>> this week on "the communicators," our guest is blair levin, the executive directer of the fcc's national broadband plan.

>> host: blair levin is the executive directer of the broadband initiative for the federal communications commission, and with the release of the 350-plus pages of the broadband plan, mr. levin, the opposition to the broadband plan has been rather muted. are you surprised by that? >> guest: actually we've been very, very happy with the response to the plan. it's a comprehensive document, and i think what you saw was a lot of people even though they disagree with, really, elements of it have, number one, great appreciation for the work that went into it, number two, a great appreciation for the professionalism. it's a serious document. it goes through the data, it's very data-driven, its analytic, it doesn't react to things that don't exist in the real world, it tries to lay out a visionary and practical approach. and third, i think there was an understanding and appreciation that it is being very transparent about what the goth

agenda -- government agenda should be. obviously, there are lots of details that are not appropriate for the planning process, but rather, appropriate for the government as it starts to implement those things. so we were very, very pleased that a wide variety of folks from all folks, all sectors, industry, the public interest groups, elected officials, state regulators, a lot of folks gave us a lot of praise, and we certainly appreciated it. >> host: and one of the critiques that came down was from nicholas johnson, a former fcc commissioner. >> guest: yeah. >> host: and he wrote in "the des moines register": >> guest: i disagree with that critique. i think there are a lot of pro-competitive things in the plan, i think mr. johnson, with due respect, completely ignores a number of, for example,

spectrum recommendations. what we're seeing in various places in the world is while wireless is not a complete, perfect competitor, it does, in fact -- as it has done with voice -- provide an alternative way that forces a market-based mechanism of putting some price constraints on certain fixed offerings. we also think that he ignores some other things that we're doing to be pro-competitive in the piece, and i would note it's interesting, while we've received that criticism from some, yesterday at the house hearing there wasn't a single member of the house who criticized us for not being aggressive enough as mr. johnson would be, but there were a number of members of the house who said, hey, you guys went too far. so i find that criticism, you know, not, not really a valid criticism in my view. >> host: well, republican remit john shimkus from arizona, this

is what he had to say at a hearing this week in congress. >> 95% of our people have broadband. 5% do not. do you know where they're at? they're in my district. you know what? the stimulus fund is not going to them, and the rus fund's not going to them, and that's what torques people off. 95% of us have it, it's the private sector that's rolled it out, and now we want to take over one-sixth of the economy, another one-sixth of the economy through moving this whole information age from title i to title ii, the dirty little secret back here that's already been exposed. we're not going to get a surprise from the chairman this time in the hearing because it's here. some commenters have suggested a second approach in which the fcc would implement certain plan recommendations under its title ii authority. so let's have this hearing, let's have this debate. the system is working, where it's not working is in rural

america which we spend billions of dollars, and the money's not going there. >> host: and, of course, john shimkus is from illinois, but your response to his substantive comments. >> guest: yeah. well, first of all i would say that he appears to be critical of something that was not really part of the plan which was how the stimulus dollars were being spent, and that's a debate, and one can have that. our focus on the plan was actually to address his concern. there are seven million american homes that do not have access to broadband, and we have a very detailed, comprehensive reform package for universal service which spends about $8 billion a year, but it is not spending it in a way that is likely to connect those homes. we figured out a way in which we need to shift dollars around to do that without raising the assessment that consumers currently pay on their telephone bill for universal service. >> host: whatwhat about his crie of switching from title i to title ii and how do you feel

about his viewsome. >> guest: yeah. under the current law adopted in 1996, there was a distinct between the relationship of traditional telephone companies under what is called title ii and kind of what are sometimes thought of as advanced services which are under title i. this is a very complicated legal argument. there are very important issues. but, frankly, the plan didn't get into that at all because we took the view, and we were very clear about this from the beginning, that our, the purpose for us in the plan was to develop a data-driven set of recommendations that we thought were important for the government to take action on, and by the way, the thing that he's absolutely wrong about is this notion of taking over one-sixth of the economy. we're not proposing that in any way. in fact, our view was to look at what are the levers of government that government trigally does -- traditionally does and ask the question, are

