this week on "the communicators" our guest is gary

shapiro the president and ceo of the consumer electronics association. >> well we have invited gary shapiro, president and ceo of the consumer electronics association to be on "the communicators" with us. to discuss several different issues. we want to give his impressions from the recent consumer electronics show held in las vegas. we also want to talk about some of the policy issues facing his industry. and we also want to discuss his new book, the comeback how innovation will restore the american dream. gary shapiro if we could start with the electronic. what were some of the innovative for the new technologies telecommunications products that were on display in vegas? barracks thanks for having me. coming back from the international ces that marks the beginning of the technological era for the world it just gives you cause for optimism because

look, i thought we had 27 different companies introducing some 20,000 new products in about 1.6 million square feet of exhibit space and with all those products out there there is a huge, huge array of great things. i mean, ford used the opportunity, the ceo, to give a speech to introduce the first every electric car and it only requires a three hour charge which is a major breakthrough. that you don't think is consumer electronics but yet increasingly cars are consumer electronics. the we look at this three screens, the television screen we saw a lot if three d and connection to the internet. the little screen which is the smart phone and the sony development but a lot of action is in the metal screen. it started as the ebook, went to the ipad and now is called a tablet category. atv tablets were introduced at ces. >> how quickly to the products introduced ces get introduced in

the marketplace as they get to the market place at all? >> that's a good point. of the 20,000 new introductions, probably less than half of them will ever get to the marketplace, because a lot of them -- you are trying to sell them to retailers. we had 7,000 press. we wanted to see if the press would write about them or talk about them on blogs or television or radio. investors are. really with 140,000 people gathered in one area, it is a confluence and there is a lot of experimenting, but certainly a lot of the products will get to market and they can get to market from a month or two to a year. >> now, one of the aspects of the consumer electronics show is the policy aspect that a lot of policy members, members of congress, members of the sec are out there. what is your message, what is the take away that you want them to have? >> the truth is we have a great government gets out there and we are so thrilled especially the people focus on technology like

the fcc. the first message, believe it or not, is i want our government to help us host the 30,000 international guests we have. we are the only country in the world arrogant toward our international visitors to their making a difference, they're helping us meet our cool exporting. think about it, 80% of companies are small business showing product. if they want to export, they use our show otherwise they have to travel to shows abroad. we are the biggest show of any type in the americas but we need government officials to help us. frankly our own ethics prohibit most of the hosting which is unfortunate. but what we want them to see is the diversity, the excitement, the innovation we have in this industry. we are the future, we are the engine pulling along american jobs in the economy. it carries so much going on in technology that it's optimistic and positive. we want policy makers to feel there's two types of policy makers we see.

those who have been to the show and those who haven't read those who have been understand the dynamism of the industry, interaction, importance of major issues like trade and innovation; and those that have not been to the show, frankly, were just another industry to them, and, you know, part of the cat if any of washington. >> i want to introduce as well paul kirby, senior editor telecommunications report, who is running our conversation. we will turn it over to him in just a minute. but i want to read one sentence from your book, "the comeback." you write national business leaders agree that industry has been hurt by the well-meaning efforts of the federal government to help the economy. >> absolutely. i think verizon is head of the business with a seminal speech a few months ago when he said you know the challenges our government is not exactly helping business. when you use the phrase greed in conjunction with the word business, when you demonize

business for the last two years because of a few bad apples it since it the wrong message and leadership. if you have policies we have had to unwinnable war, stimulus package, bailouts, medicare, cash for clunkers, we have only spent so much money and any business person knows that is totally unsustainable and the next generation is going to be paying interest on that debt so you have leadership that's demonizing business and you have spending which is crippling the future. you have a major problem ahead of you and the business community i think it is fair to say is pretty concerned about that. >> why is the president of the consumer electronics association taking on some of the issues you just listed? >> frankly our board has decided as a strategy saying the only thing that matters to our future and our future health as an innovation economy is the health of the united states economy the

