have very nontraditional companies at the store on that show. we have netflix, google, microsoft, a rise in the verizon chose to another platform on mobile platform that will allow them to search and identify an index, video streaming content or content all over the web, bring that to you or attach it to the content. those are two of the things that are exciting, and there's a lot more. ..

>> guest: some of these things should be outside the purview, but i think they are wise to say, look, we're willing to have a conversation about all this stuff at once and get the government's take on it. you know, my view is some things are interesting to me, some things raise my eyebrow to say let's be thoughtful and vigilant about that, but i think you should pause there before you start thinking a, b and c need to happen or this is bad because i think we should always be guided by, is this good for consumers? and i think there is one thing consumers are getting that they're not craving -- craving that they're not getting, they don't want their wired and wireless broadband networks to be managed as separate platforms all the time. you know, when i take an apple ipad, i want to walk in my house, and i want the wi-fi in my house to go over my comcast broadband network and let me watch hbo go when i go

outside, i don't want to go to it and say disconnect, go to 3g -- people want broadband to be like the air, and i don't have to be a network manager every time i change space be. so if this venture can help soft that problem -- solve that problem, that's a problem consumers would like solved. i think they're conscious of that. >> host: how has the business model of a so-called cable company changed over the past two, three years? >> guest: lots of ways. i think the biggest way is broadband. um, i mean, there are certainly cable companies that broadband may be the more significant part of their revenue than the traditional tv video distribution business would be. but the beauty is, you know, when i think about it, i'm not that old. to me, cable at the fcc was title vi, it was you used cell

guides, video, and they like -- you know, we're in every form of communication business that exists in the world today. i mean, we provide a wired broadband distribution platform, we package and bundle and sell video content, we have one of the nation's largest telephone service providers, we develop software and applications for ipads and iphones and smartphones. we're in every one with of -- we in every one of those businesses. we are one of the nation's premier platform communication providers period, and most cable ceos conceptualize themselves that way. i am in the platform business, and i make -- that's why we have a new ad campaign, and it's cable, it's how we connect. because we are the connected tissue to bring all of that to fruition. and as i said in my speech on monday, very proud of facebook's ipo even though the market's trying to figure it out.

but in america, a 28-year-old kid can still in eight years make $19 billion. that wouldn't be possible if there wasn't a ubiquitous broadband platform that he could count on and rely on. so i'm proud of my country and that it's a place where entrepreneurs make great things come to life. >> host: in the age of social media and connectivity that we have today, what's the importance of a show like this? >> guest: um, i'll go to my grave believing human relationships are still the most important thing that make us different as people. business is a relationship. government and private sector form a relationship, you know? relationships have to be nurtured. i think social network can facilitate that, but if my children's friends were never met, you know, they never met them, they never went and had a coke with them, they never went to dairy queen and had some fun with them, maybe social networks help them organize that

activity, maybe it helped them share and extend that act tiff, but my child would be a sad person if those friendships never did anything but be virtual. when the egyptians form in tahrir square, it still took people to come together united as people to make change happen. and i think the genius of zuckerberg and others is they facilitated group-to-group formation, and that's still a people business. >> host: michael powell, with states taking over the franchise agreement business, how is that going to effect local content, local access to cable shows? >> guest: yeah. i don't think that it's going to have all that much effect. i mean, i guess the underlying assumption of that question is it's sort of that regulatory approval that somehow is forcing companies to do something they otherwise would not be interested in doing. there are a lot of dollars living in hyperlocallized

communities. let's go to the web where they're not regulated or franchised. what are the hot products? groupon, right? coupons from localized -- zip car, capital bike share, patch at aol, hyperlocallized content. google local, you know, localizing search results. can i -- you know, your phone saying can i identify where you are because where you are actually matters and that you exist in a global space. i don't think there's anything but a compelling story to serve the local market. you know, whether that's news, whether that's advertising, whether that's with shows and content and product, there's a real need there. i think you'll serve it, and i don't think i care who my franchising authority is if i'm making a decision about whether to program for that market. wanted to ask you, also, or have you talk about what the cable industry is doing to further expand broadband in the u.s.