we doing it in ways that help the broadband ecosystem? or are we doing it in ways that are inefficient? and we found in pretty much every case that there were enormous inefficiencies that needed to be corrected. so i think his characterization is wrong. now, as to that title i and title ii, the plan itself doesn't go into it because we were focused on concrete, practical recommendations that will help make this country better in terms of its broadband performance and that the appropriate place to address the jurisdiction question really is in the follow-up rulemaking and implementation. >> host: we are joined also by lynn stand on the, telecommunications reports. >> host: another criticism was that the plan could lead to fcc mandates for unbundling on broadband services in the same way there were unbundling mandates on regular voice service in the 1990s. >> guest: yeah. >> host: maybe you want to explain what unbundling is, but

is that what you understand the plan to be suggesting? >> guest: there are a number of things currently under law that require incumbent phone companies. there has been, you know, a lot of different proposals for doing additional kinds of unbundling on some other way requiring a broad spectrum of those things. what we said in the plan is that what we want to do is primarily drive private investment. and so, for example, one of the things that has really driven private investment in the past is availability of spectrum. so we were focused on the spectrum issues that were very important. another place is how do you drive investment to those areas in rural america that aren't getting it? and so we have, you know, various things for universal service reform. and then in the market where there is opportunities for competition, to what extent do you do that?

traditional bottle neck analysis. there are some things in the plan where we talk about how this fits into the context of competition. but a lot of those proceedings are very fact-based and very specific and more appropriate for specific rule makings. so we have a very pro-competitive agenda, but what we were saying is for some of these things, those are already subject to existing fcc proceedings. the fcc ought to determine those proceedings. for some other things, for example, with settop boxes we have a very pro-competitive section onsettop boxes because that is one place where we think we need to change the rules in order to drive private investment, drive innovation, drive american leadership in integrating traditional video with internet, with internet services. >> host: if the i could follow up because you just mentioned settop boxes, it seems as though the plan has a vision of trying to get all three screens as it

were to be platforms that people might use to get on the internet. >> guest: absolutely. >> host: it seems as though a lot of the low-adopter populations for data gathering are relying more on mobile, the mobile screen, and why do you think that the television is, i mean, do you think that people just, they don't want to buy a physical computer and just using the settop box and having that screen is going to be a real attraction for them if they're not interested in buying a computer? >> guest: there are a variety of different barriers to adoption which ten years ago probably weren't as significant from a public policy bear -- perspective, but if you want your kid to be able to do their homework as well as other kids, they better have access to the internet at home because that's the primary tool kids use. if you want to search for a job, if the you want to train for a job, increasingly job training is being done over broadband, so

it's very important to make sure it is available on all screens, but there's a difference between what you can do on your mobile device and on a larger screen, so we're cognizant of that, we want to drive it everywhere. and in this way it was different than a lot of other national plans, we want to drive the velocity of commerce across all the different parts of the ecosystem, not just increasing network performance, but enabling better devices. and one reason we focused on the settop box was we looked at mobile devices and kind of general desktop devices, didn't seem to be a problem. seemed to be a lot of competition, a lot of innovation, settop box market was very different in terms of its competitive structure. so, and of course the big thing is really the applications. and increasingly, prbd applications -- broadband applications are going to be the way this country and all countries address what in the past have been practical problems, and we think one of the most important things about the plan, there are a lot of

ways in which our plan is trying to get the country on the right side of history. it is fundamentally a call to action to follow where the macrotechnology and the macromarkets are going, and one of the ways to do that is to make sure that we have applications that really help us address health care, really help us address education, that improve the performance of public safety and government generally. so that's a really important part, and that has to be done across all kinds of devices, improvements in all kinds of networks and, very importantly, a focus on applications that help drive our national purposes. >> host: another issue that was brought up at the hearing yesterday had to do with television broadcasters and the proposal on the plan to voluntarily return some of their spectrum. >> guest: yes. >> host: representative dingell didn't seem to buy it was going to be voluntary. >> guest: right. >> host: if there's resistance from other members of congress

