completely throw him out or do anything that could harmful to him in terms of rules because that would not reflect favorable on the party as a whole. >> donald trump pivoting to the general and lashing out of everyone. thank you, nick gass, for being with us. >> thank you. >> and this week on the "the communicators," fcc commissioner michael o'reilly, republican. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. i want to start with an issue the fcc worked on and that is the charter-time warner merger. why were conditions put on the merger? >> that item is still before the commission so i should be careful. i can tell you i have personally voted on the matter but it is before us so i have to be careful on exactly what i say about such a proceeding. >> host: when you say you have voted on the matter, how did you vote?

>> guest: that part is to be released during a certain time period so it will come forward in the next couple weeks. >> host: what your philosophy on the conditions? >> my approach to mergers is similar to a number of republican viewpoints. we have charges in the statute and they are transferring wire licenses in this case and we have a number of licenses that different companies own and hold. in that review, something we have required to do to make sure the new party is able to hold the licenses and qualify to hold them and have sufficient statutory requirements for having those licenses. from that, other read the

statues in a way that provide other opportunities for different reviews of the merge itself. ... >> guest: they do not today. in some services they are and in some instances they are actually different since we treat them the same as net neutrality rules which i don't agree with. so it's a bifurcated approach and how we treat it and some of it is a statue. a lot that congress has enacted that governs how we operate but

a lot of it is our own doing. i would like to see an opportunity to bring greater parity between the two and wireless does have different characteristics. you have to obtain spectrum whether at an auction at the commission for a second market opportunity and you have to build infrastructure that's different than a wired company. >> host: we are going to bring howard buskirk of "communications daily" into this conversation right away but first i want to play some videotape. this is chairman tom bleiler who was on this program a couple of weeks ago talking about and it's meant of the fcc. >> when i first got involved at the fcc it was very directional and detailed. you will do this. we won't look at your books for this. you will have these kinds of directors. it was very specific in terms of what he did.

we have a very different kind of approach where instead of preemptively saying we know best, we said you want to have a couple of concepts. you want to have an internet where there is no blocking no pay privatization and consumers know what they are getting in 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. that's an entirely different approach to what the fcc used to be and i think that's the kind of approach that encourages this kind of personalization that i was talking about. >> host: what do you think about what he had to say? >> guest: i disagree with the last, most of what he had to say about the last part. i think the net neutrality item which i repeat i did not support

for numerous reasons i think we did is increase innovation of what's available on the internet and what the internet is going to grow to be. right now under the structure that they have and the chairman has proposed and it's adopted and now being challenged in the courts you have described three bright line rules and then you have this other category. he describes it as a referee on the field through the problem is we have no idea what the rules of the game are so when is the referee going to drop the flag waves we have no idea. whenever the bureau or the chairman feel like it. that's not a mechanism to produce certainty in the marketplace and it's not a myth that produces innovation. we have seen this today at the commission in a number of different instances. one particular is a 080 item and that's where that issue has been reviewed and currently reviewed by two different barrels with no rules of the road, no guidelines on how band investigation will go and when it will end. we will just have to see and

that brings too much authority into basically employees of the federal government trying to review what the value should be going forward. >> host: howard buskirk. >> guest: more than a year ago in february when it was approved approved -- after the period of time, much later what do you think has been the effect? i mean have you seen any bad effects on business so far? >> guest: a couple of things. one is with the practices of the carriers, the providers they were supposedly going to be bad behavior was not happening beforehand it is not happening now so i don't know that item change behavior. we have seen companies and i have talked to companies who have changed their decisions, their investments and the rollout of products based on the rules themselves so some innovation is not happening because of those rules.

the third part i would say is those rules are being challenged in court. we are expecting it decision any day now and i will provide some guidance even though i believe the decision most of the challenged in the supreme court of united states. it will provide guidance on whether the commission within bouncer out of bounds and therefore whether those rules are allowed to stay. >> guest: suppose there's a negative decision from the court by the standpoint of those that want to see those rules stand but that could be the domick issue for the rest of the. is that going to take over the rest of the agenda? >> guest: it depends on what the ruling is and i hate to predict what a court may or may not do. it depends on the scope of their review, if it's someone procedural grounds that may then occupy the rest of the year but if it's done, actually done on the merits itself then you may find you it will have an impact on our decisions that are potentially pending because a lot of those decisions are tied

