because it would work as well whether it is voluntary or regulating, it would not work without the professionalism of everybody involved. i will ask for your help there. .. orie mac this week on the communicators, and discussion on

the future of the fcc with republican commissioner robert mcdowell. >> we are pleased to welcome back to the communicators robert mcdowell, fcc commissioner just reconfirmed by the senate for his second five-year term amy schatz of "the wall street journal" commissioner. congratulations. thank you for being here. let's start broadly. first of all this is kind of it to porter. what in the next six months to gear would you like to see the fcc work on? and one of only two republicans and one of the five commissioners, how much influence do you have in setting the agenda? >> welcome a first of all congress has made it through the stimulus fact that we present the congress and national broadband plan that is due february 17. the date february 17th might seem familiar. that was the original date for the dtv transition so it seems to be an auspicious day for the

fcc but we are to come up with a plan and present it to congress so we are in the midst of soliciting public comment and data input and trying to get analysis to come up with some ideas to present to congress so we keep this off in april what we call a notice of inquiry where we say to the world please give your ideas. there are a lot of questions we would like to have answers to and tell us what we should do. so we are in the midst of that process right now. in terms of being one of five, we all have an equal vote. the chairman sets the agenda for the commission. that's how it is set up by statute, but certainly all the other commissioners have a role to serve with the chairman and never see put before us. so it's a small group, but actually one of the least partisan places in washington. this summer i had my summer law clerk story and analysts of my votes versus other commissioners

and ends up 89.72% of the time we have unanimous votes. some nine out of ten times we are unanimous and the other time isn't necessarily partisan divide. >> how would you like to see the broadband planned for? >> i want to be astronauts percent as possible. >> what does that mean? >> what the commission is thinking as well as the data and opinions we are soliciting from the outside world. we should make that as transparent as possible so there aren't any surprises. i'm already on record saying i would prefer if we could put a plan or outline of the plan for public comment. the question remains as to whether or not all the commissioners will vote on it. it is unclear in the statute. we don't have to. >> have you had any discussions with the chairman yet about whether you will be intimately involved in the formation of this plan? because it seems they've set up this entire borough and brought

in a lot of mckinsey type of consultants to write this thing and it wasn't entirely clear to me when i talked to the chairman after the initial kickoff workshop of out this issue about our involved or the other commissioners going to be in actually writing the plan. >> that remains to be determined. i am meeting with the chairman today, the date of this taping as well as the director of the broadband plan initiative of blair levin, former german staff of the fcc's we are in constant contact. i have to say thus far chairman genachowski has been grateful and we communicate several times a week so i want to give him high marks for his first six weeks or so in office. >> why do you think he should be involved in the plan? what's the benefit for the agency if you have the to the republicans and other democrats on the commission

so i think it has to be a flexible document and an internet time things are changing anyway so nothing should be stayed or carved in

stone. commissioner would you see for the will of the private-sector in developing the plan? >> excellent question. this year by some estimates between 70 to $80 billion in capital expenditure will be invested by the private sector in broad and infrastructure. that dwarfs of course the seven plus billion dollars from the stimulus package to have public financing of broadband. and also dwarfs other countries' private investment or public investment in broadband. so, i think it is very important we not discourage that. the rule of a broadband plan should be do no harm. what we want to do is make sure we continue to have an environment that is attractive to private capital and investment and that's the engine driving all of this and telecom are well placed to help bring the country out of this recession right now. a lot of technical purchases

have been put off by companies and residential users as well and so, we are really well placed actually to bring costs out of this particular recession versus the earlier recession with the dot com bursting. so i think it's the flip side now. people to make sure whatever we do helps stimulate more private investment as well. >> have you seen any indication that the plan is developing along the line you don't agree with? >> not yet. i think we are still in the data gathering fact gathering analysis, public workshops being initiative this month in washington, d.c. and i hope to be traveled through the country some or to learn from folks. i was in peril alaska this past winter, early march where it was 50 below, the wind chill to look up the challenges they have with the sea ice making it hard for

the cable landings and the weather conditions making it difficult for anything other than satellite. not impossible but difficult and expensive to help them with broad and so i want to see what other challenges we have into underserved areas of the country. >> broadband seems like one of those things that's going to be a litmus test to see how transparent the fcc is going to be. a couple weeks ago you sent a letter to the chairman asking what things he might be able to do about that. can you talk with your major points were in that letter? >> and january this year shortly after michael copps became acting fcc chairman i gave him advance copies so we could work it out in this period of transparency he wanted it on the web site and our sort of exchange of letters and ideas. these ideas are of mine and i don't care who gets the credit for them. many of our excellent ideas picture without going into

