>> host: >> this week on "the communicators" the governments role in establishing high-speed internet in the united states. our guest is larry cohen, president of the communication workers of america appeared this was taped in december 2009. >> host: in this week on "the communicators," larry cohen who is the president of the communication workers of america, also here to join in the question, lynn stand-in patella wit "communications

reports." >> guest: most of whom work in the communications field. could be broadcasting, could be journalism, could be the largest group works on some networks. we also have several hundred thousand retired members who remain active in many ways. so we are in every state. we are 10,000 counting including the cato burke institute. active members. >> host: what sort of organizations or companies do they work for -- to the members work for? >> guest: about a thousand different countries like at&t and general a wreck and verizon, comcast, "the new york times" and many of the newspapers of the news agencies. post goes to when it comes to policy matters, mr. cohen, what are some of the major areas of concern that you concentrate on

with cwa. >> host: the internet you trust. right now given what's going on, health care policy has become huge because no matter where our numbers work for great concern about what the future be put health care reform, the question is what does that mean? bargaining and organizing rights, a big problem in the united states. and great concern for members of their ability to have a voice on the job. those would probably be the three big ones. we're very involved boboli of flow. and lots of the work i members do is affected by what's going on around the world. project to build alliances that are global. housecoat lets focus on the communications and telecommunications policy issues. one of the big issues currently moving with regard to telecommunications and broadband deployment. what is your position on the broadband plan being developed by the sec and overall broadband

deployment? >> guest: well, first we employed to focus the fcc has on broadband deployment. that is exactly the frame we would use. in the last 25 years we've dropped from the lead in terms of the global economy and broadband take-up and speeds to 15th now in terms of broadband penetration, the 30 oecd economies and were actually near the bottom in terms of the appeared so we've been running a campaign called speed niners for the last two years across the country to get people aware of speed and why it matters. and obviously bring a message to the fcc into congress as well that we are dropping, dropping, dropping and we would say that communications is part of the infrastructure in the same way as electricity like a new grid or water even, rose obviously in terms of economic development in the 21st century it's critical that we have 21st century internet, not 20 century internet.

>> guest: your speed matters project shows that the u.s. ranking 28th in terms of speed, about five megabits per second average download versus 20 megabits per second in south korea. does that really make a difference when to get up to th speed when you're streaming video do you really need to filter out telepresence at home? why does that matter? >> guest: it makes a big difference particularly in the economic size as well as the in the derivatives you're talking. and also we express it is upstream and not just downstream. and people want to be participants in a society with things like telemedicine and education as well as a garage band practicing on their own. you need to be able to upstream speed matters as well as downstream. there's lots of examples of why it matters. for a high death video connection, you need about six or seven mags just for that. and we think of it in terms of entertainment is a major driver of the things like c-span itself are not just entertainment.

another look forward to where we're headed, you know, that's going to be the goal. more importantly than in the resident comments also in the community peers overlook in a state like west virginia, where we're very concerned about speed and broadband deployment, high-speed internet connections, it affects the entire economy of the state when there is no high-speed connections and most of the towns, for example, in west virginia in terms of economic development. the justice companies in the past would've looked at what are the roots of this town, now the road is the internet as well as the road is that the truck arrives on. >> host: and why is the cwa endorsing and supporting high-speed? >> guest: the biggest groups of our members to work on a network itself. you know, so number one at their jobs. so we're looking at an economy now with a minimum 10% official unemployment and look at

unofficial it is 20. so decoration for people to work on the network number one. and number two, job creation is pronounced of coming in now, catching up in terms of the world economy and economic development that goes along with it. so to the extent we are worried come which obviously wired about job flight out of u.s., by focusing the u.s. and turning into consumers. you can really be consumer without working. at least most of us can't. and so, it's a combination of way our numbers for pierced double hundred thousand actually work on network and they're concerned about their futures. and also, we promote among her other members sponsored training, upgrading of skills, look to the future, don't let to the technologies. our members are really into this. so we talk about the speed matters campaign which restarted in iowa actually two years ago. it was in iowa because of the political interests. it was our members who took it up, met with the candidates in both parties, talked about the

libraries, schools, hospitals, clinics and iraq are not having high-speed connections and what that means. and so, to our members it helps say that our organizations not just about important as it is the standard of living, but it's also about obviously coming you know, where will our the skills you need and how to contribute any meaningful way way to this country? you know, it's not just a good word. we feel like your work is meaningful. >> one of the ways that the fcc is looking at trying to shift some resources to having to deploy your broadband is by taking it away from traditional narrowband voice services that are supported by the universal service fund. what do you think of that approach? >> guest: great. one word, great. the universal service fund was focused on simple voice. we see voice going forward as an application of software application. and we need to move -- the universal service fund is

