>> host: new chairman, ewe yus genachowski, couple new members coming online shortly, what are your feelings about the new fcc and the old fcc? >> guest: well, easier to talk about the new fcc because i think all of us in the cable industry -- i think all of the regulated industry are full of a lot of high hopes for this commission. it's more than what we see in spring training every year where you have high hopes for your team. i think this commission is incredibly well qualified. you could say that julius genachowski is the most qualified and prepared person ever to be named chairman of the fcc. with his business background, his previous fcc experience, his broad interest in telecommunications policy, and, you know, we think he's going to

be an outstanding chairman of the fcc, and certainly from his early comments, you know, focused on really critical priority areas that we share, in particular the deployment and adoption of broadband in america to help to make the united states the most connected nation on earth. in rob mcdowell and michael copps we have two holdovers, if you will, from the past commission but both very knowledgen -- knowledgeable, both very fair. i think michael copps served as interim chair and showed what an outstanding public servant he is and what an outstanding leader he was. and then we have two new commissioners, both of whom are known to the industry, meredith atwell baker from her service as the administrator of ntia and minion clyburn who we know from her state regulatory

positioning. so this is a very eminent fcc, i think, from their comments and their testimony in the case of minion and meredith, really very focused on moving the telecommunications industry forward and on, and on pursuing policies that are really, i think will be impactful and helpful to our companies. >> host: if i could segway to the hill, senator rockefeller and congressman waxman, how do you think they're going to get along with mr. genachowski as things go forward? senator rockefeller has on numerous occasions thought that the fcc needs overall reform although a couple days ago he said maybe that might not be necessary, but he's certainly laser focused on the fcc.

>> guest: and i think not only senator rockefeller has been focused on that, but i think a lot of people have focused on that. and i think, you know, reform of the fcc can come in multiple ways. it can come from congress, or it can come from the commission itself. both be michael copps as acting chair and julius genachowski as chair in their opening comments to staff and their public comments have expressed an interest in many of the rebombs -- reforms, if you will, that senator rockefeller has championed which is more openness, more transparency, data-driven results, clearer protocols, better communication internally and externally. those are the types of things senator rockefeller has talked about. i think that, i think that philosophically we see a lot of commonality between the

approaches of both chairman rockefeller and chairman waxman and chairman genachowski, and i think, you know, it's really early in this game -- >> host: right. >> guest: you can never tell how a relationship will develop, but i think that there's a lot of respect among the three, and i think that there is a real desire to work together and not have any antagonistic relationship between the commission and the congress. and so i think, i think i'm very on optimistic about how that works out. i note, and i think although you're right that chairman rockefeller is, you know, laser focused on fcc process and the appearance of the way -- the aappearances in the way in which it conducts its business, both chairman rockefeller and chairman waxman preside over committees well beyond the telecommunications space, and they both have been pretty

preoccupied with other public policy issues. so one of the things i say is, you know, if you were to take a poll of 435 members of congress and 100 u.s. senators and say name the five top issues that you think we, you think this congress has to deal with over the next two years, you will be hard pressed to find a telecommunications issue in the list of the top 100 that would come out of that polling. and i think that's right, by the way. i mean, i think we deserve, we -- comcast, the telecommunications industry deserves some credit for that. i think we're conducting ourselves in appropriate ways, and we're pursuing agendas that are working for the american consumer and for the country, and i think part of it is because of some of the really tough and attractive other problems that the country faces and confronts. >> host: right. >> guest: no one is going to say that reform of the fcc is at the same level of priority as health

care or the economy or tax policy or energy or global warming or the appropriations bills or, you know, or the budget or immigration reform or any of a host of other really complex issues that this congress has to deal with. >> host: but, mr. cohen, on comcast's agenda what are some of the top legislative issues that you'd like to see addressed? >> guest: well, comcast and the cable industry, you know, generally is of the view that, that we don't need a lot of legislative help to be able to accomplish the objectives that we have in front of us. we, we don't think that the current telecommunications act is fundamentally broken. there may be little tweaks that everyone would like to see there. our interests may be more on the enhancing telephone competition side of the act. as opposed to on the video or high-speed data side of the act. but we, i mean, we have a very

strong interest in broadband deployment and adoption. not sure how much legislative there is to do there. in the american recovery and reinvestment act, so-called stimulus bill, congress included a provision requiring the fcc to prepare a report on broadband in america which, which the commission is working on, and we have a very strong interest in that, in that plan because i think that is a central part of our business and a central part of our commitment to the country. and it's possible that out of that plan might come suggested legislative action that then would be of, that then would be of interest to the industry. >> host: could we talk about that for a minute because there's certainly discussion about expanding the universal service program to cover broadband. what's your view if congress move inside that direction with the fcc? >> guest: here's where i need to take a step back.

