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>> guest: today those industries are themselves facing new insurgent challenges. so i think that's the changes taking place. >> host: so everybody yous up. we're, as you said, seeing a whole new crop of businesses in online video growing up. do you foresee a time when those new industries themselves become incumbent, and what does that look like when they do? >> guest: oh, golly, brian, my crystal ball is foggy in terms of what things look like. but i think you stated it correctly that everybody grows up. >> host: chairman wheeler, let me -- >> guest: let me go back for one second. steve case has a great new book out -- >> host: third wave. >> guest: third wave in which he talks about the technological

steps, he's now saying that there's a third stage, and the third stage is that you have to build on what has been done before, that policy issues become even more important at that point in time k and it's now not just the idea, it's how do you build a successful business and consumer service. and that's kind of the reality everybody's in right now. >> so in the ways that you've to pointed out, you know with, the cable industry and the cellular industries in a lot of ways have worked to foreclose new entrants and competition. could you, could these new entrants themselves become barriers to competition in the future? >> guest: so what we want to try and create is a regulatory environment in which competition is allowed to thrive. you know, i don't think you want to play the hypothetical game about could this happen or could

that that happen, but this is what we're trying to create. >> is there something fundamentally different about online video as compared to what's come before capable -- cable and other forms of technologies? >> guest: ing well, that's a really good question, brian. i don't think the difference is, obviously, the video. [laughter] it's still this on the screen, and they're using digital instead of tape now, but those are technical differences. there is more of it. and what you want to make sure happens is to, is to allow for the distribution of that video which will then encourage the production of that video. and that was kind of -- that was one of the concepts behind our open internet order. that, you know, there's this virtuous circle here that producing material drives demand

for the network. the better the network gets, the more room there is for producing material which drives -- and we're existing in that kind of an environment right now. >> host: chairman wheeler, a lot of people who don't support the open internet order have said it's a solution looking for a problem. that the internet has grown up without net neutrality regulations, and it's been highly successful. >> guest: i think the reality is that we need to make sure that networks are open, fast and fair. and that the success of the internet is the fact that it was a home more permissionless innovation, and people could say i've got an idea, let me go deliver it, and here is this wonderful broadband pathway. the fact that there are gatekeepers there then -- which are those who provide internet's

connectivity -- raises the question, okay, how do you maintain that kind of open access to consumers and consumers' open access to the web? and the answer there is to say, okay, we're going to have a rule that says it's going to be open and that that then drives this kind of virtuous circle i was talking about. >> host: and just to follow up, has the mission of the fcc changed given everything that's been changing in the industry? >> guest: oh, golly, you know, i've been hanging around the fcc as you indicated for, like, 40 years. i can guarantee you it's changed multiple times over those decades. and i hope it continues to evolve. because the job of the fcc is to be the advocate for consumers in a vast, in a vastly changing environment. >> and the open internet order and in particular with regard to

the general conduct standard, you have essentially we've seen a lot of questions about this program that a company has come out with or that program that a company has come out with. doesn't -- hasn't the fcc just put itself in the position of having to have a position on every single little thing that comes up, and doesn't that create the opportunity for inconsistent rulings and, you know, precedents that could allow certain behaviors to get through a loophole? >> guest: that's a good question. but what we've tried to do is just the opposite, is not to be judgmental. we've tried, you know, it used to be -- you talk about has the fcc changed. when i first got involved at the fcc, it was very directional and detailed. you will do this. we will look at your books for this. you'll have these kinds of directors. it was very, very specific in

terms of what it did. and in the open internet order, we have a very different kind of approach where instead of preemptively saying we know beth, we've said you want to have a couple of concepts. you want to have an internet where there is no blocking, no throttling, no paid prioritization, and consumers know what they're getting. transparency. and then you put a referee on the field. and the referee has the ability to look at circumstances and throw the flag if necessary. and that's an entirely different approach to what the fcc used to be. and i think that's the kind of approach that encouragings in this kind of permissionless innovation that i was talking about a minute ago. >> well, some of your republican colleagues have pointed out that some of -- you know, this approach could lead to uneven enforcement and the sort of, kind of ambiguity surrounding

