Committee on China, Dish Exec Leaving, New Fiber Broadband Board

January 11, 2023 – The House voted Tuesday for a dedicated committee to study competition between the United States and China.

House Resolution 11 for the formation of the select committee on the strategic competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party passed 365 to 65, with all nay votes from the Democrats.

The committee will have the power to conduct investigations, including criminal, hold public hearings, and submit policy recommendations on China’s “economic, technological, and security progress and its competition with the United States,” according to the resolution.

Newly minted California Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will appoint the 16 members of the committee, seven of which will be in consultation with the minority Democrat leader. Representative Mike Gallagher, R-Wisconsin, will lead the panel.

Judy Chu, D-Calif., chair of the Congressional Asia Pacific American Caucus who voted against the committee, said in a statement that while the caucus supports strengthening the economy and protecting national security, there are “known risks of xenophobic rhetoric intensifying anti-Asian hate here in the United States,” saying the goals of the new committee could be done by existing committees.

“We cannot forget that rhetoric used around economic competition with Asian countries has resulted in the verbal and physical harassment and even murder of Asian Americans here at home,” Chu added in the statement. “Since March 2020 and former President [Donald] Trump’s sustained references to the coronavirus as the ‘China virus,’ over 11,500 hate crimes and incidents against Asian Americans have been reported.”

The new committee comes at a high time for economic tensions between the U.S. and China. The White House, the national security apparatus and the Federal Communications Commission have moved to make it harder for Chinese companies to make a home in the U.S. by banning investments in and equipment for licensing from global power firms, including Huawei and ZTE.

With the passage of the Chips and Science Act last summer, the U.S. has been trying to become less reliant on foreign countries, including those in Asia, for products including semiconductor chips.

Dish Network CCO leaving C-suite, joining board

Dish Network’s chief commercial officer is leaving the company effective January 17 to join another firm.

The company announced Tuesday that Stephen Bye will take a board seat at Dish, but will simultaneously be the new president of connectivity at internet and media company Ziff Davis.

“Stephen has been an integral part of building our wireless business, helping lead efforts to maximize our wireless efforts and prepare us to monetize our investments,” said Charlie Ergen, co-founder and chairman of DISH Network, in a press release. “His continued leadership and guidance while serving on the board will be important as we continue to build our wireless network and disrupt the consumer and business wireless markets.”

Bye has been Dish’s wireless CCO since 2019 supporting the development and commercialization of the company’s standalone 5G network, according to the release.

Fiber Broadband Association’s new board members

The Fiber Broadband Association announced last month the election of two new members to its board of directors.

Ariane Schaffer, government affairs and public policy at Google Fiber, and Kim McKinley, deputy director and chief marketing officer of Utah’s UTOPIA Fiber and board secretary, are both new electees to the board and will each serve three years. (Google Fiber and UTOPIA Fiber are sponsors of Broadband Breakfast.)

“For more than a decade, Kim has been a critical part of UTOPIA Fiber’s leadership team, working to reboot the agency and firmly establishing it as the nation’s largest and most-successful Open Access network,” a UTOPIA Fiber statement said.

“In addition to being a highly-visible industry leader, Kim represents the interests of municipal networks and brings years of proven operational experience that prioritizes the customer, something every fiber network should strive for,” the statement added.

The full make-up of the board is as follows:

• Chair: Joseph Jones “JJ,” President at On Trac, Inc.
• Vice Chair: Jimmy Todd, CEO and general manager, Nex-Tech
• Secretary: Kimberly McKinley, deputy director and chief marketing officer, UTOPIA Fiber
• Treasurer: Joe Jensen, director of Americas market development, Corning
• Mark Boxer, technical manager of solutions and applications engineering, OFS
• Katie Espeseth, vice president of new products, EPB
• Scott Jackson, national market manager of broadband, Graybar
• Gregg Logan, vice president of engineering at Telapex, Inc.
• Ariane Schaffer, government affairs and public policy, Google Fiber