December 2, 2025
In testimony today before the Senate Commerce Telecommunications and Media Subcommittee, USTelecom SVP of Cybersecurity and Innovation Robert Mayer underscored the complex and rapidly evolving cyber threat landscape facing U.S. communications networks and the critical role public-private coordination plays in protecting digital infrastructure.
In his testimony, Mayer outlined key steps Congress can take to enhance our nation’s cybersecurity posture:
- Strengthen and modernize federal information-sharing authorities, including a long-term reauthorization of the CISA 2015 framework, to ensure rapid and safe reporting of threats and to support improved interagency coordination.
- Avoid overly prescriptive cybersecurity mandates and instead promote flexible, risk-based frameworks that allow providers to adapt quickly to evolving adversary techniques without diverting resources to outdated compliance checklists.
- Support future-proof infrastructure and innovation, including streamlining broadband permitting, reforming outdated copper retirement and network modernization rules, and ensuring smaller providers have access to funding and workforce resources to retire vulnerable equipment and strengthen cyber defenses, including from available BEAD non-deployment funds.
“In our rapidly evolving threat landscape, cybersecurity cannot be treated as a static checklist or a one-time investment,” testified Mayer. “It requires a whole-of-society approach with shared responsibility that must be borne at all levels across the private and public sectors. The communications sector remains committed to working shoulder-to-shoulder with our government partners and Congress to outpace our adversaries and protect the infrastructure that Americans rely upon every day.”
Read the full testimony here.
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