>> host: okay. >> not dodging the question, but i need to take a step back which is when you talk about universal services applied to broadband, what you're really talking about is making broadband you big wittously available to america. about 63 percent of america has subscribed to broadband services. broadband is built out to 92 or 93 percent of the country, so 7 or 8 percent of the country does not have broadband in front of their houses. and the remaining 30 percent have broadband in front of their houses but have chosen not to subscribe. i call that group the 30 percent, that's the group where we're confronting adoption-related issues. that is, broadband is available but people are not subscribing to it, and that might be for affordability reasons. and by the way, it may be more of the affordability of the service or the hardware, the computer equipment --

>> host: right, the infrastructure. >> guest: to be able to use the internet, but there also may be cultural issues and training and educational issues. you know, there are senior citizens i don't care what their income level are and i don't care, you know, what they do in their lives, but they may never decide that it's important to them to subscribe to broadband. so you've got that adoption population. and then you've got the deployment population, the people who might want broadband but can't get it because the plan isn't built out in front of their houses. so i tell that story because i think most to have dialogue that we hear is around the deployment issues, it's around getting broadband built out to all of america. >> host: but you could help with that. >> guest: right. and i'm saying that's where the usf -- and that's what i'm getting to. >> host: okay. >> guest: that's where the common conversations about usf have ended up and using usf, expanding it to be able to

stimulate continued buildout of broadband. but statistically, and i'm not against public policies that would facilitate that, but statistically speaking there are four times as many american ps today who are not subscribing to broadband because of adoption-related issues as opposed to the deployment-related issues. and i think if america is to become the most connected nation on earth, we need to have an appropriate public policy and public dialogue focus on those adoption-related issues as well as on the deployment-related issues. so i give you that by way of background to say that some combination of use of government subsidy through stimulus funding or otherwise, you know, potential use of usf funding on the deployment and maybe on the adoption side, too, are a series of public policies that absolutely should be examined. there are, however -- no

surprise -- i think some flaws in the universe ago service fund program. and if we're going to expand the use of that program, we should fix the flaws and make sure it's being funded fairly and appropriately and that the rules of the road are also fair and appropriate competitively neutral and technology neutral. and i think you're right, i think that is likely to be a part of the fcc's work in this broadband plan. and, peter, that might well be a place where there is a need for some federal legislation after the fact to fix the usf fund as well as make appropriate amounts of that funding available. and again, i'm going to make this pitch not only for deployment-related issues, but for adoption-related issues. >> host: mr. cohen, in comcast's comments on the broadband deployment plan to the fcc, comcast wrote that the goal of the broadband deployment plan should be to promote continuing

investment in broadband networks, not stifle it through burdensome and unnecessary regulations. what are you p warning against here? >> guest: so i think there are two important notes about that sentence. the first is that it's not good enough -- and this is really a comment about stimulus funding more than anything else although it could apply to usf as well -- it's not good enough to just have government subsidy through grants or tax credits to get a network built. you also have to have a network that is continuously maintained which requires an ongoing investment. and if we, if we -- it's actually relatively easy, although expensive, to get a network built. but if you don't have a lot of customers who are using the extension of that network, there's no ongoing incentive for the private sector to maintain the network and no ongoing financial viability to that. so one of the comments, one of the thoughts embedded in that

sentence is that nobody, everyone needs to realize that having ubiquitous broadband and having that available is going to require not only the original construction of the network, but an ongoing maintenance and an economic reality behind, underlying that network that would encourage the ongoing network. so that's number one. number two is that on the government has to be careful. one of, i mean, government regulation, government facilitation of investment, government stimulation of broadband deployment all may be very appropriate, but conditions that get attached to it and regulatory requirements that get attached to it could have the inadvertent -- because i don't think anyone would intentionally want to do this -- could have the inadvertent consequence of getting in the way of a stimulative effect. and by now i'm not talking

necessarily economic stimulus, but broadband deployment stimulative effect of the federal policy so that, for example, i mean, aisle take -- i'll take the easiest from our perspective, but a requirement of a governmental requirement, a federal governmental requirement that our networks which are all built with private dollars with no guaranteed taxpayer return would have to be open to anyone who wanted to wholesale, anyone who wanted to retail or wholesale those services at a governmentally regulated rate, that is not a very good way to stimulate ongoing investment in private networks. and i'm not suggesting that anyone is, i'm not suggesting that the government is headed in that direction. i actually don't think that they are, but that most extreme view, if you will, of so-called network neutrality such that the networks are so neutral that