$70 billion a year that could be used to stimulate, provide incentives for private sector investment in low density areas or underserved areas. i think that's exactly right. and congress coming you know, needs to get involved in that as well as we shift what it's there for. you know, we need about $350 billion to upgrade our internet to the standard of korea, which is ironic to most americans. we're way behind korea let alone australia, sweden, and a whole list of economies. japan is actually the forefront of this. they have 100 meg service to 100% of including world japan with a huge take-up as well. but you know, the universal service fund can provide incentive and can match it and leverage private sector investment. and that $350 billion has to come from the private sector. when you have the cycles for rural and urban america large parts of the city are left out.

i think that's the way -- one of the ways we can sort of get ourselves there, using the universal service and for new purposes. >> you mention some specific dollar amounts they are in the mountain universal service fund every year that could potentially be shifted at least on the same level as that 7.2 billion that was then the recovery act earlier this year. and then he mentions the 350 billion that the fcc has said is what we need to get to this really high-speed services throughout the country. and he said leveraging, but what can we do with such a small amount of money that is really going to make the difference? >> guest: first of all, sort of phase one and this is where speed matters. we do the state maps worry we encourage people our site is free they can go when empty with their speeds are. and hundreds of thousands of people have taken the speed testament published the results by states. people say why do we need to spend $7 billion. we have done it by people on a

volunteer basis. you know, creating maps to a son going to the site. but phase one of that, of the stimulus funds directive broadband is going to provide better maps than the maps i have been here, state-by-state. and that will then allow you to take the usf money just as usf were pinpointed to provide services on the voiceprint in areas that weren't going to get them just for normal market forces. so in a similar way, we would leverage those funds against the underserved areas and anyway -- essentially -- essentially with some form of reverse auction kind of thing pinpoint this is the speed we the big thing we're stressing is that speed matters. we can't just use the word broadband. we pushed the fcc to raise the speed. they rated to one meg. i don't know where it sits right now but is around one making each direction. again, in japan the goal they sat five years ago was 500 meg

service across japan. i mean, when to aim higher and set goals that keep us at peace with the rest of the world. and then i think we need to take whatever funds we have, whether it is the usf or stimulus money and match it in some kind of way to get the private sector investment we need as well. >> host: could you see an increase in the usf? >> guest: you could do it in increasing usf. usf is funded by all of us. well, i mean to get more funding than usf. essentially it is a tax to those whose telecom service. so we are hesitant in a recession to sort of tax ourselves or advocate increased taxes here at it i think the first thing is to map out where we need to go and then sorted do some version like the reverse spectrum that this is an option to get speed where we need and match up public resources and other incentives. again, that's where the tax

expenditure that somehow people are more comfortable with tax expenditures and budget expenditures. but you could do accelerated depreciation to get that investment out faster. you know, we also need to get more creative demand. so what parts of our proposals have sort of digital masters in certain areas. it could be high school kids work with other kids. it could be working when it -- brazil has a project called pc conectado, to get commuters across brazil. part of the reason to drive up demand you also need to work in underserved areas to get people to get on the internet and to be using this. i think it's a whole approach. it's the nonprofit sector. it are her. and if the public sector. you know, not only fcc but the local government plays a role in this. >> host: along with the broadband deployment, mr. cohen,

the fcc has also looking at net neutrality and adding rules to net neutrality. you recently sent a letter to julius genachowski and the other commissioners. what was the essence of the letter? >> guest: it was certainly that we support an internet. we had that from the beginning and speed manners. but at the same time, you know, we have to look at some kind of reasonable network management. again, this part of the incentives of the people who are investing in using those networks. in other words, if your total net neutrality, it would mean that there would e-mail prioritization or no preference for any of these on the internet. you wouldn't be invoiced medication seems to be preference any certain way voip or otherwise you're going to get latency issues, drops and it isn't going to work. similarly with video if you're sending us over the internet you need to be sure that there's some priority and keeping the bits together. so we call that damaging the