details it is a long letter is to make the fcc more open and transparent and collaborative both from the outside looking in but also on the inside like commissioner being able to see the various machinery work. we should be able to, as commissioners, get the same information and analysis the chairman is getting for instance from our wonderful career professionals we have working for the fcc. we have about 1800 or so employees. economists, engineers, lawyers and other professionals and many of them have great expertise and we need to be able to use them and get them involved in these things. and here, the variety, the diversity of their opinion. a critic samples under acting chairman copps during the digital tv transition between january and june. it was very collaborative. we were able to make decisions in real time and information flow was fabulous and that should be a model for how the

commissioner works on other issues. >> with their need to be the rule changes how the fcc operates to implement these transparency changes you would like to see? >> in the letter i don't talk about rule changes so much is operational. number one which is should start all of this is a full operational financial and ethics of its of the commission the way you would have if you have one company by being a mother or if you have new top management changes at the top of the company. so what's to a full audit how does it work, how does it not work, what can we do better and then revised the plan as well it's easy to get lost in the day-to-day activities at the commission and forget about the direction we want to go so let's update the strategic plan as well. there has been talk for years of revising the sunshine government-backed independent agencies such as fcc you can't have a majority of the commissioners' meeting without meeting in public without public

notice and making it available to the public tuesday. the supreme court can, the tout councils can, congress can meet in executive session. it makes it difficult at the fcc because no more than two commissioners can meet at a time so our staffs have to shuffle around sometimes it leads to a late-night meetings where we bought on doors and one on one to really information and gaining consensus that of a sense. it was a post watergate era law they didn't want smoke-filled rooms producing public policy. but at the same time i think there are ways to make it transparent but also to make it more collaborative and everything we do is in writing and available to the public and i feel we also need to enforce the rules a bit better. i don't think we need new rules perce but we could enforce the bones of the book already. if that means someone from the

outside since us informational or new thoughts about something we need more detailed disclosure what it is. if they were to meet with us for an hour and talk about the broadband plan they should say more than a one sentence we talked up the broadband plan. what did you say? can you give more detail? that would be helpful as well. >> is your letter to say -- by the way it's available at our website, c-span.org/communicators and fcc.gov. is there any reason to think the fcc in the past has been dysfunctional? >> i'm trying to look into sunni manor, don't want to look over the shoulder too much but there have been different commissions run in different ways and the commission sort of got away from information sharing on what we called a floor, the commissioner level and we want to get back to the days we could get the same

options memo and analysis and summaries of comments that have been filed in the same legal opinions from the council, etc.. so yes we can learn from the past. >> amy schatz? >> after you send your letter of the chairman send a polite letter back wondering what you've bought or if you have follow-up conversations with him or staff? >> we have had conversations prior to the letters and have talked afterwards, too. he has appointed someone in charge of fcc reform. this is something he's talked about since the minute he was nominated by the president. so i think he's taking fcc reform very seriously and he seems energetic. he has hired some wonderfully qualified people to come to the commission and i remain optimistic. >> last week the fcc sent letters to apple, google, and at&t about an issue involving the will of waste being taken off the apple application store

and also associated similar applications gained of the store. fcc opened an inquiry into that. did you support that fcc inquiry? >> that was issued by the bureau. i did not know ahead of time. this wasn't anything we signed off on ahead of time. it doesn't hurt to ask questions and gather data. it starts to take the fcc in a different path. there's been talk for some time about of looking into what is called handset exclusivity is what that means in the vernacular is can you download any application on to your wireless device, you can call it a cellphone but they've become personal computers so we will call them devices. can you have any application and take that device from carrier to carrier and application portability to carry it around. and i have always supported that. but also we have to ask as the marketplace been moving in that direction already. a couple of years ago we had a

bottle and the 700 megahertz auction from the auctions of the tv airwaves reclaimed from the digital transmission this rule mandated what we call open access. open access is something i support but did we need the will to do that and said there are companies already in discussion at the time of the rule making where they were producing devices that could contain any application you want to down load so we have for instance google t-mobile partnership, clearwater and other companies producing these things. so let's take a look at it. every decision should be dated driven and i support that. and we will see where the facts take us and also with the law takes us. at what point do we go from being the federal communications commission to the software commission so we will find out. >> it wasn't entirely clear to me with the fcc could do to apple. it wasn't -- i'm not entirely