to the point they don't go along with those things in the plan that you need congress to do such as authorizing sharing spectrum auction revenues with, with the broadcasters for giving back the spectrum, can the does the fcc have enough carrots and sticks to be able to accomplish this without congress? >> guest: in terms of incentive auctions, the fcc does need the congress to give the fcc tools to help it in the reallocation of spectrum. this is actually one of the parts of the plan that i think i'm most proud of because, again, it puts us on the right side of history. one of the fundamental lessons that we learned in looking at it was the importance of spectrum and the difficulty of correcting if you don't have enough. there are a lot of other inputs into the broadband ecosystem that if it turns out you don't have enough of them, the market will create them, but no market can create more spectrum. we have what we have. the problem is in the

reallocation based on market forces. you know, i used to be in the wall street analysis business, and if you had an investment company that was forced to invest money based on the way it invested 60 years ago, that company would go to business with right away. you can't do that. you have to react to what's going on today. the single biggest capital investment that the united states government makes every year in terms of the broadband ecosystem is how it allocates spectrum. and yet in many ways spectrum is being allocated not on the basis of markets, not on the basis of technology, not on the basis of consumer demand, but rather on the basis of history. so the fcc needs tools such as giving incumbents incentives to reallocate spectrum where that's what the market demand is. i feel very confident if you look at where technology trends are going, where market trends are going, where advertising trends are going that if the fcc is given those tools, there will be a sufficient number of

broadcasters who will volunteer. we're actually asking -- in order to accomplish what we want, it's a relatively small number of broadcasters in a relatively small number of cities that can create huge upside for the entire american economy as well as, i think, creating upside for themselves. so that's really what we're asking for, and i think once that's well understood, congress will feel they should give us those tools. >> host: should broadcasters be compensated for that spectrum? >> guest: we think they should be. we think that, you know, one of the interesting things to look at and to understand is think of it this way, this is really about kind of how broadcasters themselves view the appropriate asset mix. broadcasters are all going to have a different point of view about that. if you're the cbs affiliate in new york, you may want to be able to do the super bowl and nfl football in high definition which requires more spectrum than if you're running home shopping networks, right?

the cbs affiliate in new york is worth a lot more than the number 25 broadcaster in new york, right? but interestingly, their spectrum is worth exactly the same, so we think if we strike an incentive, if the cbs affiliate wants to participate, great. they're probably less likely to want to do it, but the number 25 broadcaster in new york who, by the way, isn't probably doing local news, they're going to have a different incentive structure. so the key is how do we allow -- and it's not just about broadcasting, it's about all the spectrum. it's government spectrum, mobile satellite services, how do we allow the market to send signals about the relative worth of spectrum versus existing business models? >> host: we have heard all along how it's been improved over the many years -- >> guest: yes. >> host: and about coop's law about -- cooper's law about spectral efficiency. the government still has about 50%, is that a correct

statement? >> guest: you know, not all megahertz are equal. one can argue about that. it requires sophisticated analysis. >> host: when it comes to the beach front, how much of that is available? >> guest: well, part of our point of view is you have to look at this over time on a dynamic basis. one of the things we're doing and we make various recommendations not just about broadcast spectrum, but also about satellite spectrum, government spectrum, you need to look at it, what are the tools that send the signals? i was at the fcc during the implementation of the '96 act, and one of the things it taught me was you can't really know exactly what's going to happen in the world. you have to be able to course correct. you know, john malone gave a great speech in 1992 in december in which he accurately predicted that the forces of microprocessors, digitization and fiberoptics would lead to a brand new exciting world. he got that exactly right.