services to some extent, but it should be reasonable network management. if there is discrimination based on one side versus another, absolutely, you know, those providers leave it to be targeted. there is a little nuance in that letter. we're not exactly the same as some of the network folks would probably say we need reasonable network management for? and we would be sane again, get all parties in the room with my friend julius genachowski and the other commissioners and figure this out because if we don't figure it out, you're going to freeze up an investment in this whole problem of what kind of infrastructure you're going to have only gets worse. so yes, we believe absolutely in an open internet with no discrimination at the same time reasonable network management, sun managed services that a network provider can manage that's their own services so that again you're providing some incentives for them to spend billions of dollars to build that. >> you just distinguished your position on this from sort of the strong net neutrality

advocates who don't want any management. would you distinguish your position at all from those of the carriers in the broadband providers. a lot of your members work for them obviously but a lot of them work for content providers who would be more on the open internet site of the argument. >> guest: jack, i mean, can we distinguish ourselves and that we think the fcc does need to sort of police he open internet and make sure there's not any discrimination. there've been very few examples but there have been a couple and we think there needs to be a cop there who is able to say when there is a complaint, hate you screwed up, you're going to pay fines and there would be -- we're not family but after the market appeared were saying there needs to be an open internet and again you've got to an area that is very key to us which is how do we promote diversity of information? things like c-span, how do we fund and promote the diversity of information so it isn't just market forces advertising

certain overcoming everything else. you're very worried about the concentration of content, it is another big issue to us. the most upcoming know, most of those issues virtually all that we are in agreement with. it's just on the extreme began into a situation where the gun of reasonable network management are not going to get the investment and then were going to have a total of open internet that 20th century internet. and so we've got to balance between the two. >> host: this is the thing of communicators programs. our guest this week, larry cohen president of the cwa. cwa-union.org is the e-mail address. lynn stanton is the president of the "communications reports." ir.com is the web address. can you tell us what "communications reports" is. >> would been publishing since 1974 publishing the fcc and congress of the states on telecom policy, everything that affects carriers that are now

becoming providers. >> host: mr. cohen coming you mentioned before the end of the due or concerned about the concentration of power in the fact two-party raised red flags i guess from your perspective on the comcast-nbc potential merger? >> guest: yeah, right. were concerned very particularly about a linkage of content and then i worked together. so again, it's not our world. we get that so we get to be in a world wherein and have respect to others. you know, we could say the deal we distinguish between content and the pipe and we do not want to have a connection. so for example, right now there is huge differences in price points in terms of delivering content. right now in terms of the cable companies, unfortunately particularly comcast, we have a lot of respect for them and members there, but we'd be very worried about what happens to content they don't know versus

content they do loan. so nbc, which again has thousands of members there at nbc now on the content side. you know, or concerned there is what happens to that content with this merger? not so much just happens what happens to the jobs. that's an issue for us. but you know, if a higher and higher percentage of content owned by a company would also pass a 60 million homes, what's going to happen to this whole democracy issue, you know, as i move forward here. for their concerns we have and were going to raise those concerns directly with comcast, also at the fcc, also commerce. you know, if there's ways for that merger toork. i don't see the main advantage that they feed that is the link between the pipe in the content and that's exactly where one of the greatest concern. >> you were just talking about the distinction between the

content and the pipe. the head of the national people and telecommunications association gave a speech in washington in which he talked about first amendment rights of the pipe owners and that in pushing the stuff over the pipe is a first amendment concern there. do you see that as a reasonabler with that. >> that when the fcc is looking at imposing net neutrality that they are possibly going to impinge on first amendment rights of the pipe owners, not all the content owners or on the delivery of the cable system over the sort of connected cable architecture, but specifically of the broadband isp in their first amendment rights decide how to deliver that content. >> guest: yeah, that would worry us. would be more interested in, you know, our rights as creators or citizens to create content and make sure we can get that content over the public internet that isn't disadvantaged.

that would to me be founders were country, talk about first amendment, their talk about corporations. i think we will run into trouble with that in different ways and that will get us onto another subject. but we would say the first amendment is about coming you know, a million people create content in this internet and let them have a reasonable chance to get it distributed, rather than a connection between the pipe owner in deciding what content comes over there. again, i think there is a managed services to get them to invest and that is the system we have right now. you won't get the investment otherwise. on the other hand, you know, a robust public internet is really where the excitement comes in, where the innovation comes in. >> host: mr. cohen, when you visit congress what are the committee to concentrate on? >> guest: commerce has all of these issues. they also have health care. you know, the labor committee as

health education labor committee and the senate and similarly in the house. i mean, it's pretty much a wide range because our members coming you know, are in different sides of things in five different industry groups. were also concerned about manufacturing and that is the subject for another day. hardly any of the satisfaction manufactured in this country anymore. we need a better policy. with a wide range favorite of several services, jobs, people -- >> host: service jobs? >> service jobs, tech-support, even though you think you're talking about somebody, any of these companies i hesitate to mention one without mentioning all of them as were doing it. you're actually talking to somebody who is not only contracted out. wide range of issues that we hear about. issues that we've been talking about here today would be way at the top, but workers rights is where the top as well. are we going to have burger and rights in this country.