they're available to anyone and that a comcast fiber network that we've spent 50 or $60 billion building over the past decade of private dollars with no guaranteed return and no government subsidy, that we would be somehow legally required to make that network available on a wholesale rate at a rate to be determined by the federal government, it's not a good way to stimulate us to continue to make investments in upgrading that network and expanding that network. >> host: well, that certainly, net neutrality has been a very popular issue to discuss on the hill. mr. genachowski's been, you know, fairly clear about his view of that although not clear about exactly how he would implement it. he believes in an open internet, that's the term that a lot of -- >> guest: so do i. >> host: a lot of people use, but when you drill down into what that means, does that mean

that congress needs to adopt legislation in encoding that in the law, or does the fcc need to add a principle to its internet policy? the four existing principles of the internet? how do you see that playing out? >> guest: well, i'm -- this is a place where, i mean, this is a place where i'm actually extremely comfortable that we have julius genachowski as chair of the fcc because he has lived on the private side of this equation, and it's hard to, it's somewhere between hard and impossible to disagree with any of the, the policy pronouncements, the policy positions that he has expressed both before the election and the lead-up up to the election as a candidate obama telecommunications adviser or in the things that he said in the confirmation hearings or subsequently because we also believe in an open internet, and we also believe in free says to

the internet -- access to the internet. and he also believes in network management and reasonable and responsible network management because he understands that in the absence of network management these networks collapse and that they don't work for anyone. the devil is in the details, as you said, which is not only do you need legislation, do you need regulation, but once you sit down and say, okay, we think it's important to actually have something in writing to do this and you take the pen to paper or the, or the computer keys to a screen it becomes very hard to put down in black and white and in english exactly what you want to do, what the penalties are, and how you're going to enforce those penalties. by the way, i'd add a list. we have four internet principles, and i'm not, i don't want to get into a legal debate about this.

>> host: right. >> caller: and as the only lawyer here, that would be unfair anyway. but we have four principles that were explicitly adopted as principles and not as regulations. >> host: correct. >> guest: they were magically transformed into regulations through a rather unusual enforcement proceeding in the fcc last year -- >> host: involving your company. >> guest: just coming to that point. [laughter] and are now, in fact, the decision, the order of the fcc that arose out of that rather odd proceeding is now on judicial review in the d.c. circuit. and by the way, just to be clear the comcast challenge, if you will, of that order was not to the fcc's authority or jurisdiction to regulate in this space. it was to the procedure that was used to convert unenforceable nonregulatory principles into enforceable regulations without

a proceeding to accomplish that. so i think one of the predicates to before you get to a fifth principle is whether the fcc should go through a proceeding to convert the four existing principles into enforceable regulations, and in doing so whether there are other principles whether it's a fifth or a sixth that would get added to those principles to help to appropriately guide isps in their conduct and management of their networks. >> host: you are watching "the communicators," david cohen, executive vice president of the comcast corporation, is our guest, anne veigle of communications daily is here to join in the questioning. mr. cohen, before we leave this area you also mentioned one of the potential legislative agenda items for comcast would be telephone competition and, and enhasn'ting it as you -- enhancing it as you say. what does that mean? >> guest: it's interesting. let me go back to 1996 where

congress passes the latest massive rewrite of the telecommunications act. the goal was to stimulate competition in the video space and in the telephone space. internet was, believe it or not, even though it was only 1996 it was at most an afterthought. nobody knew what that market was going to look like. the theory on the video space, the theory on video space was that the primary competition would take place between cable and satellite, and there was a lot of work done in that legislation to stimulate that. and the theory in the telephone space was that the competition would take place between the long distance carriers and the local, the old local operating bell company. so the competition would take place between at&t and mci on the one hand and verizon and qwest on the other hand. so there are lessons to be

learned here. the irony is that the '96 act has exceeded beyond anyone's expectations. it fostered a playing field where there is, where there is dramatic competition in the video space. it did stimulate competition between cable and satellite, but it also ended up facilitating competition between the bells and cable and satellite so that we are now to the point where in many sections of this country there are four connective alternative -- competitive alternatives for video and cable, one of the bells and two satellite companies. in the telephone space it stimulated massive competition as well. not between the long distance carriers and the bells who seem to have been combined again literally, but between the cable companies and the now, and the bells now combine with the the long distance companies. and, of course, there is in my view also significant competition that developed in the high-speed data space