regulation that creates business uncertainty. >> so every company in the world would like to have certainty and a monopoly. you have got the telephone business used to be run. markets are inherently uncertain. we are engaging in an activity that allows markets to be markets. yes, that's uncertainty. but what we want to make sure happens is that, as i say, there's a ref rue, there's somebody -- referee, there's somebody in a striped shirt that knows, no, that's not right. >> so with one of these issues that you've been looking at on a case-by-case basis has been zero rating and data caps. i wonder, you met with companies such as comcast and at&t on

these programs. did those meetings satisfy your questions, or do you still have outstanding questions remaining for these companies? >> guest: well, i wasn't actually -- >> your staff, right. do you or your agency still have that standing question? >> guest: and i think what we're in the process of doing right now is trying to sort through all of the information. and by the way, it wasn't just the meeting with companies. there are, you know, a lot of consumer representatives and advocates for other positions including other companies who also wanted to heat with us and share their -- to meet is us and share their points of view. that's kind of, you know, the fcc ought to be the crucible where all of these things come together. so i was saying to somebody the other day in this concept of the public interest which is in our

statute and is our responsibility, as everybody gets more sophisticated in how they present their arguments, it's, you know, well, the public interest always with me. i'm, you know, and if you don't do this, the public interest won't be served. i'm trying to say how do we rook rook -- look for a concept where the public interest means the public good? that's why we want to create this crucible where we try and seek out what is the common good. >> host: mr. chairman, i know you don't like hypotheticals, but i'm going to propose one anyway. twice the net neutrality regulations put out by the fcc have been overturned. it's in court right mow. what happens if your position goes down again? >> guest: you're right, i don't like hype net9 calls. but i'm -- hypotheticals. but i'm, you know, i have all the respect in the world for the court and the judgment that they

make. i feel pretty confident in the outcome. if you go back to the last court decision, one of the things you said was, wait a minute, you're imposing common carrier-like requirements, and we've taken that issue off the table, so we'll see how the court decides. >> host: december, 2014, gautham nagesh had a front page article in the "wall street journal" detailing the white house working group on net neutrality regulations. i don't think i've ever herald you respond to what you -- heard you respond to what you saw, what you read in that article. was it accurate, in your view, and was it a separate track from what you were doing at the fcc? >> guest: to tell you the truth, i don't remember the details of the article. the white house always runs its own process. but we're an independent agency that was running our process. >> the fcc's been looking at the

terms and the tariffs associated with the business broadband market. is there enough competition in this spacesome and, you know, do cable companies who are getting more into enterprise, broadband and data, do they represent additional competition, or are they simply more of the same? >> guest: i think you've asked a really good question to which my response is going to be stay tuned because we're about to put out a proposal on this. but right now is a premature time to talk about that. >> host: november 2013 -- >> guest: boy, you keep pulling up all of these old dates. where was i, okay. [laughter] november 2013, you were confirmed as chairman of the fcc. >> guest: yes, correct. >> host: what was your agenda at that point? did you have an agenda? >> guest: that's a really good question because i had been, you know, held up in being confirmed in the senate for about since months. and so -- for about six months. so while we were waiting, we

were able to say, okay, what are the kinds of things that we would like to do. and so, yes, we arrived with an agenda, and i think you've seen that play out. >> host: what haven't you gotten to? >> guest: oh, you know, i would, i would love to see the incentive auction get completed. the process is now started. i would love to see us get through the kinds of issues that brian just raised. i would love to see us resolve the privacy issue, the cable set-top box issue. but when you look back, i mean, there are a lot of things that have been happening since november of 2014. >> when you came into office, you had the things that you wanted to get done. be at that time, you know, the comcast/time warner merger was not an issue, net neutrality had yet to become an issue. >> guest: right. >> did those take you by

surprise? did those issues, did they come on your radar at a time when you were trying to get other thingses donesome. >> guest: so, you know, we always knew that the net neutrality issue was before the court and something could happen that would dump it back in our laps. obviously, i didn't know anything about the comcast or have any anticipation of the comcast deal. but, you know, one of the things about this job that makes it really fun is that i'll guarantee you that every day something happens that i wasn't expecting. [laughter] sometimes they're bigger than others. but it's one of the things that makes it interesting. >> host: chairman wheeler, your colleague, ajit pai, was recently on this program, and i want to play just a little bit of videotape and get you to respond to what he had to say. >> guest: it is unfortunate there's been a partisan divide at the commission, and it's especially dispiriting over the past 14 months that we've seen such partisan rancor, unprecedented in scope. we've seen more party line votes