into the authority that we have captured the fire net neutrality yes feel i also wanted to, we saw the chairman, there are a lot of people who feel the chairman is -- among the commissioners. i've ask you to comment on that. >> guest: i have commented on this in the past and made the point that i believe it's basically something that hasn't been an item by it him -- a item by item or issue patient approach. sadly i don't think that's the case anymore. it's not personnel approach. chairman wheeler and i get along well as people but when the direction from the fcc including the chairman to take the most aggressive approach to policymaking when that becomes the first primary goal of the item, when the policy that they want to go in becomes the first

goal rather than any consideration of any collegiality or attempt to bring her develop an incentive to find up at the nairobi have today where there is little interest in bringing my opinion on board and you will find them less likely to to be in support of and i'm going to express my views. >> guest: does it feel to you that there has been a general gradual deterioration of of relationships that the commission? >> guest: yes, i think that's probably fair. i'm still me came positive relationships of my colleagues but overall there's a very pronounced feeling at the commission. we are waiting for a number of court decisions that will settle some of the ground. we have only so many months left of this particular administration. i think people are trying to figure out what the next of ministers may look like and how different commissioners may or may not day. >> host: commissioner are highly there's a little bit of it her fossil going on in the

senate regarding one of her colleagues and commissioner rosenworcel. to think she should be confirmed for a full second appointment? >> guest: i put out a press release to that effect when her nomination was sent by the person to the senate. i believe the nomination process to my friends and colleagues and the senators in the body. they know best and that's their job. she has been a great colleague of mine and the senate will have to decide whether she should stay. whose land you mentioned it eating an election year. does that curtail some of your activity at the fcc, much like since it's an election year we don't know who is going to be the president next year and who's going to be in a penetration? >> guest: in my vast experience the answer would be generally yes. past instances of an election year we saw the commission's lowdown is your closer to election day. i don't know that's going to occur this go-round. chairman wheeler has a fairly broad and strong agenda that he

tends to want to move in the next many months so i think we are going to see through those items and there won't be. he says he wants to run through the tape and i think i may not agree with the items better moving forward but i think we are going to be fairly busy. whose gun one more election question. hillary clinton was recently in west virginia and she mentioned how her cell phone would drop and she was unconnected. to use an old term do we still have, do we have a digital divide in this country and if so what can be done? >> guest: we still have parts of america that are not connected that it would be on the wireless or broadband site. i've spent a great deal of my time in my colleagues as well try to figure out how to address those issues where those pockets is where services are not being provided. what is the problem and how do we address that? we have a funding mechanism that the federal communications

commission runs by the universal service at $11 billion this year and we are trying to figure out how to spend those dollars in an efficient manner where you get those dollars from the ratepayers of america who contribute and pay as part of their telephone bill for that purpose so i try to be a solid steward of that dollar and make sure it goes as far as possible. we have a number of different programs that we run. but we try to expand that service to all people as best as possible. >> host: do you think it's been well, do you think you have been good stewards? >> guest: there are parts of the program that is done very well and there are other parts that have not lived up to what is expected. we have also expanded to the programs of the four fairly substantially. we didn't fully in my opinion address those issues before extending the program to broadband and that's the lifeline program. i think there are still some

problems that do need to be addressed. we are not getting the maximum benefit of the dollar. >> guest: one of the things i want to ask you about you have been in washington since the early 90s. do you think some of the fighting at the fcc is reflective of the broader positions in washington and a more deeply partisan congress? is that trickle over to the fcc? >> guest: i don't believe so. i worked for members of congress for many years and those fights coming go depending on the cycle then depends on the leadership and depends on her tongue. i think the commission traditionally has run in a fairly straight forward manner. people are willing to work together i try to be as collegial as possible trying to find common ground. people are willing to do that the difficulty is as i alluded to earlier the majority has a particular outcome that they

want and are pushing as hard as they cannot notwithstanding my views or my colleagues views or other republicans. if those users sidestep it's fine to -- hard to find commonality. it is about how the commission is being run. >> guest: you complained a lot about how you will submit edits and they don't get it looked at for previous orders. you believe that that's a departure from past fcc's? >> guest: i put forward a process of reform and ideas and not many of those admitted into the books as of yet. i do think i do put on the table, i root every item before the commission that either my name is going out on the soul that i know about their number things to go out the door that i don't know about or have an opportunity to vote on. besides that i do. everything i try to provide constructive ideas and edits on how to make it better. they would garner my support.