next five to ten years and there is deep concern about the future of the u.s. economy the next five to ten years because of our own government policies. if that is the only thing that matters is the whole of the u.s. economy and concern about the actions of our government is taking that is why not there. it isn't just one person speaking. i'm speaking on behalf of the industry and ensure there are outlaws and i haven't met them yet but i'm sure there are out there with the corporate members, but i always hear support from corporate america from what we are saying and doing. >> paul kirby? >> to look at the couple policy issues the obama administration and the fcc want to reallocate a spectrum over the next decade. the spectrum is being used by tv stations, the department of defense. how difficult do you think is going to be for them to reach their goal? >> as i said about the government doing some bad things in this area they are doing absolutely the right thing because we need new spectrum to have wireless broadband

competition. the challenge we are facing today and a lot of people are experiencing it certainly in las vegas on our show your having dropped calls, can't get access to the environment and the new york and san francisco it's very difficult. it is a future kernan from the rest of the country so the fcc, that demonstration and republicans, and this is a bipartisan effort, have today made a decision looking at the future and said we have a major spectrum challenge. we've netflix and youtube and all this traffic over the internet is clogging up and wow we have a serious problem so they've taken some spectrum from the government, spectrum from other sources including broadcasters saying we have to repurchase the spectrum and make it available for the wireless broadband competition and that is what is important, it's not just broadband, it's competition between cable and satellite fiber, even power line companies

cannot provide a broadband. that is in a sense a lot of it is wired but then why your less competition we need as well and the consumer prices as low or and there's a tremendous amount of fear in terms of broadband. >> use it of the show the broadcasters are squatting on the future. they're expected to be a big fight in the reallocation of the broadcast spectrum even though the fcc says it can be voluntary. how difficult would be to get the broadcast spectrum? >> certainly broadcasters or if a nominal lobby and have terrified members of congress with their power to use their broadcast in a wave that demonizes members of congress. but i think everyone recognizes when broadcasters were first loan to the spectrum, and they do not own the spectrum, it is borrowed, they had 100% of the population covered. when i was a kid we get three or four channels and that was it. now broadcasters basically are going as a primary source in less than 10% of american homes. americans using cable, using

satellites, and frankly using increasingly the internet is a primary source of information and broadband so when you burn fewer than 10% of american homes you have to say is it working to take all of the beach front property, all the waterfront for basically one type of ship? but broadcasters right now they're signalling cable and satellites much more important than local signals. they still have that and they've also preserved their future by investing with a loss in a type of technology which allows them to be received locally over the internet. so broadcasters see the writing on the wall and the fcc in the broadband report which was the unanimous bipartisan report said you know, we are going to give broadcasters money for this picture even though they don't own it and through what are called a borrowing incentive spectrum auctions, so they will be offered the opportunity to get money for something they don't even really owned. that is quite a deal for them. >> how difficult will it be the

legislation introduced last year bipartisan set of options. how difficult will it be to get legislation through? because whole plan to be voluntary rests on those options otherwise there won't be money freed up to the broadcasters. >> it is bipartisan, it will be bipartisan. i think it is a question of making the national priority leadership from the of penetration. there will be support behind it. it may be broadcasters certainly will try to get more and more of a percentage of the revenue because the government has to get a percentage and there is going to be a battle for the percentage and broadcasters will come out swinging saying this is bad, but ultimately there will be a resolution i am convinced in the next two years. >> what the technical issues? >> even if you have the legislation there's issues whether that will actually work what technically work to make this plan have been? >> i am free proud of how we

transition this to digital television. i was part of that for almost 20 years. i am excited but hdtv and 16 by nine aspect ratio. that would require repackaging and the industry's getting together. the would be much more complex than taking a little bit of broadcast spectrum and we purposing it for wireless. >> gary shapiro, and "the comeback" and you write it's time to require broadcasters to return at least half of the present spectrum by 2015. why 2015? >> i'm a big believer that deadlines allow action. you have to have did lines for almost anything you do. i learned writing a book that pushed me meetings are wasted sometimes put the deadlines for action. the dtc transition was delayed a couple times that the deadline is something the was very important and the others push that through. so that's why you need a deadline and sometimes sooner rather than later.