between cable and the bells. so the moral of the story, if you will, is that congress sort of got it right in '96 although technology moved so quickly and in different ways than congress could anticipate that they got their competition from unexpected sources. because of that, that is because the structure of the '96 act was designed to facilitate competition between long distance carriers and the bells and there was no sense that the cable companies were going to be in the telephone business, some of the telephone-related provisions in the telephone, in the telecom act are, in our view, not perfectly designed to be able to facilitate the type of competition that's developed in the telephone world. and there are potential confusing jurisdiction between state governments and the federal government, our telephone product and almost all of the cable industry's

telephone product is a voip product, a voiceover internet protokohl product -- protocol product. some states agree, some states have taken alternative views, so we've got a might be mosh of state and federal regulation governing our business, and there are a variety of disputes -- not major disputes, not trying to make that big a deal out of them, but there are a variety of disputes that come up between cable and the bells. one of the most visible over the past year was the verizon cable retention marketing dispute where dealing with number portability where when a customer, verizon customer would call comcast or time warner and say we want to switch from verizon to your service, but we want to port our number, we want to keep our same telephone number, comcast or time warner or whoever the cable company was had to give notice to ve verizon

that, oh, customer a wants to switch over to comcast, and we need the number to be ported. and verizon in taking advantage of a one or a two or a three-week interval for porting that number would then give that information to their marketing department, and their marketing department would call the customer and try to convince them to stay. in our view, that was a breach of the confidentiality provisions of the telecom act, the fcc found in our favor, and verizon appealed that case to federal court, and the federal court sustained the commission's action. and then later in the year we had a number of days of -- actually this year we had the number of day that is the bells had to port telephone numbers. actually the bells and us. in the event verizon's taking a customer back from us, how many days do we have to actually port the telephone number? and wireless, you know, you can stand in a wireless store in america and port the number

while you stand there. >> host: right. >> guest: verizon was taking a week, 10 days to be able to port a number. i think they were down to less than a week, and the commission has come out with a phased approach of ultimately getting down to two-day number portability. so it's that collection of issues that between legislation and regulation we think there could be some tweaks that would improve the competitive environment around telephone. >> host: mr. genachowski is, i don't have a lot of details on this, but we had an article in our newsletter this morning working on a truth in billing proposal, and as you know on the hill there's been long standing interest among some senators on the commerce committee for some type of national wireless framework. this is all to help customers know what they're getting, what they're paying for. what do you think about that kind of item, and how would it affect your company? >> guest: i also haven't seen the details on it.

>> host: yeah. >> guest: i think it's interesting at least on the telephone side. >> host: right, right. >> guest: let's limit this, i think that's all it applies to. the comcast product, digital voice, is as clean and simple a product as possible. our basic product is you pay a certain amount per month, you get all long distance included, you get 14 delineated services with no extra charges, and so our bills are clean, and they're simpling -- >> host: no one complains about them? >> guest: no one complains, and the product is very simple. it's funny, one of the great marketing advantages of the comcast digital voice product is that unlike the competition, one of the reasons we were so successful is, you know, first of all, we combined local and long distance into a, you know, one price, one price eat anything you want, eat all you can use, and we also got rid of, i mean, our research showed that one of the things customers hated was if you want call forwarding or you want, or, you

know, every time you, every time you -- if you want call forwarding or you want caller id or you want voice mail that there was an extra charge. >> host: right. >> guest: in the bell product. $3 a month for this, $1.50 a month for that. we have the 14 most popular services of add-on services that are all included in our one size fits all price. so our, our telephone bills are clean, simple, and easy. i don't think at least as far as i know i don't think there'd be any impact on us in that area. >> host: well, i'm going to throw some numbers at you, mr. cohen, and then you'll have about 30 seconds left to answer afteri throw these. this is looking at the comcast pack contributions to congressional candidates. in '06 you can see there on the screen that comcast gave about parity to democrats and republicans, about 120,000 each, and for the house of

representatives about 359,000 dollars went to democrats, $452,000 went to republicans. now, so far in the 2010 cycle for the senate, 31,000 to democrats, 3500 to republicans. and in the house 80,000 to democrats, 32,000 to republicans. our republicans not important in your business model? >> guest: republicans are very important in our business model. and the problem is in fairness you're comparing an entire cycle to a partial cycle. i think we will -- let me look. there are way more democrats today than there were four years ago, there are significantly fewer republicans today than there were four years ago. i think you will see roughly competitive balance with an adjustment for the, for the substantial democratic majorities that occur in the house and the senate. we -- our issues are bipartisan issues. we work with republicans and with democrat, and i