than we had in the previous 43 years. that's unfortunate because these issues are not typically politicized. >> host: and i know he said this on the dais with you there. >> guest: right. so, i mean, the reality is that there are intelligent, dedicated, strong-willed individuals, five of us, and people have their own opinions. but the way that the system has been set up is, is there a majority that comes together to make a decision. and, you know, the answer is there has been. >> host: do you think that you should be allowed to meet with two other commissioners in private to have a discussion? >> guest: ing you know, it's a really interesting situation that we have. just to clarify that three commissioners can't sit down alone for fear that they would bypass the process.

is it frustrating? yes. might there be some efficiencies that could be gained? possibly. is there a need for urgent change? it's working. i mean, i am -- you know with, when it comes to all of the procedural issues at the commission, i mean, i'm kind of a traditionalist that the rules that we are living by today are the rules that have been in place for decades. and they've worked. >> what would it be like to be a democratic chairman or a democratic commissioner under a republican president? [laughter] >> guest: i don't know. >> do you anticipate staying on as chairman if the election --

after the election? >> guest: i think it's too long a time away to make a decision like that today. i mean, let's just, let's see what develops. >> i mean, the question was posed at a recent senate heari, and you declined to answer then -- >> guest: so i'm being consistent. >> but we are nearing, nearing the election and, you know, there is pressure building in the political sphere. >> host: and you mentioned you are a riggsalist. >> so -- traditionalist. >> so would you follow tradition? >> guest: what did i say at that hearing? i said i fully understood what tradition was, but that it was too early to make a firm commitment. >> host: is it because it makes you a lame duck automatically? >> guest: i just think it's early. [laughter] you know? i mean, we're, we're ten months away from a new inauguration.

okay? we'll deal with things as we get closer to that. >> host: mr. chairman, how would you describe congress' interest in the fcc proceedings and the potential for a rewrite of the telecom act? >> guest: is so congress is -- so congress is very interested in the work of the fcc. i'm not the guy that can make the decision about a rewrite. you need to speak to the chairman of the committees about that. but, you know, i can remember my days representing the industry that congress was interested then, and they're clearly interested today. >> let's talk about something that is reasonably within your control and something that you dealt with early on in your tenure as chairman. should consumers be allowed to use cellular telephones on airplanes? >> guest: so that's a, that's a question that gets divided into two participant, brian. --

parts, brian. the first part is that we have responsibility for how the networks operate. and the fcc had for years had a rule in place that said you couldn't use a device on a plane because it would interfere with the terrestrial networks downstairs on the ground. new technology came along that captured the cellular on the plane which is why you can do wi-fi on the plane today and, therefore, wasn't interfering on the ground. so we said, okay, if you've got that new technology on the plane and it's not interfering, that's fine. that doesn't have anything to do with whether you can make a phone call. and i've been pretty outspoken that i don't want to be at 35,000 feet listening to some person next to me yakking away on on the phone. but that's not our rule. that's rules that get made by the faa.

so we handle the technical side of things, and the faa is preparing a proceeding to deal with the consumer side of things. >> you faced a lot of public backlash in response to that issue when it came up. did that take you by surprise, and what did you learn from that experience? >> guest: so i think that was an issue of we failed, i failed at the outset to define what was going on as i just did, that here's our scope of responsibility, and here's other scopes of responsibility. and did i earn from it? -- learn from it? sure. i hope i'm learning every day. >> i think for consumers that early experience may have tinged how they viewed you early on x. as your tenure moved forward, i think, you know, a lot of people were surprised by some of the decisions you made especially around net neutrality and the specifics around net neutrality. do you feel like people underestimated you?

