and now on your screen the entrance hall to the las vegas convention center. home of the annual trade show for consumer technology. this is the largest trade though in the world and we are on location. this week, we will look at the new technologies that are coming out. from ces international and talk to policymakers as well. this is the "the communicators" on c-span from las vegas. and from the cens international

show. this is chris riley, senior engineer are mozilla. what is mozilla is how is it structured? >> there is a corporation and a foundation. we are most known for our web browser and our mobile phone. but the corp wrappingss from -- corporations are owned by an organization and our mission is to advance the open web and that is what drives the company. >> funded from net scape? >> yes, there was donation of money that started the original foundation along with the code that later became fire fox. >> host: is this is open code how do you make money? >> guest: through license deals

primarily. we are diversifying that as well. but when you install firefox there is a default provider of search that is there. so you install fire fox and go into the search bar and that takes you to a specific default search engine. for many years it was google. recently we announced it would change to yahoo. >> host: why? >> guest: our agreement with google expired. we had a choice about having a new agreement with google or yahoo and went with yahoo. >> host: what is your backngladeshck background? >> guest: i got a doctorate and then worked at the federal trade commission and spent three years

at a non-profit called free mess and then a little under two years at the u.s. department of state and then came to mozilla. >> host: what is your philosophy when it comes to the internet? there seems to be a consistency. >> guest: the thing that drives my career is the belief the internet is amazing and a big part is to be disruptive and hat to be a source of innovation to the consumer, market and economic growth. and i worked on a lot of issues like net neutrality and censorship and others things. >> host: what is your support of net neutrality? >> guest: absolutely. we have supported net neutrality way before i got here.

we have engaged in the debate more in the past year but have been since 2007. we believe the internet needs strong rules to protect net neutrality for users and developers on the web. that needs to include non-discrimination, subject to reasonable network and management and need to be enforceable. >> isn't that the world today? >> it is the status go. you will hear the phrase net neutrality is about preserving the status quo. that is how things work in practice. but without safeguards there are reasons to believe that will not be the wrorld p world of the future and it will evolve for independent entities for different applications. the safeguards will not have a change on the way the internet

operates but it will preserve what we love about the internet going forward. >> host: chris riley, you came up with a program that was altereration to the title of the proposal that has been out there. what was the proposal and what was the rules you filled? >> guest: it was a petition focused soley on the authority question. in january, the washington, d.c. circuit overturned the internet rule and indicated they understood the isp's to be offering something to edge providers. we said let's call it a separate service and apply the title ii label to that. we broke out a separate service to edge providers that were not directly connected.

we analyzed that service under the existing laws and said the fcc could call that a title ii service today and not have to go back and reclassify and build a strong net neutrality on the new service rather than the whole thing. we have supported reclassification the more commonly discussed path to get to such things. we want to provide opportunities so it isn't a debate between declassification and an opposite path. but create diversity. we will like we succeeded with that. we ended up being one of the first ones out of the gate to create a diversity of options that we think help sets the baseline to get where we are at. >> what kind of feedback did you get from advocating groups like

free press? >> some were concerned and they were concerned about the proposal about the risk of it being overturned on court review. our proposal was based on interupting different things and each phrase is a place where we made a call saying the fcc can chose to read this statutory language in this way and this is going to be a testing point when a decision would go to court review. allies felt it was a bigger risk than reclassification in the sense of overturning orders and not dividing up the orders. i respect their opinion and had good conversations with them. >> host: there is a strong feeling that the internet should remain unadultrated so if the

fcc moves forward what happens? >> guest: i think there is going to be less change than people think if they move forward with reclassification. the fcc has the legal authority to set aside many of the statutory as it applies title ii to the program. things like regulations and forcing bundling of the network will not be applied. investment analyst and others are looking at the possible reclassification for fore forebearance and saying it will not have that much of an impact on the way the markets are functions. i am of that opinion as well. >> host: at the state department what did you work on? >> guest: i worked on the internet freedom.

there is $15 million every year that the state department alone awards in grant to support free internet users with research digital training and other activities. usdi has a similar program as well and other divisions engage in such as well. i was part of the team that helped manage the grants. one way i can described it was there was an article saying the nsa is trying to break the ground while the state department is supporting it i was trying to support it. >> host: has the internet freedom initiative been successful? >> guest: i would say it is making progress. internet freedom is in jeopardy and being attacked on a number of fronts. you can look at stats of others doing mapping on this. internet freedom isn't in a

great place. it is in a good place in the united states but in many other places around the world people are not free to say what they want or access websites they want or use applications they would like. i think we have a lot of work but are making progress. >> host: what about the issue of i can being less dominated by the united states. >> guest: i think many feel this is a good movement. it is contracted entity of the united states government. so it is a more of an artifact than anything. it is managed by a good amount of contributors. there has been a lot of talk about this and the change of the legal relationship with the united states or other entity. a lot is formalism and we are moving toward the world of good

governance and i can transition as part of that. >> host: but there is a fear out there, aespecially on the conservative side that the internet is going to be free. >> guest: yeah i think it comes from the other countries where it is not free and worried the structured governmental prophecies will take more control over internet content and policies around such. in doing that it would take out of the equation the voice of internet users and technology companies who don't have the same ability to be part of the conversations with the governmental entities. and to many who support the open internet that would be a mistake. it is used by all of us and for all of us and we have a responsibility to be part of that and the structure for that.