clear with the jurisdiction would be if in fact they decided apples and correct taking google place of the applications for what could the fcc to or what you used to do something to that? >> that is an excellent question and will be for a lot of lawyers to debate over a long period of time. this minow go to the appellate court but there are trust issues perhaps so the fcc is a regulatory body. we have to operate under the public interest standard, department of justice and federal trade commission, enforce antitrust laws. in terms of an application store as you call it is like having a grocery store so if you shop at whole foods you are looking for a certain type of breakfast cereal that has to be organic and you don't expect to say find frosted flakes. shettle foods be required to carry frost flakes would be a similar analogy, and so, we will see where this takes us. >> so, wireless issues seem to be taking a broad -- there seems to be a broad issue with

wireless issues at the commissioner with a exclusivity or global voice. are there other things you think the commission should be looking at in the wireless space? >> first i think wireless is one of the exciting area as we cover. what we call spectral efficiency doubles every two and a half years. that's the amount of data you can put through the air waves, like moore's law with computers we are a trillion times more efficient than we were up the time the media was first invented in the late 1800's. and that trend seems to continue and will continue for quite some time. our wireless devices will become more and more powerful. the average cellphone has more computing power than the entire apollo program are just going out into space capsule because we spent three guys in to the capsule but the entire program. so it's a very exciting time. there are things over the horizon like software defined review and cognitive retial they are going to make wireless

technology even more powerful. it is a competitive marketplace. about 50% of consumers have a choice of life wireless providers. 95% have a choice of four. there is more entrants coming into the different markets as a result of options we had in 2006, advanced wireless service options and the 2008, 700 megahertz and what we are working on the television white space tv channels and a particular area. so it is a very exciting area. it's wonderfully chaotic and is going to cause a lot of positive and constructive chaos for the economy. >> what about for the fcc? >> it is important we do no harm going back to the broadband plan. let's make sure what we do, if anything, we tread carefully because the wireless industry is actually brought a lot of benefit to american consumers and wireless broadband for instance where the fastest growing market in the world for

wireless broadband and that will continue. we are a leader there. people have treated the reliability of fiber at times for the freedom that comes with the ability. and if you look throughout the world, the world is choosing the ability and i think it is important to not only help the economy throughout the world but also help improve human condition overall. so mobile telecommunications can help supplant things like travel if you are a subsistence farmer and africa looking for a buyer for your crops that wireless device you have and more and more of them are buying these devices, can really help change life in terms of finding a lawyer or drinkable water. so as we go forward the fcc we need to be careful to make sure we do no harm. >> commissioner mcdowell, one of the priorities of the obama administration has been cybersecurity and when it comes to wireless there's more and fiber. it does fcc have a role and

fiber security -- cyber secure? >> we may in the net neutrality debate. the president has made cybersecurity big priority and rightly so. as we see more and more denial of service attacks these are attacks coming from foreign countries frequently we think sponsored key web sites and servers in the country and the government websites. i think it is very important we all rallied around this particular effort. the fcc doesn't have a direct statutory mandate on some of these issues but is a partnership with other agencies throughout the government that will be working on this but in that we will be working on things like that neutrality come network management we need to be able to allow the network operators to insure those systems are set were from threats and that's going to pay into the policy we issue. >> another to part.

how do you see network management network neutrality in the fcc agenda for the next six months to a year, and how does that fit into cybersecurity? >> the chairman sets the agenda so i don't know that it will, but given the amount of attention and publicity and the letters amy referred to it is related so i imagine i will take a guess that something is going to pop up before too long. how does it relate to security. a shock term. you sort of see the term or what you want to through the eink plots you decipher for yourself, but it doesn'tean that all bids over the network are treated the same or is there sort of room for reasonable network management sow for instance, if there is an of discrimination principle the fcc and 2005 came up with four principles regarding network management at neutrality to give consumers the freedom to go

where they want on the internet basically is what it boils down to and you want to preserve the internet so that it is open and free as possible. but there are times when network operators, phone company, a cable company, internet service providers all have to manage the network and traffic flow. there are surges of information, new software if you think of software like a torpedo size of software can you shoot that through a drinking straw of a wire basically to go from an accuser to end user. they have to be to manage the information and things like donato service attacks that come from within the country or outside the country. they have to be able to look for on lawful contant, child pornography being among that or stolen intellectual property. so there's a lot of practical everyday questions. as a consumer, if you download a movie smoothly and you don't want your e-mail bids or maybe voice of internet protocol bits