many times recently they haven't been adopted or even considered. i think that's disappointing. it's a decision i think by the leadership that my vote is not as important. >> guest: mr. chairman -- passed germans have put things under the 352 vote. >> guest: that's been my experience. >> host: commissioner all rightly a year into net neutrality has there have been any issues? >> guest: we are at year-end but we have a major court decision that is about to break in a matter of weeks or so. it could be a couple of days. there were no problems before so i'm not surprised you haven't seen problems since. there are problems with the rules themselves and the behavior of the rules and that's an problematic and i would like to see those things change. i don't know that will be successful. whose gun a couple of weeks you'll be visiting with the cable industry at their annual show and one of the industries

that will probably be talked about is set-top boxes. where are you on that? >> guest: you outline my position. i did vote against what he was opposing. my view on set-top box are fairly well-known. i would like to get rid of the box. i is the consumer myself do not like the set-top box. think they are old and they do not provide modern functionality that you expect out of today's communication technology so i would like to get rid of set-top boxes. the difficulty is with the specifics of the proposal that the chairman put forward. he had an opportunity to go one of two ways. one is bold style how do we regulate set-top boxes and how much should we charge for democracy look like in terms of the streams that come into it in the streams that a lot of that? the other approach was to adopt the modern viewpoint. the video marketplace is changing and modernizing and moving to an application-based structure.

most everyone uses application and the video marketplace is no different. in that scenario we could eliminate the box and let consumers save all of the money that they currently pay for renting boxes and we could open up innovation in a very straightforward way. sadly the proposal that's been put on the table will probably be disposed of by the end of this year. it's an old vision, an old model and should be disregarded. >> guest: at the fcc is in the middle of an incentive auction the first one in the world. you have stress concerns about that in the past gregory feeling more comfortable with that now and what are your concerns at this point? >> guest: so i am rooting for and hopeful for a very successful incentive option. i helped advise members of the senate on the component of the statute that designed the rules for the incentive auction that

the commission has implemented. i have difficulty with the commission did over time and in terms of how are things that the commission whether there's a willingness to find compromise. i suggested we should move toward certain things that i would have described as social policy. we tried to specifically target a couple of companies and let them have licenses at less cost than other companies and i think that skewing an option and in doing so that's harmful to those that are harmful to selling licenses and disrupting the marketplace. i'm rooting for -- i must admit now being the chairman i don't have a great deal of information as of yet. to. the information that's put out looking forward to the start of the reverse auction where we see what the price will be at the initial target spectrum that's made available and we will see how much it will cost to buy up the broadcasters and the collective broadcasters for a

gain of 126 megahertz. >> guest: the fcc recently not there will be as much as 100 megawords offered -- megahertz offered in the market. is that make you feel better about the spectrum are served? it looks like there'll be a lot of spectrum available. >> guest: we know that the initial target and i would like to release as much spectrum as possible. we are shooting the initial target is 126. i'd like that to be the case but i'm not sure it is. the chairman has mentioned that there is not enough to bidding on those people purchasing on the wireless carrier side for those people supplying the broadcasters that they will drop down so we will drop down to different to your and keep dropping down until those become equal and is in a glib man. we would wind up having much less spectrum and it would take many months to get that point. this is the first time it's being attempted.

hopefully we have set it up in a thoughtful way. it can be replicated not only in the united states which i believe it will. i do believe there's another incentive option number of years but i think it can be adopted elsewhere. >> guest: this is tied into the move will the wireless companies are talking about 5g the next generation of service. do you feel that the fcc is doing enough to make sure the u.s. stays in a competitive position in a world as the world moves to 5g? >> guest: i'm pushing as hard as i can pay the incentive option is one piece of it and making more spectrum available to lower tier or lowered dams. we still have more things to do on the higher bands. we have an item we will dispose of in july that will deal with some of the super high band. hopefully that will be successful. i've pushed the chairman he's agreed to adding more bands of high spectrum, high frequency

to that pot and hopefully we will be looks do that this summer. >> guest: the company is having trouble building out the wireless towers and small cells but they need. that is one of your concerns. >> guest: absolutely. the first part is the spectrum and the second part is the buildout and understandably for many years communities like the service but don't necessarily like the towers themselves. macrotowers that they cut towers to cover number varies. we have moved to technology thank goodness that is advanced and we may have smaller towers and smaller antennas. it can be as small as going into a streetlight so much smaller universe but to provide service in such a small structure you're still going to have to in fairness wireless services driven by wired, wired service. we have to have wired connecting all of these facilities so that