>> host: your title is senior policy engineer. what does that mean? >> guest: i like to think -- it is deliberate play on words. >> host: you got to make up your own title? >> guest: i said i have a business background but i am into policy. mozilla is well-known but we are not that big and don't have the same sources as companies our name is in the same conversation in so we need to pick opportunities to track things and find areas like net neutrality where we could have a unique voice and engineer policy if you will to make it serve the open internet. >> host: what about the issue of privacy? something fire fox is known for. >> guest: absolutely. we have been invested in privacy and promoting privacy for a long time.

we try address it through product design advocating work, and education and training. we have done a lot to try to advance that in the past year. whether it is things like the forget feature where you can rewind past sites you have done and tracking protection where we explore. all of this isbuilding on years of work with others in industry trying to make "do not track" a practical reality. there is still a gap that needs to be closed. users understanding how their information is being gathered and how they are being tracked as they go about the web and everything they do online. it is a tough problem but it is important for us. >> host: where in the world is fire fox dominant and what percentage of the united states population uses it? >> guest: i think it is 17% in the united states. there are some countries where it is larger. germany is one of them. we are poplar there perhaps

because privacy is important there and we are recognized as being, sometimes i think the last couple years we have been the most trusted internet company on privacy. we consistently get good ratings for that. but a lot is driven by communities. we are not just people who take salaries and work in california, canada, paris or taiwan or another office. we have a community of thousands who contribute code to the fire fox browser. they are located in active vibrant communities in india, brazil, many countries in europe and they hope drive the products and how the decisions are made and help drive aware nes of our brand. >> host: what is your status in china? >> guest: we have many users and contributors in china.

as far as i know we have a great working relationship with them. we are in a pretty good place. we don't have data that we collect on people and store from around the world because that is not part of the business model. some of the tensions our partners run into we have not experienced yet. >> host: why are you here at the event? >> guest: there was a broadband free event and a panel on net neutrality where i spoke along with. and i have been attending the innovation policy talks on privacy of internet and hearing the ftc chairman and fcc chairman thomas wheeler who is speaking tomorrow. here to be part of the policy crowd at ces. >> host: broadband as a disrupter. >> guest: i didn't say that. they are two different talks. that is a good phrase and we should work on that especially in fiber.

>> host: chris riley, thank you for being on the "the communicators." >> guest: thank you very much. >> host: and now joining me on the "the communicators" in las vegas at the ces international show hank hultquist, who is the vice president of federal regulatory issues for at&t. first of all, what is at&t previewing here at the show if anything? >> guest: a lot of at&t's activity has to do with appel development we sponsor. there was a hack-a-thon over the weekend and it is still going on and that is a big part of the involvement in the show. >> host: when it comes to hacking and security issues we

have been reading about, how much of at&t's focus is on preventing that. >> guest: at&t has a good security office and we are knowledgeable and focused on security issues, at the same time we recognize that we don't have total control over that environment. so it is an interesting space in that no one network has the ability to you know on an end to end bases, control the space. >> host: let's take that to your job as vice president of federal regulatory issues. would you like to see congress enact a security legislation? if so, what would the focus of that be? >> guest: i guess i would say peter, there are people at at&t who are more knowledgeable about the security issues. i am focused on things the

federal communication commission does and by and large the security issues cross the whole gamut of the federal government the administration, congress and the agency. so i guess i am going to say i am not the right guy to ask that question. >> host: that is fine. we have plenty to talk to you about. including the fact the fcc announced they will note on net neutrality in february. what would at&t like to see them do? >> guest: it feels like we have been working on net neutrality for a long time with the fcc. this isn't the first time they adopted the net neutrality rule. there is a lot of concensus on what the terms of the rules are. we are encouraging investment in

infrastructure and the problem we have with where the net neutrality issue went is it isn't focused on the substance of the rules. but it is focused on the fcc's legal authority to adopt rules and what jurisdictional theory they should use. we are concerned they will undo potentially a regulatory status that has existed for over a decade now in terms of how they classify and regulate the internet. i guess i would say on that the fcc is going to do what it is going to do but really what we have seen time and again is that the fcc in this area has tried to adopt rules has found, you know, they have been appealed, they ran into problems and that could very well happen again until congress steps in and

clearly, you know, establishes authority for this area, i think we are kind of in a groundhog day situation with net neutrality. >> host: from your point of view, the regulatory structure or agreements in place now have been successful? >> guest: i think the rules the fcc adopted in 2010 which you know isp's like at&t are continuing to adhere to have been quite successful. i think, as i said, i think they have given certainty in terms of the regulations so parties could go out and invest and they have protected openness so the innovators at the edge of the network, the app developers and people like that don't have concerns about innovating. >> host: what happens if title ii becomes the land of the law? >> guest: that is the big