i mean, we could do a similar ranking as we do on peoples rights to organize and burger with their employees. when you're on the bottom of that obviously health care distribution and universal access to health care would drop to the bottom on that. so i mean, lots of concerns a lot of members of congress. >> host: how would you grade the current congress and the current administration? with regard to your issues. >> guest: yeah, you know, i would say that us for the house, i say this openly, best speaker ever. a good fit of what the speaker is trying to do and all the people that work with her. i think there is, you know, there is a genuine focus their own innovation. i mean, our belief is that we need to move forward, we need to look at what's going on around the world that we can learn from, not simply think we're going to invent a cure. you know, the senate truthfully we are concerned about the rules and how they operate. it's a challenge to have a democracy where now were in a

situation where every single thing we need 60% of the senate to actually show up, not just 60% of those who are there. 60% to show up, to even get a nomination through. so i'm very concerned about gridlock. among our senate friends. but i like about the white house is there up working on night. i know a lot of those folks. i think they're willing to accept new ideas. i think we have to go further to creating a government in a country where we are really looking at the ideas rather than looking at where they are. i'm very excited about, you know, the president and his team and get a lot of opportunities to work with them and i look forward to most ofs. >> with all those issues with congress and obviously health care and energy are probably going to come before communications in the lineup. the national broadband plan is said to be non-self-executing, that they're going to present that in february and will have

suggestions or things that will be done. will there be any room in the congress to move on this? >> guest: i think there's some room on the job front so weierstrass same december structured in a sub country today. it doesn't get as much attention as a bridge or even a new building. we actually think it needs more in this way. it is not as costly either. i think there's going to be openings around jobs and we are not concerned about her employment and those who are working about happens next. and we would argue a lot of what we discussed today needs to come into the jobs conversation, 21st 21st century entry structure is not the same today as it was in previous years. >> host: mr. cohen, on your website coming you did a recent analysis or report comparing or talking about google and at&t, which i found interesting. can you tell our audience briefly what that is and if they want to see where they can find it on the website?

>> guest: inode factly recommended on the website. it's probably on www.speedmatters.org. we have a cipher you can go and measure your speed than it should be on there. if not i would get on there when i leave. so it's just www.speedmatters.org. what we did is compare -- the reason we did this as we're concerned on net neutrality front that innate. of unemployment as well as getting broadband deployment across the country that we understand where the jobs are. and so, that would give examples of what you're mentioning. at&t employs about 300,000 americans. google employs about 15,000 get google has a higher market value. so the ability of google to impact public opinion around the world i might add is, you know, enormous. their surface value, they create the populace is incredible compared to the number of people that work there. so there is a certain caution that you picked up on as page

searches with providing the revenue they are. so that's all the content the journalists create. you know, it's getting less and less attention and less and less value. in the quickest way to raise advertising is paid search. we're just pointing out there that in a period where most americans are concerned about employment, we have to see where the jobs are. so that's also capital expenditure. a company like at&t. and not here to give commercials for them, but those companies are the leading companies in terms of capital expenditure in the u.s. the last year i believe in the at&t case was $18 billion in capex. i only remember the google number and it's nothing like that. so we're really pointing out that while innovation as usual companies like google are tremendous in terms of our country stands in the world economy, we also have to stay focused on that we create jobs and how do we keep up in terms of the earlier conversation, and the speed and deployment price

as well. so that americans get back to where we were, leading in the internet economy. >> host: final question. >> for a long time the perception and were google and other companies in silicon valley weren't paying attention. are you funding yourself equally matched her overly matched? >> guest: my counterparts around the world will tell you they are basically in every capital. you know, pursuing their interest. some tender interest, we would spare the public interest, but sometimes it's just about google of their profits. you know, that's the way the market system work. >> host: larry cohen, how did you get there? >> guest: first of a worker in an activity union and i've been full-time in the union for like 30 years. >> host: larry cohen is president of the cwa. d lynn stanton for the sub one. >> guest: pleasure to be here.