thanks guys. >> and how would you have to cut the chances of rahm and senator schumer to clear the field t >> stay tuned. [inaudible conversations] ..

>> this week on "the communicators" enacted on the federal communication efforts on a national broad and plan plus other issues. our guest is fcc commissioner robert mcdowell. >> host: fcc commissioner robert mcdowell is the senior republican on the federal communications commission end-user gastric this week on "the communicators" your commissioner mcdowell were about a month away from a national broadband plan being delivered. >> guest: 43 days. >> host: been delivered from the fcc. can you give us an update on what is in that plan, what you've seen, and how it's developed? >> guest: well, we have sent the middle of last year eight-team that has been brought in from the outside and others are internal. the commission has done a terrific job of having numerous hearings, workshops and issuing public notices to solicit opinion and facts and analyses

on just about every possible angle you can think of of how broadband might affect america and what can we do as a country to make broadband more ubiquitous and more available for other countries. so fatter and faster pipes for more americans. our broadband team has given us a number of regimes over the past few months and it's really going to boil down to a think a matter of supply and demand. as simple as that. so what we do to make sure there is adequate supply and fatter and faster pipes? what can we do to make the exact a price for service broadband connections of public types? what we do to make them fatter and faster for american? what we need to make them more affordable? and what can we do to help americans want to subscribe more to broadband? and stuff really involves just a plethora of issues. so, we haven't yet seen the draft detailed plan. we've only seen outlines from

our broadband plan team. and we're looking forward to seeing more in advance of what will probably be a vote or meeting at least where it's presented on february 11. >> host: what happened on february 11 or february the 17th when i get delivered? as congress has to approve it as part of the stimulus act from last year? >> guest: writes, so actually it's a little unclear. as part of the stimulus act, by the way, congress wants us to look at all these issues for national defense to the environment to the national purpose of education, literacy, think about, health care. so we will have it fully presented to us february the 11th. it is due to congress the very 17th. it is not self-executing. this plan is not anything that they rule. there's really nothing illegal -- there's no legal effect of this plan. it is presented to congress as ideas and discussion. and then, i imagine the commission will have a number of spinoff proceedings, things such

as reforming our university service subsidy program to feedback and support broadband and things of that nature. so congress may want to address other issues. i hope you look at tanks or that congress will look at things we might suggest from the commission such as tax and finance to help spur things such as adoption, telecommuting, for instance, as many things that affect the environment in a positive way. i could also spur broadband adoption. so it indicates there'll be a lot of ideas that this plan will find and will see as to how detailed it actually is. >> host: cecilia kang also joining us today in "the communicators." >> commissioner mcdowell, does that mean the commission has to vote on the national broadband plan before it's approved by the

five commissioners? >> guest: you did use the word vote earlier and there will be a vote. i don't know that yet. the statute was that the commissions are present to congress this plan. that could mean a number of things. it could be just the broadband team returning it to the commission and that's delivered to the hill. so there are number of ways historically that the commission has delivered reports and other documents, significant to congress. and unless it specifically says the commission saw vote in all five commissioners saw about that i think it allows us to not do it that way. so the longer we don't have more specificity, there's an argument he made that maybe there won't be a formal vote. again, it's not anything that has the legal effect. so i vote probably really isn't going to happen. >> host: is there a chance there could be a republican dissent from the broadband plan that put together? >> guest: i guess there's always a chance it could be a

democrat dissent as well. i'm any both are five independent commissioners and its teat up for a vote it is possible that there could be votes to approve that on any item. >> you're so close to the presentation of this plan to congress. i find assorted interesting that there is this lack of clarity on the process, given that there's been so much attention by the commission and the chairman on making sure the process works well and that it's transparent and clear. what are your thoughts on the process can't just given what we talked about and the lack of clarity on what happens on february 11th, what happens on the happens october 17th. tesco i think the commission is done in terrific job of being observant and soliciting a lot of analyses in the outside world on this broadband plan. and several monthly meetings this past fall in december as well. the broadband plan team was presenting to us and to the world an open meeting their ideas, their outlines of ideas.