2020 is certainly we too late because we can't afford to be a nation without protivin and internet service. we are already behind the rest of the world by most measures of broadband so we really need to get there. it's important for the education future. all these great new devices that are coming out there ready to be unleashed. we don't on the u.s. to be the country that a second rate behind the rest of the world. >> on the other side of the, the efficient use of spectrum, is it the onus on your member companies to be more efficient in their use of spectrum and how they develop their product is? >> certainly there have been great increases where technology can do. but also bound of physics and increasingly companies are doing things and there are breakthroughs' occurring. it seems we are pressing up against how much you can cut the signal and splice it to the subatomic level until we can't do more. so when he have intel and microsoft and other major u.s.

companies saying this is absolutely critical to our future i believe them. >> so at what point is they're going to be a spectrum crisis if no action is taken? >> atingua you're on the verge of a spectrum crisis in some major u.s. cities today. the great excitement about the announcement of your eyes and with apple was the fact that a lot of the at&t apple people were frustrated because the at&t service was perceived as a little bit difficult in some areas of the country. so this would give a choice, and there's certainly a lot more to go in that area, but the challenge is not just the service, the challenges we are losing the full motion video and everything we do, if you want hdtv video over the internet and everyone to get hit with not only youtube but netflix and the other services that are about to come we need the spectrum. >> this is c-span's "the communicators" program. our guest is gary shapiro, president and ceo of the consumers electronics association. joining the conversation, paul kirby, editor of telecommunications report.

>> you mentioned the 10% of americans get their tv from over the air. do they have a right to continue to do that? some people said reallocate all of the tv spectrum, and those people can move to cable or satellite. do people have the right to have free over the year to be? >> certainly there's a constitution about that, and one of the dangers in the country is people now think they have all sorts of rights that perhaps they really don't have a right to unemployment compensation for two years or a right for health care, a right for all these things that are nowhere in our founding documents. but the point of "the comeback" as we have to prioritize and see really what americans are entitled to. no american should die from a lack of health care certainly, but is an american going to die because they don't have free over the air television signal? hardly. we didn't support the $2 billion that the american government gave for the dtc transition because we didn't think we could use the money. at the time i said we had bigger issues to communicate to the american public like the fact the selling mortgages that shouldn't be entered. this is four, five years ago i was saying this.

the intelligence service, great, but you have radio, newspaper, neighbors, all sorts of things. definitely, there should be some type of service. but when it came down to the dtv transition, it's certainly clear now in retrospect that those billions of dollars that was spent four wasted because as i said, it was nothing. americans didn't complain. it wasn't a big deal. research would show that we could give every american free basic cable or satellite service and would be cheaper in terms of getting the spectrum back. giving the broadcasters money. so not over the air spectrum could be better used in other ways. >> one other issue that you address in "the comeback" is immigration reform, and you call for these measures to be taken by the federal government. citizenship for gifted students. a quick path for citizenship for entrepreneurs and the financial able. creative process of granting citizenship to qualified immigrants.

don't allow entry of all relatives of all citizens and make english hour official language. how important is immigration reform to the industry? >> it's very important. the one i would really stress that maybe isn't on that list is what we are doing in our educational system. we have most of the peach these are granted to math and science are from people outside of the u.s.. we have the best universities in the country, and what we did is we educate these people and then we take them out when they get their degree. they should be given a green card. the other things to talk about our basic -- we have immigration problems. i'm really not getting involved in the big problem on the fact that we have legal immigrants. i don't even talk about that. i am saying of course english should be our official language and we should do some of those things. they make sense. other countries creating jobs, a lot of money, we have proposals that are bipartisan proposals that cover some of those things in congress. we have to think smart. around the world my counterparts running electronics