[laughter] >> guest: look, the job that i've got, which is a great job, is to look at a set of challenges and to try and figure out what the best path forward is representing the american consumer. they can make up they their owns about -- and they to, you know? [laughter] i hear. but, you know, i'm -- i don't know the answer to that. >> host: you mentioned that overall you look at your job as to increase or promote competition in the telecommunications -- >> guest: competition, competition, competition. >> host: there you go. where does the privacy issue fit into that, and what are your early thoughts? >> guest: so, you know, for as long as my of us can remember -- as any of us can remember, we

all had an expectation of privacy on the phone insurance . the fact that i was calling air france was not information that the phone company should be able to turn around and sell to hotels in paris or tour agencies or things like this. it was private information of the to consumer. the question is when you go to the internet and you're going to the air france web site, why should that be different? and so what we've been with saying -- been saying is that we've put a proposed rule that says it's the consumer's information. and the consumer has the right to make the decision as to whether he or she wants that information to be packaged and sold by the network. there are many pieces that folks will want that.

terrific. that's their decision. because it's their information. >> host: so let's take that another step and talk about is set-top boxes and privacy. some have called in the google bill or the google legislation or regulation. because then google can sell ads around what you're watching. >> guest: no. the rules say, the proposed rules say that you have to maintain the content, and you can't substitute commercials, you can't put windows around it. and one of the nice things about the process that we go through is that we specifically propose some language. and if that language isn't good enough, then tell us how to fix it. because we don't want google doing that. we respect privacy. we respect these assets that are

owned by programmers and the cable company. we're just trying to follow the statutory mandate that congress gave us. not a -- maybe you should think about in this -- thou shalt mandate saying that consumers should have choices in terms of the navigation devices that they use on their cable or satellite system. and the situation that exists today that 99% of cable consumers don't have that choice. >> host: and that's one of the final pillar, actually, of the telecom act of '96, isn't it? the set-top boxes? >> guest: well, or it was a key component -- >> host: right. >> guest: -- that you want to have navigation device competition, was the -- >> well -- >> host: we have time for one more question, brian. >> at that point, on a recent appearance before congress you said that there are competitive navigation devices available, and opponents to your set-top

box plan ran with that and said that you were contradicting yourself. do you have a response? >> guest: there are. i mean, you can go to, you can go to best buy and look at the choices there. i, you know, i went to best buy a couple of weeks ago and bought an amazon fire. you know? i was out at the consumer electronics show and saw how there were devices there that you could buy and substitute for the box if the cable operator would give the box the data it needs to operate. >> let me sneak in one more here. >> guest: uh-oh. i saw you guys passing notes back and forth. [laughter] >> host: i tried to stop him, mr. chairman. >> you were in venture capital. >> guest: yes. >> put on that hat for a minute. we're seeing capital dry up for start-ups right now, harder and

harder to raid money. what needs to happen next in the space? >> guest: well, i think there's two things going on here. one is there actually was about -- i just saw the statistic the other day, a about a 35% increase in venture capital going into internet-based start-ups in the last year with. and i think that a lot of that is the result that there are open networks. you don't have to do mother may i to deliver my new idea. the second thing is it is becoming, fortunately, it is becoming less expensive to start a business today. in my time, in my roughly ten years as a venture capitalist, i saw the amount of money that was needed for start up-ups in decle because of the advent of the cloud and the fact that start-ups don't have to buy all this hardware, all this software. they can go to the cloud and get it for a lot less money. so the nature of venture capital

has changed where the investments up front aren't as big, and that's good for entrepreneur. >> host: this is c-span's "the communicators." tom wheeler is the chairman of the federal communications commission. brian fung covers politics issues for "the washington post". >> c-span, created by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. ♪ >> our c-span campaign 2016 wuss continues to make -- bus continues to make stops around the country. recently, our bus visited metropolitan arts institute in phoenix, arizona, to present awards to winners from the west division for their first prize video, rethinking reform: prisons in america. their classmates won second

prize for their video on gender wage inequity in the workplace. and then our bus stopped in los angeles for a ceremony for third prize winner jerry sun before heading to palo alto and rockland, california, to present winners in those areas are -- with awards. c-span thanks cox, time warner cable and comcast for their help in coordinating visits in the community. every day this month be sure to watch one of the top 21 entries at 6:50 a.m. eastern before "washington with journal with." >> shortly we'll hear remarks from u.s. treasury secretary jacob lew, he's being introduced now. secretary lew expected to comment on the success of u.s. leadership of the global economic system over the past 70 years. this is just about to get underway, it's hosted by the council on foreign relations. >> shows that his involvement in these questions and