this week on "the communicators," our guest is robert mcdowell, a republican commissioner on the federal communications commission. >> we are pleased to welcome back to the communicators sec commissioner robert mcdowell, the lead republican on the five member commission. commissioner mcdowell, we talked with your colleague, michael copps, last week and i want to ask you the same question we asked him to begin which was regarding the at&t t-mobile transaction. what do you see as the timetable for this to be considered, and what is the biggest impediment you see to this transaction happening? >> first call, thank you for having me back. excuse me if i have to clear my throat a few times today but i don't, and subsequently on prospective mergers but that

process and big mergers in the past few years they take anywhere from a year to year and a half speaking at the sec. looking at that time from we've been told by the parties we should expect an application to be filed at the sec soon next week or two and the clock starts ticking. of course congress is going to want to look at this as well and the judiciary committee as each house of congress will probably have hearings on this, so it will be heavily scrutinized. >> have you talked with at&t or t-mobile representative? >> yes, they came to my office the wednesday after the announcement, and met with me. >> what about sprint or verizon? >> we haven't had a proposed merger but i imagine once it is funneled we will be meeting with the parties. >> taha y matej a piece of video of michael copps last week talking about potential conditions on the merger and get your response. >> i would hope if there's going

to be a majority of the commission that it's going to approve of this and we would be obviously looking at market by market and with the messengers might be calling for that is certainly important. i think certainly the open internet and network neutrality is important and looking at the level of concentration in the market power across the board is important. it comes back to all of the considerations that go into deciding whether there's a public-interest convenience and necessity and that is ever charged and pretty wide-ranging charge we have under the statute and i hope we will fulfill that. >> commissioner? >> i served almost five years with mike copps and have known and even longer than that and have a high regard of respect for him so she's absolutely right. when he says our standards are the public interest standard

that's what congress told us we need to do, sort of a roll standard different from the antitrust agencies have and i'm always assuming the department of justice it can also be federal trade commission. i haven't figured out how to pick commissioner works as we get these mergers, but the look antitrust perspective of mergers and when you look at the wireless market you do have to look at a market by market, geographic market, product market as well, it's complicated and complex but i hope we can give a full and fair hearing in the debate as quickly as possible. >> joining also is lynn stanton from "telecommunications reports." >> as you mentioned the sec public interest standard is rather of an amorphous. would you look for? is a balancing act of what it does at the positive and the negative, would you look for

letting the public interest in the merger? >> in the merger you have to look through -- the way i approach this is are there any harm coming about as a result of the merger so what are the specific arms to the consumers and if there are arms they should be narrowly tailored to address those but it shouldn't be an excuse to implement rulemakings become issues that don't arise because of that merger, so i think the commissioner baker gave a tremendous speech in february and i support what she said. >> typically the antitrust regulators, the devotees tend to be one time to mr. kind of remedies or the sec tends to quite frequently impose sort of ongoing business practice professions or mandates and your view is it's not only the path

of the sec has in terms of trying to get the kind of issues the public interest to the competitive issues? >> you're right at the antitrust agency can sue to stop the merger and it is what the remedy is but they will try to get the parties to agree ahead of time for the divestitures conditions like that. so you see it's one time, but it can be rather permanent and longstanding. >> i guess what i was getting at is -- >> the regulatory agency for these industries are ongoing, but in the sec context what his doherty has happened is if they impose conditions they would impose conditions the parties are agreeing to voluntarily ahead of time of course. there is the option for incursion, so i think they've come to the --

>> fcc as the cost of doing business and whether that is good public policy or not is a matter of debate but that is historically what has happened. >> one of the conditions michael copps discussed with regard to at&t and mobile is the network neutrality. on the house floor this week representative marsha blackburn republican of tennessee spoke this week. >> net neutrality is the federal government stepping in and goin saying we are going to come first and assign priority and ie value to content. it basically is the fairness as i said, they're has been a market failure and there is no need for this government over reached. so so many are saying why do this? is one of

and control, the government dic wantingtat to dictate what speeo you will have, how often you will be on the internet service that he will have, being able to control that. >> i was actually just in nashville last week with congress one blackburn and we did a town hall together and she spoke almost end the exact words there as well and she's been a very passionate leader on this issue. when she says there's nothing broken, i wholeheartedly agree there is nothing broken in the space and very long descent on this issue and i feel not only is their nothing broken but the fcc didn't have the authority to do what it's doing and it's defined a court order from almost a year ago as well as in the last congress we had a large bipartisan majority of congress, those are the words strung together we don't hear them strung together very often these days they're a large bipartisan majority about 302 members of