association's, we were getting the best and the brightest from around the world. from september 11th it totally changed. we shut the door and we had almost become hostile to the best and brightest. we need those people. many of our great technology companies were founded. that is what makes us so great. it's the first amendment, the fact we're in a new culture, we have a great mosaic of people and we challenge the status quo and have a first amendment that encourages innovative thinking. this is who we are. we have to preserve that as part of our national strategy. >> english as the official language, why? >> i think the country should have a common culture and common language. with this book is, what "the comeback" is about as a strategic class of the united states. i originally did the analysis of any business a swap analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. every business does this. industry should have swaps. we do for our trade show and we should as a country and we should agree on it.

a basic element is to have to be able to communicate. let's face it. the immigrants who came here, our forefathers that came here they learned english. the my parents are immigrants and learned english. my wife is insisting that my child learn polish and chinese. my three and a half-year-old speaks three languages at this point. it's awfully good to learn the languages because it helps to communicate but the rest of the world is learning different languages. america should, too bad but we need one basically what you think it is english. >> and other global issue you said that the u.s. finalize the free trade agreement in four years while other countries are signing agreements. why do you think this is the case, and what needs to be done to kind of spur the u.s. policy? >> one of the most dangerous things that i see is the arrogance of american suburban from the world. the rest of the world, canada, south america, europe, asia are furiously entering free trade

agreements, cutting down tariffs. the double exports, to do that we cannot have more than other countries to export our products. you ask why, for four years we have had a speaker of the house of representatives. the unions were very much in sync and the unions in the united states indirectly are hurting our country by basically saying democrats, you may not pass the free trade agreement. it's horrible, it's destructive and it's wrong and it's killing our economy. >> another issue, a policy issue that also involves broadcasters, the question is should congress passed legislation that would mandate cell phones with xm chips. door association, cia and other technical groups say no. ytd that is a bad idea and are you going to be a will to fight back an idea on that? >> this is a battle but we stayed out of. this is radio stations to want to play music without paying and

the broadcasters and the music industry says you must pay, everybody else pays. there's arguments on both sides. the broadcasters or a little but clever. they went to block legislation so they brought us and said we will agree to provide if you agree it should be added to every cell phone and we said we'd a second, that is a desert. why would you write down the technology? that is like requiring a horse to be put in front of every car on the car was introduced over a hundred years ago. that is a very bad policy. there is no support in congress for that but there is adding support because the music industry is right. broadcasters should pay, and the we to do that and the way that this will ultimately come down as for all of the music after a certain date broadcasters will have to have permission to play and that means they could be paid to play so broadcasters can make our revenue and certainly from musicians don't want their work paid, they have the right to say don't and that includes

the broadcasters argument that it's a great promotional vehicle for music. >> gary shapiro i want to return to international issues. doesn't telecommunications technology, isn't it basically a race for geographical borders? >> you know that's a great point and have gotten great response is doing well on parnes and mobile and amazon. but my son in his 20s said your books are relevant, your focused on the united states. the internet has made it so it really doesn't matter. i disagree. i think the countries and geography have a purpose. i think america is the best country in the world. i believe in american exceptional the sum. we have such things like creativity into entrepreneurship and we let countries and people feel so there is a geographic purpose. certainly the internet has made it difficult to regulate. even europe they have different concepts of privacy and some of that hurts them. why does america have all of the

best internet companies in the world? wire the most creative and our motion picture industry? we have a sense of culture and challenging experimentation in the system at large and a genetically great innovative culture that allows us to succeed. i want to preserve that and i believe we are sending kids to iraq and afghanistan. our kids went in world war ii. we have to fight to preserve over country and the future and that is what "the comeback" is about and why i am passionate about it. >> is there a consumer electronics association for the e.u., china, japan, etc.? what is your cooperation? >> our technology in the world i just spent last week hosting and using 26 associations from around the world. we share a view of importance of free trade and a lot of other areas of issues that are coming but of course we are competitive in the ways we want all of the u.s. companies or companies that have been a subsidiary of a foreign company. we each have a way of competing and everyone believes in their own country.