then he went on to say that brand new world is 500 channels. that was exactly wrong. and if a guy like malone can get it exactly wrong, then we all can. there were these students at the university of illinois in champagne urbana who were inventing the thing that became netscape that created a universe of infinite channels. then malone course corrected and helped create at home which was the country's first mass market broadband provider. and part of what we say in this plan is there's certain things we need to get right. like we need to get spectrum right, we need to rights of way right. but the market is going to do all kinds of things we can't predict. we need to make sure that the inputs are appropriately available and then let the market work its wonders. now, one of the most important things we think in the plan is understanding what are the barriers to using these tools to solve a number of our nation's

props. -- problems. and so we go into, you know, what is preventing the best courses in the world from being offered to all students everywhere in terms of education? what's preventing our kids from going around with 25 pounds of textbooks in their backpacks that are probably out of date instead of using the most up-to-date information that they get over on ebook? there are a lot of barriers to this use, and i think as you see over time as this gets implemented, you know, you're going to see a lot more uses of it, but the important thing to understand, it's a call to action that understands we're going to have to course correct in a couple years. there are going to be many developments we can't anticipate now. >> host: this is c-span's "the communicators" program, this is blair levin with the federal communications commission. lynn stand on the with telecommunications reports is our guest reporter. reid hunt said in a speech recently that part of the goal in the 1990s and you worked for him at the fcc in the

1990s was to make broadband the new national media. was that a purpose of y'all's in the 1990s? [laughter] >> guest: well, reid is a much better historian than i am, and i'm going to, i'm going to, you know, become an historian later in life, but i'm not going to do it now. reed was very, very prescient in a lot of ways, was the understanding that every country needs a common medium that has certain characteristics. i would say there were a number of decisions that we made back then that were useful to the internet and to broadband. but really it is the market driving it. the market has, is speaking. you know, this morning i was reading something that said in early 2000 when asked would you rather give up television or the internet, 80% of the folks said we'd rather give up the internet. today a majority of people say they'd rather give up television, and if you look at

the under 45, you know, it's like overwhelming in terms of that. that's consumers speaking, that's the market speaking. it's very important that we make sure broadband is widely available, it's very important that we make sure that it provides both a common medium for civic purposes, it's how people will engage with their government, it's how people will get a lot of news, but it's important to let the market determine that. >> host: one of the ways that the plan proposes making broadband more widely available is to require some future spectrum licensee or licensees to provide free or very low-cost wireless service that would be advertising based, but it acknowledges that ad support and telecom services haven't really taken off in the past and suggests that they might meet with more success in, quote, appropriate business models can be identified, closed quote. is the fcc going to identify the business models? will it be the prospective

licensee? is there going to be an opportunity for some kind of pilot or test or proof of concept for that business model before someone commits money in an auction? >> host: yeah, it's a great question. one of the things we found early on was that the fcc didn't have the data we thought we needed to do certain things, so there are recommendations we felt we couldn't make without data, but we were very concrete about here's the data you need. the fcc has to be up-to-date with what information it's getting, and it clearly needs better information about broadband. in addition we said -- and no business would commit, essentially, billions of dollars in various programs unless it had market tested it, so there are concrete recommendations about here's what we need to do pilot projects. then we do make -- where we thought we had the data or where there had been sufficient testing we said we can make very

concrete, granular, specific recommendations. for example, reform universal service. as to the idea you had, it's actually not a recommendation of the plan. what we were saying was we need to revise the way we think about how we provide broadband to low-income individuals. and there are various programs such as the so-called life link program where we need to run some pilots horde to determine how -- in order to determine how best to do it for broadband. as we're thinking about that, one should think about whether it's a spectrum-based approach that might do other kinds of things. but we in no way had sufficient data to be able to make that a concrete recommendation. so, and i think there is a very valid question about whether that business model would work. again, we want to be both visionary and practical. we were raising that as something that ought to be considered alongside other, other things that we could more confidently recommend. >> host: blair levin, why in the