so i think we've seen a sense of an outline of what it might look like, but we haven't actually been the details yet. so that will come to us as part of the commissioner process and traditionally interna roles say we should get these documents 21 days before we have to vote on them and there comes a question whether or not there will be a vote. so it will go through that process. we don't know if there will be a vote and i think the process will speak for itself and >> host: commissioner mcdowell, given the fact that broadband is in many ways ubiquitous throughout the u.s. there are areas that don't have it. and it's been around for a long time now. is there a purpose in a broadband plan for 2010? >> guest: you'd have to read the statute of the stimulus act to see what the purpose would be from congress this day. and then i think it really speaks the fact that it can affect every aspect of life here

in america or throughout the world. but you're absolutely right. there is that too, depending on what study what you become and 95% some kind of broadband penetration. people can argue to whether or not the speed are fast enough or big enough to accommodate the latest cutting-edge applications, the soft whir, to go through those pipes. 92% of the country is penetrated by cable plants, for instance. that can be upgraded to maybe 100 makes per second merely by adoption of the software. there is a lot more to it and technical issues associated with it. so we could get the country wired up to 100 makes or 92% of the country just through that. we want to see more competition. i think since i've come to the commission that really started to focus on the construction of new delivery platforms, via fiber co. asked for wireless and

other technologies as well. and i think where there is the most promise right now is an wireless. wireless broadband is the fastest-growing segment of the broadband market. it's what consumers are saying they want, therefore they also want the liability of fiber or of other wireline technologies because of the speed and reliability. so to fill in that gap about last eight or 5%, whatever the number is will be difficult. earlier in 2009, i went to alaska in early march were at 55 below. we're reporting this a very cold day in washington when it won a semi- degrees out. it was 55 below there. and they have a lot at challenges when it comes to broadband. really satellite is their only option to the harsh weather conditions it's very difficult to have an even undersea cable. it's a coastal town with the beautiful arctic ocean.

so satellite for some cells and that gap. a want to make sure we don't forget about satellite because there are parts of america they get nothing else but that. and it has limitations that we need to look at what we can do to make that better for consumers who have died as their option as well. >> your comments actually echo some of the comments made by the white house made yesterday in comments to the fcc to the department of justice as well from the and tia in a letter word the administration basically said that areas more need for competition. you're talking a lot about about competition. but do you talk about what you see is a competitive mindscape today. if there's not enough, and your thoughts on wireless. that is sounding very much stressed by the administration yesterday. and how the commission should consider the fact of the biggest wireless players are also the biggest distributor of fixed

wire internet access, at&t and verizon. >> guest: well, you can't have enough competition. at some point markets could be saturated with competition but that's not the case of broadband. really fundamental prater of mine since coming to the commission and 06 is an looking for ways to create opportunities for new competition. and not obviate the other about competitive marketplace that obviate the need for regulation on so many different other levels because if you have one player acting in an anticompetitive way or some inefficient way, consumers perspective and presumably consumers would have more choices. so i would like to have a -- certainly there's been discussion of consumer audits as long as we understand matcher expectations ahead of time. so for instance, it's very difficult to pinpoint a point on the map and a point in time and determine exactly who is using

that spectrum and for what purpose. so we have to manage those expectations as conducted and there's a lot of talk of this action on capitol hill about this product and product giving us light bulbs in our head. it's going to raise as many questions as it answers. but government uses about one third of all available spectrum. inspector missed by night. we talk about spectrum with the airwaves, the radio waves. in different pieces of the spectrum, different frequencies are better for different purposes. some frequencies signaled there can travel long distances and penetrate buildings, like the television spectrum. others can travel short distances and are better for medical, things of that nature. so it's a complex, very complicated area. but i do think we are on the early edge on the what i'll call the golden age of wireless here

at i'm very, very optimistic about wireless' future. i was recently speaking to the inventor of the cell phone, who we all know is alexander graham bell. we should all know this fellow's name. his name is marty cooper. 99.9% know he is the most influential person that nobody's ever heard us here at and he is in his 80's now. but he has a theory and doggedly a lot of deference because he invented the cell phone. cooper's law as it's known as better spectral efficiency doubles every 2.5 years. that means how much information can we squeeze over the same bit of the airwaves? that doubles every 2.5 years. so since the radio was first invented we are over 2 trillion times more spectrally efficient today than when the radio was first invented here at so i

think it's important to understand that trend should continue at least for our lifetimes. so when we talk about or hear about spectrum shortages, guess we need to do what we can to get more spectrum to the marketplace. that can be measured in years before that happens for the commission can find or congress can help us with this, too. to get that spectrum cleared, get it to auction and actually get built out. you're talking about may be the better part of a decade before that happens. what do we do in the meantime? with a smart phone and the iphone that are consuming more and more of the airwaves to convey these wonderful new technologies to consumers. well, this sort of tension actually helps create an incentive to use the airwaves more efficiently. and if you continue to think of the spectrum as real estate anything to the best spectrum say in manhattan is an efficient to build a one-story gas station in downtown manhattan or a 30 story apartment building or 100 story office building?