congress by my count who wrote to the fcc in one form or another said don't do it or don't do it this way or have congress handle it. so, this is going to be a public policy issue which really should be addressed at the congressional level. and so, i think congress is trying to address it at least the house is. >> so if you were in the majority on the fcc decision and congress decided to negate that decision what would your view be? >> you raise a good point which is some of these things are outcome based. just because someone likes the outcome, the policy outcome of a particular order by an agency you still have to respect the process so since i would love to see the federal government have a balanced budget the fcc doesn't have the authority to impose a balanced budget on the federal government. we have a vote yesterday which is important for the consumers to be able to make sure the

phones can now on other carriers' networks and want to encourage carriers to reach agreements, contracts will with each other but i didn't feel the fcc had the legal authority in fact there is an explicit statutory provision section of the communications act that prohibited the fcc from doing what it did yesterday so we may like an outcome but you have to respect the process. that's why it's there. we can't exceed authority even if it's a good idea. >> following on that idea now that a rule is in place whether it is data or the net neutrality rules once they are published as a lengthy process to be effective, assuming that the house and the senate managed to pass through this congressional review act resolution that would overturn them and assuming the court doesn't get around to stay in bonn returning overtime for

the first complaint comes in before the fcc under the net neutrality rules, how do you, someone who has dissented from the net neutrality rules or someone who dissented from the data running how do you approach those kind of issues of fact and dispute the rules you yourself oppose? >> excellent question. you're saying there is a rule i would oppose it is level of the land until it is overturned in court and so what do we do? this could be the pacific like i do think there will be a number of complaints filed under the net neutrality rules and we will see where those lead us. you have to look at the law and the facts and straining from this principle that's when the things can get sticky and inconsistent, but the most common request we actually get at the sec when you boil it down is pleased regulate my rifle and i think that is what is going on in the net neutrality in the number of things we see.

>> one of the rifles we sometimes hear is the other guys in terms of a post net neutrality. sometimes the bring up the issue of regulating requiring these to google and other providers and i would imagine pretty soon we will be hearing netflix because they seem to be coming the content in terms of being the other side on this whole issue. why are these rules applied to google? do you think they should be applied and how would you go about? i can see would apply transparency that some of the other aspects of net neutrality if you're not really running a network. there's servers and soft switches and it offers voice data and video services, so as the company at&t is that buhle

or verizon microsoft and the answer is it is all of the above, and so from the network perspective, the engineering perspective if you start to diagram of the company's look like they look very similar. so i think it actually calls for the telecom re-ride and more reliance on the competition than relying on for 35-years-old sort of stovepipes we are going to treat phone companies one way and cable companies another and wireless companies and other wind technology and the marketplace is passed those antiquated stovepipes, so that's a fundamental issue and an excellent question, but i don't think the internet network regulation in december should be blanketed. there's the problem for the other laws on the books protecting consumers has i think the certainty of unintended consequences and unintended harm is to come about so i wouldn't

want to see them applied unless we can really find evidence of some systemic market failure. >> do you see an appetite for the telecom re-ride? >> it took awhile for the at&t ma bell monopoly was 1814, it took 12 years for the 1996 re-ride to come about as a result of that. and it takes a very long time. i think over time it will have to be one because it is a fundamental part of our economy and it's really the telecommunication providers, they sort of speak on which the entire economy rides and we won't have as much innovation and constructive experimentation and constructive risk-taking and that's possible by some estimates the sec oversees about 16 of the economy, the same slice of the pie as health care

and that is well over $2 trillion, but it reverberates and affect all aspects of the economy. so, as the technology continues to move, we have to continue to look at whether we have rules on the books, laws on the books that might be slowing experimentation and backstops from the competition. >> any specific laws come to mind that in your view stifles innovation? >> for instance if we are going to start treating the lawyer was industry like the old white airline monopoly industry i think that is going to cause problems and thus far it appears in the past few years to be where we are headed. congress very consciously with the 1996 act had a hands-off approach when it came to what your list and what we saw was the tremendous explosion of brilliance of the wireless industry and the rates come down, functionality and innovation go up and investment go up and now the penetration

rate over 300 million in the country, but 200 million come to madrid 90 million or so have wireless subscribers so there's more power in the hands of consumers as a result of having a deregulatory approach to that industry. but what we are starting to see now is the fcc is more deregulation of the lawyer listed as the water line monopoly, and i think that could start as one example start innovation. >> this is c-span communicators program. our guest this week robert mcdowell one of the five fcc commissioners. lynn stanton with "telecommunications reports," senior editor, is our guest reporter. >> having converse re-ride telecom act there are some major reforms the fcc is looking at in its regulations in terms of the universal service system and the inner carrier system that governs how many is transferred among the carriers in the