broadband plan proposal do you call for a contiguous nationwide band for unlicensed use? >> guest: it's a great question. one of the things that we, we focused on was what is it that we know, and what is, again, how can we make sure that there's an opportunity for technology to develop in a lot of different ways? we've seen great success with various unlicensed technologies such as wi-fi in terms of improving performance on broadband networks. we think that we have to, that there are various business models that compete. there's a license business model, there's an unlicensed business model. they tend to do different kinds of things. one of the reasons why we think having spectrum is so important is that you need to have enough so that the licensed providers can do what they need and have

the spectrum they need, but there's also an opportunity for unlicensed. and we think having a contiguous nationwide band would enable all kinds of technology and development. we also say this there that secondary use, this is really important, we have recommendations for how do you achieve greater transparency about who is currently using spectrum so that people who want a secondary use model have better information in unsight into the marketplace. we don't know how these three different business models are going to evolve, but we want to make sure there's enough room for all three of them to compete with each other and to compete in other ways to provide better value and services for the american public and to improve the economy. >> host: next question from lynn stanton. >> host: there was criticism from the phoenix center earlier this week around maybe not a criticism but more of a suggestion that as the fcc goes forward with its plan that its success be judged against whether the country moves up in

ocd rankings for broadband penetration to number nine from its current 15th? 16th? >> guest: right. >> host: in the past the phoenix center and some other organizations have criticized that ranking -- >> guest: yes. >> host: -- as just not really relevant or not well thought out. [laughter] so what is your reaction to now being asked to be judged by -- >> guest: it's a very good question, and it's a fair question, but one of the things we found when we looked at a large series of studies was that, you know, number one, one should be judged on multiple factors. if you pick any one factor over any others, you're going to bias what you're actually doing. we could be number one in broadband penetration, but if our performance was the slowest in the world, if the our applications were the worst, that would not be a victory. we could be the fastest in the world, but if it was a million bucks a month and no one could

afford it, that wouldn't be good. the point is you have to have a multiplicity of factors. but there's something else we looked at, and that is the concept that early on in a technology, and this was exactly true of electricity. i think it was exactly true, by the way, of computers whereas electricity was 100 years ago, computers were 30 years ago. in the early stages, and we are in the early stages, there's something called measurement bias that economic historians have pointed to. and that is you're measuring something based on the way you think in the past. broadband is a paradigm-shifting technology, it is a general-purpose technology that is going to allow all kinds of things that we can barely envision today. it will take time for us to figure out what the really right metrics are. i think some folks are getting closer to it, but it generally involves a broad series of metrics rather than a single metric. >> host: universal service fund. do you foresee a day when it will be dedicated solely to broadband and not land lines?

>> guest: right now the universal service fund is dedicated to voice, and we do foresee a day and we are trying to hasten that day when the universal service supports broadband, really broadband plus voice because you can now get voice service over broadband. we think that's really important to do, we think actually one of the, one of the best things about doing a plan is it enables a process where you bring lots of different stakeholders in the room together. when we started this process, there was a lot of -- people thought this was really an impossible thing. but i think if you look at the reaction to the universal service plan, we rolled it out a few weeks ago actually before we actually published the plan, and you saw a wide range of folks who were very supportive of what we did. so we think that the planning process has helped drive a political consensus. not unanimity, but a consensus about the direction to go, and we plaid out a three- laid out a three-stage ten-year plan that

we think is very clear that we these to move to supporting broadband. i would also note there's a somewhat obscure but very, very important regime called intercarrier compensation. we also move toward changing the way we do that. and that was based, basically based on voice, based months, those concepts aren't going to exist in a pure ip world, and so it's very important to change that system. and we think that if you do change that, a lot of great economic activity can evolve. >> host: blair levin, both verizon and at&t have expressed control about the fcc controlling internet services. >> guest: look, h this goes back to what you were talking about earlier with title i and title ii. it's a very important debate to have. we didn't really engage in that debate in the planning process because that's kind of