so just we want to have incentives for the use of land, we want to have incentives for the use of spectrum as well. so that might be an unintended and if it to having a bit of a spectrum shortage while we were promised as as quickly as possible to get this out of the marketplace. so there can be an upside. >> host: one issue of the spectrum is what they called whitespace is. and google just recently applied an administrator of whitespace. can you briefly tell us what these white spaces on the spectrum are and what googles will attend chile could be. >> guest: sure, the television whitespace is has been a proponent. the television whitespace as are those unused tv channels and a market. and sort of gaps in a spectrum. and in urban and suburban areas, the sort of contour map configurations that look like a map might be salamander shaped. so these are nice, neat, clean areas.

so -- they are more immutable to unlicensed use that license used because of that. so back in november of 2008, the commission to both baby step in a giant leap of the same time to sort of approved of use of unlicensed use to this part of the spec term. so some call the wi-fi on stairways. others are more technology. it is wi-fi on stairways. it is wireless wideband signals that can travel long distance and carry a lot of information with it. so there's a lot of that had to be in noise and discussion leading up to our vote in november of zero wait. in the commission did a very good job i think of trying to test new technologies to make sure this was viable and would not harmfully interfere with television right casters. and so the paradigm, basic autotype worked. since then though, we have the

mustek entity, at least less discussion on the outside with the use of white pieces. i think they use really a lot of public policy issues will talk about net neutrality and from others. but this is a terrific way to get new powerful devices into the hands of consumers. the rolling think you're talking about for google and google is just one of many parties probably interested in that as it would have to be a nationwide database of where you are on the map, where are their licensed users of those same frequencies on the map. so each handheld device, to get a little bit technical your would be able to tell you where the consumer is on the map and if there is a licensee using that record fee for that given spot. if so, then that device has to switch to a different channel, different frequency. as well as a device would have to be able to detect if there is some other use of that frequency licensed or unlicensed or not so

that these devices don't cancel each other out and sort of shout each other out and not be able to work as a result. so it gets very technical but you need to have administrators. and the idea was set up to have a neutral third party administrator for some of these aspects of it. and i think is what you're talking about with google or other applicants as well. >> do you think that a neutral third party can be a commercial player that has basis interesting communications? >> guest: excellent point and that is something that needs to be examined further. historically for things such as the administration of phone numbers, technology hereinafter sealand, that has been administered im initial third party that does not have an interest. so that's an excellent point and needs to be examined and sort of the authorities granted. >> host: this is the stamp communicators program. our guest is robert kang said the fcc. cecilia kang is a technology reporter with the "washington

post." >> i'd like to talk to but about net neutrality. i'd love to hear your thoughts about on how white spaces could solve some top policy issues with the net neutrality. you have agreed for the preceding of the rulemaking process, but you've also said that you don't think there's necessarily a need for new policy. is there any net neutrality policy or final rule that you could be comfortable with and what would that look like? guest zero well, first we're about to have our initial round of comments on january 14th, so we're taping this on the fifth weirds so i guess next week. the first thing i think we need to do is examine whether or not there is systemic market failure. the government in 2007 twice looked at this issue to examine the market, the broadband market. and this was the federal trade commission as well as the federal communications commission. federal trade commission to us

to a vote in there is a five bipartisan vote that is very strong. there was no indication of systemic rocket failure that would necessitate net neutrality rules. net neutrality has been, up until this proceeding at the fcc, sort of what i call a workshop term. but now we do have a debate, framework for debate which is unique. the first thing we need to address i would like for potential commenters who might be watching right now is to please give us hard evidence of systemic market failure that, in other words, the concern is for the proponents of net neutrality regulation is that network owners and others, phone companies, wireless companies on a might somehow discriminate against content or applications in an anticompetitive way to favor their own business

interests. that's far, there has not been proof of systemic market failure. there've been three or four, five maybe examples of some sort of nefarious behavior, but they've all been isolated in one spotlighted they were correct it or settled before any government action or through consent to increase with the fcc. i think that's important to notice well. so what is the ultimate cure for any potential anticompetitive conduct in any context in any industry? that more competition. so when the average american consumer has a choice of five wireless communicators, when there's a cable company, media cable over builder and i market and a phone company as well, i think that's important to note that you might have eight providers. we have more technologies coming from the right thing. we have what is called or 700 mega megahertz option that freed up a lot of the tv spectrum. we auction off a couple years ago now and we are not even seen

the birds that will come into margin for that. there is wireless communist clearwire. there is still the fruits of our auction from 2006 we haven't seen the first of you in many, many more. and then white spaces which we talked about before. that cannot be helpful because as i said before if there is a last internet on-ramp, if there is a licensee or market players that acting in an anti-competitive way to somehow frustrate consumers will buy discriminating against the content or application that the consumer wants to see or use. then, if you have enough competition the consumer can fire them and hire a new one. and i think that's the ultimate way to go. i'm always concerned about the potential of unforeseen consequences, unintended consequences of new regulations. new regulations of many kinds

