you highlighted some potential solutions there for this memory issue, giving more money to try to create it faster because we have a supply issue. We know how fast these companies can make it, and they're telling us we just can't produce enough. So that brings me to your second thought, the regulation component that we get access to it from perhaps parts of the world that we aren't getting access to it right now. Is regulation perhaps becoming one of the biggest constraints in the AI build out as you see it?

**Cory Gardner** (4:13)
Well, I certainly think it can be. For instance, whether it's an inability to get a permit to actually put the pipeline of fiber connectivity to a place, or whether it is a regulation that impedes trade that could impact our ability to get the trade with our partners that we need. That's certainly impediment. But I also think that, look, it's a choice when a manufacturer decides to stop making a chip. They've made these chips, they've just shifted to other things. We're saying make it all, right? We're saying, hey, continue investing in new technologies, innovation, but don't give up on the things that are still in high demand. Keep doing that. If you have a chips act that is intended to make sure that we have what we need, don't let it be a disincentive to actually continue what's working and shifting to something else.