>> host: this is where you write about broadband. it's disappointing that the u.s. continues to fall behind other countries on virtually every important measure of prada availability and quality. it didn't have to be that way. why is it that way in your view? >> well because we really haven't focused on broadband as we should. we don't have enough competition. we all have enough spectrum. in part we have made it a little bit difficult for the telephone companies and others to compete. the cable industry is the best in broadband. jury strategic as an industry and we are leaving the entertainment media and we're going to go after broadband as a revenue source. i think that we have to foster that competition between different providers of broadband and wireless. i want to look forward, don't want to look backward but by measures of broadband we are cleaning the that as well as we should be read some should not the cable companies if they were brilliant and forward thinking be rewarded for that brilliance

and forward thinking? >> i think they already were in the sense that they are competing for customers with others and i get the believe from the other revenue services is definitely growing. certainly i have brought and three cable service and i am paying for that. it's something which is good to the home and a lot of arguments. speaking at a new technology important. broadcasters would say we are going to do global tv and global decisis. what is your reaction to their argument we are going to use their spectrum for not just over the air tv we are going to use it for others this? >> that's possible. mobile dtc technology that is out there waiting to see what happens with it. certainly they tried it and it didn't work. it's worked in other countries where people used to watching tv on the go and in a lot of ways has become popular is internet on the go.

certainly if broadcasters really get behind it, which they haven't come in and really promoted it could make a difference. i don't think that you need all of the steps for that. they're slicing and dicing the spectrum which is perfectly capable of doing. >> gary shapiro, they're seems to be brewing brouhaha over net management network management between the house republicans and the fcc. what is your view on that? >> there is no question that from an entrepreneurial she was making it great as anyone could start an internet service and could make a fortune and we do have every major internet companies started in the united states and it is because they were carried by everyone. at the same time there is no history of discrimination against so nothing that has happened again and that is what is part of the disagreement between the republicans and tax cuts -- democrats. my view is if we have competition and get the spectrum and we have all sorts of -- if you have as a consumer five different choices of broadband

the net neutrality faces the issue. if you can get up of your contract and you know the terms addition to sit out of your contract but if you know what the terms are and you can switch of the terms changed to someone else, net neutrality doesn't matter that much as an issue. to mean that neutrality is an issue that washington lost. lobbyists on both sides were not working for companies sources additions directly. people get advertising. it was the most lobbied pretext for perhaps healthcare command to me it is not the issue of the date it should be to read the fcc did a kind of compromise thing which is almost a democrat republican, and and certainly the republicans are looking for a reason to call on it. i want to look to the future and the future is spectrum. >> speaking of spectrum, another is called the d block. does your association have a few utter that should be free option to provide that spectrum to the company's? >> our view there is a balance

between the three types of spectrum and everyone has to get a little bit what's more important than that? they have a compelling case to make and we want to see it happen and they deserve to be listened to and they deserve the spectrum we all want them to communicate and the sick emergency needs. the second is the spectrum bit on where everyone gets money but there is a third called on licensed spectrum and 11 novation first start with a garage door openers and all sorts of technologies and to have to abide by certain rules of not to interfere with others and things like that and great and tremendous innovation i can't even think of other entrepreneurs to and there's a lot of opportunity, so three types of, you know all of the spectrum is the same that is different characteristics. but in terms of how you allocate that beach front property there should be some for each of those groups.

>> specifically does the cea have a position on what should be called the deep glock? as far as the spectrum you talk about the license to the fcc does is that tv white spaces and a lot of the members have pushed for that to be opened up which it is going to be for the unlicensed, so that is the innovation i assume you are talking about for broadband. >> that was a tricky thing for the fcc to do to deal with this piece is between the television signals and white spaces interview with some of the people are using in one fashion or another. the wireless microphone people versus others. but definitely microsoft and others are just waiting for that final decision and we expect the