act as a tax. and when you tax or regulate something, you tend to get less is that it. you tend to diminish it and make it harder to produce that they or the service that you're taxing. and president reagan, i might've said this on an earlier show, but president reagan had a saying that there those who they see something moving they want to tax it. if it keeps moving, they'll regulate it. and if it stops moving they'll subsidize it. and what to mix or we don't do that with the internet. >> host: a related issue to net neutrality is that search neutrality is pretty well known. adam raff would in "the new york times" about social neutrality. will that be sort of any net neutrality pan or has that been raised? >> guest: the proposed will speak for themselves and they place all the regulation on the network operators and not on the application providers. so i would just ask folks to look at those proposed rules and decide for themselves.

and i think the notice of proposed rulemaking that we voted on in october actually discusses this a little bit. so i would welcome a comment from the public as to whether or not there should be research neutrality it also does the fcc have jurisdiction or authority to oppose any of these rules to begin with, let alone search neutrality. >> host: do you think the fcc has jurisdiction? >> guest: it is a question i'm asking folks to help me out with. in the context of an item from 2008 called the comcast ruling that is being litigated actually on january 8 in the d.c. circuit. i dissented in that because i question whether or not congress has given the fcc proper authority to exercise what's essentially old-style phone or common carrier regulation on information services that historically have been lightly regulated or deregulated

altogether. if congress wanted us to regulate the service is an say so explicitly in the statute. so that is a question i want folks to help me out with you but i do question whether or not we do have authority. >> along the lines of competition being one solution for net neutrality or the openness on the internet, how does the comcast merger with nbc universal consolidation that you might see in the media space or the merger play into net neutrality and competition and is probably in the can indication media landscape? >> guest: first of all, lawyers tell me i shouldn't comment specific on nbc. and that frustrates reporters when i say that. but i'm happy to talk about the market in general. and by the way, we haven't received a comcast application yet. we think in january we well. so, you know, what's interesting is that transactions sort of box the trend.

in the last two years since i've been on the fcc we've seen move towards media deconsolidation. i've seen large media such as clear channel, cbs and others actually sign of traditional media assets. and even what is interesting just last year we saw time warner and time warner cable break apart, sort of get a divorce if you will now comcast and nbc universal are getting married. it would be nice to get jeff bewkes and time warner in the same room as comcast to see with the strategies are. so this box that trend in recent years. and i think actually consumers to answer your question more directly are awash in more media choices now than ever before in the industry of humanity. and i think that's a good name if we manage that properly. >> do you think along those lines with video and entertainment that consumers are getting maybe watching more option, but there's a big

transition taking place from six cable and fixed satellite delivery of video entertainment to the internet. and i've got to hear your thoughts on competition in the video space. there was a complaint filed by some public interest groups from the justice department and the federal trade commission saying that they are afraid that a strategy called tv everywhere by the cable satellite and telecom industry could be anti-competitive. and in your jurisdiction of the fcc, looking a video competition and consumers benefit, the public interest, what are your thoughts on the transition and any potential cracks in the foundation of competition going ord as more media goes onto the internet? >> guest: excellent series of questionnaire. that would keep us going all day with those. it's a fascinating, exciting area to watch. and calm comscore i think their

november figures for october show that american downloaded 28 billion online videos in the month of october alone and there were 167 americans do not. and those numbers have been growing in double digit percentage rates for quite some time here it so i think what we see is a vibrant video market right now. and, you know, this is more than the mementos in the pepsi bottle of youtube. these are full length movies and tv shows as well as user generated content of all stripes that we couldn't even imagine. just maybe five years ago. i think it's a very competitive marketplace. it's very chaotic. i tried to get out into the real world outside of washington d.c. as much as possible to speak with entrepreneurs and people who are trying to figure out how do you pay for all this. consumers still want quality

scripted programming and that cost a lot of money to produce. and there are two ways to fund that. advertising and subscriptions. a must for the market hasn't figured out a way to fund that. so if consumers continue to want.com is going to be interesting to see how the market evolves. nobody really knows how the story will and appeared were sort of in the adolescent video competition in internet -- the online world in terms of what services and content will be available. so in the adolescent that can be an awkward quirky time. you're not sure if it's going to be a beautiful swan or an ugly duckling or whatever the case might be. i think a lot of folks in this space are trying to figure that out. and what we should do from a government policy perspective is to allow as much freedom as possible for them to experiment and make sure that there is no anti-competitive conduct certainly. i haven't read that particular plea