industry. is this the year that this has been talked about as long as i can remember, is this happening? >> i sure hope so and just to clarify to the folks watching at home, the universal service system is over 8 billion a year, one of the largest subsidy programs in the government, and it's when one group of the telecom users subsidizes another is basically how it works. the compensation is related in that it governs how the new carriers and the telephone companies compensate each other for terminating the networks and that nature, in the fall of 08 there were four sec commissioners out of five to republicans and democrats and commissioner copps is another and we agreed in principal on many of the inter carrier compensation universal service issues. some of these are very thorny and meek people's eyes glaze over but they are important.

didn't happen then but i think that provides a very bright ray of hope that we can't agree on these things and it's important to show that we can agree on these things and the american people. it can be a politically charged issue in a lot of stakeholders and a lot of difference of opinion between the house of representatives and the senate and they tend to represent urban and suburban constituencies who tend to be the net pay year and the subsidy fund and the senate that represents more rural interest and the recipients of this subsidy and so it's very difficult for congress to actually come to an agreement on this. we are an independent agency not part of the executive or legislative branch this is when congress created as a 1934 to make these tough decisions. we have an explicit mandate to do that under 254 of the telecom act and we would do it before the leaves fall off the trees this year but i think we should do it holistically my concern as we started looking only at what they call the distribution side

is to get subsidies versus the contributions site of who is paying for it and we still have yet the proposed rule making on who is going to pay for this. and that concerns me set is a caveat. >> see would rather see this together as one action? >> it's a sort of like fixing a watch, it's impossible to fix one part of the watch because it is all interconnected. you have to look at the whole watch and fix it all at the same time. >> the distribution side proposal before the commission is using reverse auctions in which people and companies would be able to serve as broadband areas and because i understand who actually gets the money because there wouldn't be enough to go around would be based on the lowest per capita cost to bring and served people wanted

broadband network. does that seem like a reasonable way if you have to do it once the we want of a legal way to go and should there be commitments on the part of the bid to stay in the market for a certain amount of time or for the rate they would charge the end user after getting the subsidies. >> it's an opponent for the options in this space i think it would provide a lot of the incentive. conagra's would have to rewrite the law to empower consumers through the high cost fund any way and get a voucher and let you decide. we can't do that for the high-cost bond that's another part of the fund that does work that way but i think it does provide an opportunity to create great efficiencies. right now the program subsidizes most of the competitors in the same market and that doesn't make any economic sense whatsoever. soria to make sure it's compliant with the law the beavers options and i'm hopeful

the treen genachowski end of the fcc is also on board with this idea and concept and i think you could really have a great deal of bipartisan support. it does make a lot of the incumbents nervous when we start talking about it, but i think we are at a point where we absolutely have to consider ideas like this because we've gotten to the point the fund is subsidizing inefficiency and all the technology and we need to impact that. >> commissioner mcdowell, another option idea is the spectrum auction. the white house recently at the spectrum senate the broadcasters weren't there. are they being treated fairly in this spectrum discussion that is being held? >> first of all, the idea that has been offered in last year's national broadband plan, the chairman's plan was to have what they call an incentive option. for the viewers at home if there is a television broadcaster what

sort of financial incentives can be offered to that brought tester to give up all or part of the spectrum to have that option of the wireless carrier company to offer wireless broadband services. the engineers call the propagation characteristics of the tv spectrum are wonderful. the signals travel long distances and they can penetrate buildings and carry a lot of data with them so it makes perfect for weigel was brought and. but congress would have to act to give us the power to have an incentive option mechanism whereby broadcasters would receive some sort of a financial compensation. we have the authority right now for the options in general of the spectrum to not able to cut the broadcaster a check let's say. so the idea is the broadcaster would get some money, the treasury would get the lion's share of the money but then there's the idea would be truly

voluntary and for those broadcasters that aren't participating they are probably going to be moved, broadcasters moved into a neighborhood of the frequency so the wireless carriers can have a large contiguous block of spectrum so they need a continuous what to operate effectively if a broadcaster has to reconfigure their engineering equipment, they are going to incur costs so to be fair that wouldn't be voluntary by definition for them but they to be compensated to try to at least make them whole. so that is really of the debate right now is to how to make it fair and voluntary. we haven't seen a lot of action in the congress on this yet and here we are on april 8th the number of legislative days is quickly from this year dwindling down especially as the congress is consumed with the budget government shut down and those sorts of things and the war in libya and all the rest so there's a lot to play on the