there's an initiative by the cable industry. >> guest: yes. well, thank you for asking. it's something i think we're proud of. i think we're the only big industry that's stepped up to that in the telecom space. chairman genachowski talks about it all the time. we have huge penetration on availability of broadband. we have a somewhat surprisingly less smaller adoption rate, meaning people who have it available, don't get it. and it turns out the reason isn't just price. it's not even the most significant reason. it has to do with digital literacy, comfort with the medium, so we've signed up for cable to compete and to lead an initiative to provide low cost broadband access to low income families across the country, the entire cable industry's working on this collectively with the fcc and with cable connect enterprise, and hopefully we'll bring together three critical pieces; low-cost computer with digital literacy training and a low-cost broadband network. and then bringing those things together as best we can will help overcome this, drive up

adoption and get the country better positioned for the information age. >> host: how do you determine who is low income? who qualifies? >> guest: we're using the well-recognized free lunch program as the metric in these communities. so, you know, these are data sets that we can assess and evaluate, and we use that as a criteria for eligibility. so if you're in a family that's eligible for free lunch, you will be available for this program. now, in the start-up phase we're taking an even easier path to that which is if you are at a school, if your child goes to a school, 75% eligible for school lunch we use as a benchmark, we're going to serve anyone at that school. so you may not be on school lunch, we're not going to make that distinction. you're going to get the advantage of that program as well. at least in the start-up phase. >> host: if we could just for a second return to policy. >> guest: yeah. >> host: the verizon spectrum company deal is being looked at

by the fcc. was there talk here at the cable show about that issue? >> guest: honestly, not much. i think this is one of the things we used to say in the court system, you know, the matter's submitted. i mean, the companies have announced all they're going to announce, they've submitted the deal for review by the appropriate authors, and -- authorities, and we're in that period where that's underway. we had a lot of government officials here, no one seemed interested in talking about it because they wouldn't anyway. so i didn't want ask them. i used to live on that side, you'll get no answer. but it hasn't been, it hasn't been the central story of the business or the show at the moment. and i've been even somewhat surprised that it's not been a big topic here. >> host: and finally as, again, a former chair of the fcc give us, if you would, your long view of lightsquared and phil fall cone and how that deal, that spectrum deal fell apart at the

fcc. >> guest: you know, i'm not sure i'm really particularly qualified to answer very thoughtfully. i don't know the details, i wasn't involved in the deal in any way, they're not members of mine, i don't know all the complexity of what they had to agree to. i can only say i've seen many attempts at models like that. i've always been a little bit when i was in the investment world for a while skeptical of that approach, but i always admire someone to put a lot of capital behind taking a risk. but, you know, the number of very serious hoops that had to go right for you were pretty formidable. i knew where that spectrum was, i knew what it -- i knew the gps fight, i'd been through that before in my life. you know, i knew you were going to get caterpillar coming out of the network, military guys who wear stars on their shoulders, you know, concerned about -- you know, that's a tough, that's a lot to overcome, i think. plus you're in satellite

spectrum territory, you know, i suppose i was always kept call that one could -- kept call that one could turn around and make a nationwide network at a very, very fast speed. let me stop there and just sort of genre it rate, what the heck do i know? i'm not part of it and don't know phil falcone all that well, but they're smart people, and they must have seen something that they thought had problems. >> host: michael paul is president -- michael powell is president and ceo of the national telecommunications association, and we are in boston at the 2012 cable show. thank you, mr. powell. >> guest: thank you so much, peter. >> host: glenn britt, at an earlier session at the cable show here in boston, you mentioned that cable settop boxes may go away. i wonder if you could explain. >> guest: sure. the settop box, um, actually performs two or three function bees that we need because

traditional tvs didn't have that capability. so i'll give you a couple of examples. our digital signals are encrypt sod that they're not stole -- encrypted so that they're not stolen, so we need a device that is able to decrypt them. traditional tvs don't have that capability. in order to display a program guide, you need some computing intelligence and also the ability to communicate in two directions, two-way radio, it's called. traditional tvs don't have that. so that's why -- so we have a settop, in essence, to allow us to display our services at the home that otherwise could not be displayed. what's beginning to happen is the consumers are buying devices that have intelligence in them. that could be a smart tv, it could be an ipad, it could be

an iphone, it could be any number of things. and most devices have computing power, and they can talk two-way. so that will enable us to eliminate is separate is settop box. so that means the consumer will save that money and, i think, have a much better experience, you know, including where do you put the settop box, and you have the big screen tv on the wall, and it's clunky, what have you. but as long as people have older tvs, we're going to have some settop devices. so it's going to take a long time, but that's directionally where it's going. >> host: time frame? >> guest: well, today if you have an ipad in your house on a cable system, you can watch tv on it, there's nothing attached to it. it's over wi-fi. so you can do it today, but i think realistically to be in a

world where there are no settop boxes, that'll come only after everybody throws all their old stuff away. and that's probably over a five or ten-year period. some houses much sooner, but for everybody it's a long time. >> host: mr. britt, you also, you mentioned wi-fi. there's a new agreement among some of the larger cable companies such as time wearn. what is that agreement? time warner? what is that agreement? >> we're agreeing to create a common standard so that we can authenticate our customers. so if you're a broadband customer, you can use our wi-fi, and on top of that where we're building that, and you could also use another cable operator's wi-fi. so we're going to be able to roam across cable operators. so, for example, let's say you're a time warner broadband customer in manhattan.