question. if the fcc moves to classify internet as common carrier under title ii i guess a couple things happen. one of them is it will create uncertainty because title ii is a very complicated regulatory apparatus. there is talk about how it could not be appropriate for internet access because it is designed for a phone network. it will create uncertainty and lead to litigation and that will take time to unfold as litigation always does and back to my point earlier which is ultimately the legislative body of government has to weigh in on the appropriate regulatory structure for the internet. as long as the fcc tries to fit the round peg into the square hole we will continue to cycle

and continue to talk about net neutrality. >> host: hank hultquist, at&t has a public policy blog which has a lot of information, really, on there. who do you write that for? regulators? people interested in communication? >> guest: i think it depends on the issue. if you read on the blog you will find technical and even wonky pieces i think are written for very sophisticated audience. other times you will find pieces that are light hearted and intended for a more general audience. i don't think we necessarily pitch a blog to one audience. it depends on the issue, really. i am sure we always have in mind both journalist and policymakers or at least potential audiences.

>> host: we have heard a lot about the comcast-time warner merger but not as much about the at&t and directv merger. what is the status on that? what kind of work have you done in that area? >> guest: in terms of the day to day merger with the fcc i am involved in that. we have made it -- we still have one more stage of public comment that will be completed shortly. currently i don't know if you are aware but the fcc has a what they call a shock clock that they use to evaluate mergers like this. i think we are look at late march for when the shock clock comes up. not a strict thing. you know it could go on beyond that. i would say at this time we are looking forward to the fcc completing its evaluation of the acquisition by some time toward the end of the 1st quarter and

the beginning of the 2nd quarter of this year. >> host: what is your message to consumers, and consumer grants what is the benefit of the merger? >> guest: i think the benefits are tremendous in a sense that these are companies, directv and at&t, that are in complimentary businesses today. video, which is directv expertise, and broadband which is our mission these are products that increasingly consumers are buying and use together. so bringing together these complimentary assets we expect will provide new services for consumers and what we call a public interest statement we explain how the merger changes the economics of broadband deployment. because of the energy we enjoy

through the acquisition and the ability to lines content as better prices and the ability to have a profitable video offering, we will be able to deploy broadband to millions of more locations than we could have done without this merger. so that i think will have a direct benefit to consumers. interestingly many of those locations are in really rural areas where consumers have limited chances or no chances. so we are excited about the benefits to consumers. >> host: has at&t taken a position on the comcast merger? >> guest: no we have not. >> host: we hear the word stove piped on wireless issues like cable, broadband and such.

can there be an overarching legislative package to guide telecommunication or does need to stay with one person? >> guest: i think that eventually the models you described as stove-type legislature which is just what you can see in the title of the communication act. title ii is common carriers and title iii is wireless and title six is cable companies. that model can't endure forever because you run into situations like where the fcc is considering whether or not certain over the top video providers should be classified as multi channels like a

satellite provider. that has implications and doesn't fit well into the statutory language. eventually we will have to say you know what because of convergence and the fact the systems will run over the ip networks eventually we will have to come up with a more rational framework that deals with that convergence. i am not one to say that can be done quickly or easily but to the credit of congress they have issued a series of white papers about ways to rewrite the communication act and i think they have gotten input and maybe some day they will deal with that. >> host: fred upton indicated he would like to see the re-write happen. do you think it could happen in the 114th? >> guest: i think there is a lot

of interest in it. i feel like you should not bet on legislation happening at any particular point in time. but i think it will happen eventually. >> host: at what point do you draw the line and say we will legislate from this point forward because the technology is constantly changing. >> guest: i think that would council for what i describe a more generalist approach to the legislation. when i look back at the 1996 telecommunication act it is detailed in spelling out how things would be done that are built on a view of what the telephone network looked like in 1996. those sessions that are continued relevant because they were so specific to that particular iteration of technology and business model

and regulation, have you know i would say become quite outdated. but more general kind of principles that i would say give guidance in terms of how to deal with spectrum issues. how to deal with you know maybe thinks like net neutrality. i think that you don't have to be as concerned they will become outdated overnight. >> host: hank hultquist, spectrum. the big auctions have been put off until 2016. is at&t participating? >> guest: there is a big auction going on now. i cannot talk about it. >> host: i meant the broadcast license. >> guest: the incentive auction is very complicated. it has never been tried before. the ftc is working as far as where can tell diligently on it. but at the same time it is

complicated. it probably won't happen. you happen, they delayed it until 2016. at least a couple years ago. at least a year and a half. but we have the aws-3 auction which is underway. the only thing we know is it produced higher bidding than anticipated. >> host: were you surprised by the numbers? >> guest: i wasn't tremendously surprised but i think the numbers say two things about what was contrary as conventional wisdom. one was the need for and therefore the demand for spectrum parties claimed wasn't as great. we heard that often. we heard people say there is no spectrum crisis. i think the value of what is being done in that auction