congress mind. i'm not saying it won't happen this year but we are starting to run out of time. >> to talk about congress and their agenda. we are also approaching all the wood is 2011 a presidential election and a congressional election. does that affect the fcc? >> i don't think it should, but i do think it does. and sometimes different chairmen have been reluctant to team up items for a vote in an election year that might be considered controversial. one has to ask how many votes does that actually affect what we do, how many voters are actually going to propose on the fcc and she probably not very many. but again, what i said earlier to lynn is it is our job to make tough calls. when it is appropriate for us to act. and so that should be an odd number of years or even a number. >> and you could be facing the poor person commission next year with the election that's hard to

get nominations through and confirmations and commissioner copps i believe that the end of this year no one will be placed unless there were no nomination pushed through. could you see that affecting the republican democratic split because there are issues on which you and commissioner baker agree or disagree with democrats as there are many issues on the plate coming up to think that would affect? >> it very well could. about one-third of the time we get an analysis. a few years ago my office on this point about one-third of the time it's not at its full complement. if you look at it historically and still manages to vote on some big controversy all issues. but the premise there and it's an interesting question should commissioner copps be running i still have confidence the president cannot point and the senate can confirm replacement

this year. >> commissioner, what do you think about the new chief technology officer position? how was that interaction with the fcc? >> so we actually under the chairman martin, we had the chief technology officer. the we we've had chief economists come on for a year or two and advise and meet. i think most of the positions tend to deal with the chairman's office and the other commissioners offices -- >> i apologize to resign at the white house. >> i've met with aneesh. he was undersecretary of technology under governor tim kean, and so i met him a couple of times. he's knowledgeable and a nice guy but i don't have really any interaction with that office. >> coming back to the auction issue, should the sec be looking for the field in just the broadcasters, what are the arguments for having the

broadcasters returned the spectrum if there is the better use the news in the air waves to send signals to what is about 15% may be of the homes that might still rely on over the air broadcasting, but in the at&t t-mobile proposal they argued that it would do more by combining the two companies spectrums and either of them can do alone in terms of speed to get it the next generation broadband to market. mr. speaker held by its companies that may be better concentrated in larger hands and should they be offered or induce or inside it to take part in the options you may have the authority to hold? >> we are having the discussion in part because when the iphone de viewed in 2007 the applications started to goblet the airwaves so anyone who's trying to use an iphone in new york and even at&t's ceo at the have a problem that those

applications are gobbling up and slowing down your experience. so the wireless carriers said they need more spectrum. you're questions are somehow warehousing spectrum and they put themselves at a competitive disadvantage if they were doing that and would be at an advantage if they put more spectrum online. so there's a market incentive for the carrier is not to warehouse the spectrum but use it because the customers would be happier if the phones working faster but i think where we have a lot of potential was with the government. state, local and federal governments occupy roughly one-third of the airwaves and give the administration high marks for looking at a federal warehouse spectrum to try to bring by my count may be off by about it but 180 megahertz of spectrum to identify that and hopefully have this option that off. not all frequencies in the air waves are created equally for

broadband it's better to have something under one gigahertz but technology is advancing in the efficiency advances everyday so frequencies we thought maybe ten or 15 years ago or not valuable or usable are actually now voluble and usable and i think that trend should continue for a while, so one silver lining to the spectrum of exhaustion is that it will spur innovation. we have a lot of technology coming over the horizon like cognitive and things of that nature that are going to squeeze more efficiency of the airwaves and really give us new technologies and a devotees we can't fathom right now and it's an exciting time. >> of the spectrum are all of the new applications to doubt there. when it comes to the issue of privacy and new jersey is prosecuting or looking at prosecuting a couple of application providers, how much attention is paid to the issue

of privacy and do you hear from a lot of americans about that issue? >> the fcc, excellent question, doesn't have a lot of direct jurisdiction over the privacy issue, maybe state privacy laws and their enforcers under the section to 22 of the communications act for the common carriers for the information there is a restriction and that's kind of the limit on the privacy issue. obviously peripherally we operate in that space and have the bully pulpit but there are other agencies and laws in the book that government privacy issue which is important. >> lynn stanton from final question. >> the government states a possible shutdown as we speak are you an acceptance, will you be coming into week to the court next week?