if you went to philadelphia which is a comcast market, you would be able to use comcast's wi-fi. now, where we're building this is in areas where people congregate, so wi-fi is not a substitute for the existing cellular network, it's not useful if you're driving in your car at 70 miles an hour or 55 if you're following the speed limit. but a lot of data usage, tablets is done over wi-fi now. so the idea is to make that available as part of our service, and when you're in and around town doing things people do, you can use that why pie. -- wi-fi. our company, time warner cable, is starting in los angeles, a little bit in new york and a little bit in charlotte this year. but we're really focus being growing deeply in los angeles. that's this year's focus. and we'll go from there. >> host: speaking of ipads and

other devices, tablets, etc., even though it's still reported that 98% of us are sitting in our living rooms watching the big tv, there seems to be a lot of energy toward tv everywhere and being able to get tv on different devices. where's the, where's the business model for that if people are still sitting in their living room? >> guest: um, what we think is that people, consumers, want something that we call the four anies, a-n-y-s. so what are they? the first one is that people want access to any content. so that may be content made professionally by some of the people exhibiting at this cable show, it may be amateur video on youtube, you know, video i made at my house, it could be

anything. people want access to any content. they don't want to be limited. so that's the first any. the second any is people want to access that on any screen. so all sorts of things are tvs today, not just the big screen on the wall, but an ipad is a tv, an iphone is a tv, an android tablet is a tv, it goes on and on. anything with a display can be a tv. so they want access to any video on any device. that's the second any. the third any is anytime. so people want to be able to watch their content on their schedule. there's a phenomenon now, just as an example, called binge viewing. rather or than waiting for the one episode of show a week, you know, in the summer you have to wait until the next season, people are sitting down and consuming all the shows in a series all at once.

so that's choice, convenience, it's my time, not somebody else's time. so that's the third any. the fourth any is any place. so wherever i am, i want this. and we think that people like the idea of paying for this all in one subscription. so you pay once a month, you know what it costs. it's not pay-per-view, and you don't know how big your bill is going to be. you buy a subscription for them, and it's there. so that's what we're seeking to offer. it's very difficult to assemble the licenses and copyright permission to do this, but technology is available. it needs to be glued together in the right way, but it's available. and that's where we think we're going. >> host: there was a quote attribute today you, glenn britt: distributers have to remember that technology is a

complement to services, not a relacement. >> guest: i said that? [laughter] >> host: that was attributed to you in an article -- >> guest: okay. well, i believe that. i think that -- and, actually, if you look at our new branding campaign, it very much builds on that. so we are, as a business, we're a middleman, and we're an enabler, we're a retailer, we're all those things. so we don't -- if we're talking about television, we by and large don't create television. we do have news channels and some other things. but mostly we're buying that from other people who create it. and, actually, for that matter, most of the networks buy it from other people who create it. c-span being an exception be. that creates it own content. what we do is enable it.

so we're selling it to people in a retail package, and we're delivering it to people, and we want to make that as easy and as convenient as possible. so our new ad campaign is enjoy better, and you can fill in the blank. so enjoy c-span better. enjoy nbc better. so that's what we do. so i think that's reflected in that quote you read. >> host: as chairman of time warner cable, how much of your day, how much of your time is spent worrying, thinking about working on issues that regulators and legislators care about in washington? we talk a hot on this program -- a lot on this program about piracy, privacy, cybersecurity, net neutrality, net management, etc. what about you? >> guest: we're, i think realistically we are in the infrastructure business, and can we sell services that are used

by a lot of people many hours of the day, and that means we're important, and that means we're regulated. and that's just part of this business. we're regulated at the federal level, at the state level and to some extent at the city level. and that means we have to pay attention to issues that regulators care about in our space. and so, yes, that takes a lot of my time. i think we continually need to explain to both consumers and regulators what we're doing, why we're doing it so that we can tell our story so that when there are issues, they can be dealt with in a context where people understand all of the ins and outs, if i can use that. so i actually spend a lot of my time on this type of stuff. >> host: recently, speaking of