freezing up the picture or somehow interfering with your viewing experience. so there are quality of service issues as well. so these will please enter any at neutrality or network debate. >> this is the c-span communicators program. robert mcdowell one of five commissioners on the fcc. amy schatz with "the wall street journal" is also here. >> thank you very much. since you brought up matt neutrality we might as well go with it. do you think that neutrality also applies to wireless networks? >> net neutrality hasn't been defined by. the commission doesn't have met neutrality rules currently, but as we have wireless networks we have wireline networks and terrestrial and networks as well. it is all flying together. they are all connected so it is hard to to fight one from the other. >> so then does the fcc need to

write new principles or write real rules as opposed to just having principles that set things out and set the definition of the net neutrality so everyone is and so confused in the future? >> keep in mind there are maybe quadrillions of internet communications going on and as far as i can tell without any interruption, i think we need to change the nature of the debate to what is anticompetitive conduct versus discriminatory conduct. so there is a lot of talk about discrimination. the discrimination in any context is a dirty word. to an network engineer it can mean prioritization sweet talk about the didier experience you might want without interruption so they need to be about to prioritize the debate over let's say the e-mail bit so the e-mail bit doesn't interrupt your video experience. so, is that the question what they're doing a reasonable or is it anti-competitive? there are always in the book already to guard against or in force against anti-competitive

conduct and that's really i think where the fcc's role should be in the analysis going forward should be focused on what is anti-competitive versus what is reasonable network management. >> commissioner mcdowell, do you see ownership coming back up as an issue? >> it has to as a matter of law. every four years we are required by statute to look at the media ownership rules and these include how many radio and tv stations, many market or national the and whether or not you can have cross-ownership of broadcast property and newspaper in the same market. so those will be coming up in the year 2010. it is always energized debate as to what we should do and by looking forward to that. >> what are your feelings right now? do you think the rules to me to be changed or altered? >> this point broadcasters are facing an amount of competition and also really feeling the effect of the recession more than other sectors of the

economy. i just had some broadcasters tell me yesterday some of their stations receive or received in the past tense half of their revenue from all two dealerships. we all know how auto dealerships are doing these days, not very well. so the revenues are down. they have their eyeball, their viewers and listeners in other words are looking more and more to the new media and the dollars are following the listeners and viewers elsewhere so it is a stressful time for broadcasters. what we need to do is make sure again we are doing no harm so i think it is a bad time to get more regulation on top of them. broadcasters have more incentive than ever to differentiate their product from national or international content you might find on the internet and to be more local, hyper local and a lot of ways that's how they can differentiate themselves in the marketplace so we talk about localism which is definitely a

goal what we want to promote at the fcc broadcasters to use the airwaves for free in exchange for serving local communities and the quid pro quo the conference set up way back then. they have to serve the local communities. speed equity think the fcc should focus on in the debate? >> i.t. we need to get an accurate snapshot with the industry looks like right now, what is the state of the industry so let's again if we have a thorough fact gathering process and honest analysis, i think the facts will lead to conclusions. i would hope that conclusion is not to heed more regulation on broadcasters. >> so chairman julius genachowski said emphatically he doesn't think it is time to bring back the fairness doctrine is there still seems to be a wall of concert expressed across the country the fairness doctrine is coming back. where do you think this stance? do you trust him dropping to

bring it back? >> we have to take him at his word. he's only been in six weeks. the president also earlier this year said the fairness doctrine would not be coming back. there is concern however in december of 2007i had great trouble with a noticed proposed rulemaking would be called localism pocket where there were a number of conclusions. these were of rules, just teed up to maybe produce rules at some point. one of those ideas was to require each broadcaster and licensee to have a mandatory community advisory board unclear how that would be appointed by the advisory board could have great sway over the kind of content each broadcaster aerts and also great sway over whether or not to get their license renewed said there are some folks saying the license term should be shortened from eight years to three years so each broadcaster is in perpetual and then couple that with things like mant or community advisory boards to be dictating content i

think there's a huge constitutional issue in the first amendment for starters but i don't think it is good public policy so let's let consumers decide what they want to listen to or see and let the market help dictate that said that could be in some view of some a back door fairness doctrine in terms of the government controlling more and more of the content and particularly the fairness doctrine spoke to political speech that was enacted in 1949 by the fcc and abolished in 1987 and it forced broadcasters to only air controversial issues but opposing views and it becomes difficult when you get the government to determine what this the opposing view, how many are there. the sort of messy editorial decisions of the government have to make i don't think would pass constitutional muster a this point and we could have told dr. noss spectrum and the