regulation and local issues, mayors of several new york cities wrote a letter to the fcc against the cable companies and verizon's spectrum deal. they're saying that'll prevent fios from coming into their, and competition, from coming into their cities. how important is that spectrum deal to cable companies? >> guest: so let me explain what we're doing. first of all, this deal is with verizon wireless, not the verizon wire line company. and verizon wireless is, actually, a separate entity that is 55% owned by verizon, 45% owned by vodafone which is a international wireless company be. i believe it's the biggest wireless company in the world, but i may be wrong. and it doesn't operate in the u.s. except through verizon

wireless. so our deal is but verizon wireless, not with the wire line company. and the deal is to sell spectrum to verizon wireless and also to let them sell our wire line services as an agent which means that we set the price and the products they could sell. it's not any different than best buy selling our services, which they do, by the way. and we in turn can sell the verizon wire line products. they assume a relationship with the verizon wireless line, i may have just confused that. but we can sell the verizon wireless products, that's what i meant to say. so i think it's interesting, we used to be part of time warner, a separate company now, time warner has many divisions. and nobody was ever

uncomfortable with the fact that one division would have a relationship with a third party, another division might compete with that third party. it happens in american business all the time. and so here we have a part, a partial-owned entity that has the name verizon wireless doing a deal with some cable companies at the same time we compete with verizon wire line. again, it happens in business all the time, and i think it has verizon wire line is going to do whatever they do with fios. it's unaffected by this deal. >> host: and finally, mr. britt, it's an election year, so congress is not terribly active at this point. but do you expect or do you anticipate, would you like to the see congress take on telecom reform after the 2012 election? >> guest: i -- as the ceo of a

company in this industry, i would say, yes, because the last two acts of congress that affected this industry were one in 1992 which pretty much changed the television landscape, and that's now 20 years old and an awful lot has changed since then. then in 1996 there was another act that mainly dealt with long distance and local telephone, but it did change some aspects of the television part too. so that wasn't quite 20 years ago, but it was a long time. so i think given the changes in technology and the internet which was barely even thought of back then, um, it is appropriate, and i do hope congress takes this up. as a citizen, i think it has to be put in context. there's many issues of the world, and they may be more important than this. so i think it's all going to be done in due course, but i would say 20 years is a long time to

live with regulations when the world changes as fast as ours has. so, yes, i hope they take it up. >> host: what's your background? how long have you been with time warner? >> guest: i've been involved in the cable business for 40 years and all with time warner or one of its predecessor companies. i started with a company called time incorporated which was a magazine company that was getting into the television business. forty years ago, and then later it merged with warner to become time warner and, of course, the cable company we spun out a few years ago, so we're four a separate -- we're now a separate company. >> host: and this is "the communicators," and we've been talking with glenn britt who is chairman and ceo of time warner cable. and you've been watching "the communicators" on c-span. this is our weekly look at telecommunications policies and issues. next week our coverage from boston and the 2012 cable show continues. we'll be talking with two

federal trade commission officials. thanks for being with us. you can watch any of the previous "communicators" at c-span.org. >> join us this saturday for more from the ncta convention. we'll bring you discussions on the future of film and music distribution with the ceos of comcast and verizon wireless, a look at cable news and a panel on the 2012 presidential campaign with msnbc host chris matthews, cnn anchor john king and univision's maria elena salinas. that's saturday starting at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span. up next, author and syndicated columnist mark steyn. the theater critic turned political commentator discusses free speech, america's debt and the growth of muslim populations in the west. mr. steyn's best-selling works include his 2011 release, "after america."

>> host: and, mark steyn, in your 2006 book, "america alone," where did that title come from? >> guest: i ought to confess that title came from the publisher, from my editor at regnery, a gentleman called harry crocker. i had a far more artful and elusive title that he thought was for losers and would guarantee we sold, you know, 2,800 copies.as [laughter]er he thought that was, he thought "america alone" was a hittite l, and he proved right on that. a e proved right on that. >> host: what was your original title? >> guest: i'm keeping that to when i'm in a multibillionaire and i can afford to indulge myself by writing books with oblique titles that sell 204,000 copies. >> host: what is the book about?

>> guest: the book is -- my original title was on the same theme as "america alone" turned into. which is civilizational collapse, which is my shtick, my niche, and what hair didid is he getsow to focus on your selling point, and he says all this tap-dancing around the issue in the first 50 pages is a waste of time. get rid of that. and that's the book. and he was right on that. >> host: you write in "america alone, the end of the world as we know it": it's hard to deliver a wakeup call for a civilization so determined to smother the alarm clock in the soft fluffy pillow of multiculturalism and sleep in for ten years. the folks who call my b