wired service has to get to those wireless places. that is going to be difficult because a lot of communities don't like a deployment of certain facilities in certain places so you will have that tussle going forward enough like to see when we get to a more friendly place rather than what we have had over the last couple of decades. >> host: commissioner o'reilly is the taliban education's market today competitive in your view? >> guest: it depends on which piece of it that you look at. we have this debate in a number of different instances. i can say i do believe the wireless issue is fairly competitive depending on what market you are looking at. so it's harder to say universally. would you like more petition? absolutely. i would like more competition but there's also realization that the cost of deployment and the cost of entry in the marketplace and the cost of doing everything that is

required is not an expensive venture for company whether it be in the wired to wireless satellite or even in the cable or broadcast side. those things do require a lot of capital and a lot of assessment and i stand by people and companies make certain decisions. >> host: plug in your view could be fcc do to make it more competitive, to allow more? >> guest: the first thing i i would trying do is focus on what are the barriers to entry? wireless needs to keep carriers or providers from entering the market. some of them may be in for structure driven, how can we lessen the burdens for supplying wireless network? i had been outspoken on this it may require printing localities in some of the burdens that have been unfairly or are necessarily imposing our blocking carriers firm supplying service. i would spend time focusing on

that. >> guest: what do you see as being the worst decision that the fcc has made since you became a commissioner? >> guest: oh gosh, the top of the list by far is net neutrality. i think second on that list is initial broadband and third on the list -- >> guest: do you have abcd and e? >> guest: so many money would fall into that category. i could highlight some any word disagreed item agree on what they have done on special access >> guest: at do you you see there will be new issues between now and the end of the administration that you will be concerned about or is it mostly going to be issues you've are to fight about like set-top boxes? >> guest: we have reached the point in the calendar were any new ideas are to have been keyed up if they been cleared by the end of the year generally.

there are generally points where ideas have been put on the table and that's a matter of reviewing the comments and executing the item in and of itself but i may disagree with what's going to happen but i believe the timeline, there is probably a dozen to 15 items to get to the scenario that will be disposed of by the end of the year and most of them i know it's coming. >> host: hulu recently announced they would be offering a skinny bundle so to speak. is that something the fcc would have jurisdiction over to take a look at? >> guest: i wouldn't say its jurisdiction. it's a very interesting innovative potential offering. it's still to be determined whether that happens. there are construction will -- contractual relationships but if it does, if it does materialize as announced that is a very interesting development for our

business because it's suggesting programmers are going to deliver service directly to consumers. with so i think that has the potential to change the marketplace if it develops. i try to be careful here and so many things have fallen down over the years so it if this does develop as announced then we could have an opportunity where you have the voice of the old cable providers, not a broadband provider only and the consumer buying directly from the programmer and the programmer may be selling a channel basis or program basis. you can buy a package on a monthly subscription so it's a very interesting development and i'm hopeful and we will see the comes.

>> host: do a lot of the decisions the fcc make or considers have to do with who owns the pike going into somebody's house is? >> guest: they have recently. we don't have authority over certain aspects. we don't have authority over some of the programming issues. those aren't under our jurisdiction and established by congress as some issues we have authority over and some we don't. a lot of the issues recently have focused on the pipe itself whether it be a broadband pipe over wireless pipe and the two can be the same. i don't suggest otherwise but it has focused on some of the physical components in recent days. >> guest: you have another service that seems to be pretty popular with customers t-mobile. do you think realistically the fcc could clamp down on something like that as a such a popular service? >> guest: i would be cautious in doing that.

this is hample i was tired -- highlighting writeup about zero rating. that's reviewed by the commission with no rules in place. we have no idea how they commission is examining the issue or what they are going to do about it and quite frankly what i trigger a problem. so it is unclear how the commission is going to look at this issue under his net neutrality structure but i am watching with the consumers are gravitating towards, what they are looking for and what they are adopting and i have seen great potential for this. i don't want to foreclose until i'd know the full ramifications. it's very prophylactic. we know what's going to happen and we think this behavior is problematic from a starter we cannot allow it. we are going to take a double look at this scenario but that to me is a lot of these things should develop further. when you're talking about some

of the bands and net neutrality there are reasons why certain things should be allowed to happen that we are panning before we know have occurred in the marketplace. husband finally commissioner zero riley is a cumbersome --. >> host: finally commissioner o'rielly is it hard to come up with the dash that the fcc doesn't it be congressional at? >> guest: your question is important. i leave legislating to the congress. they determine the best time to update the laws. they have expressed interest in updating the statute since 96 but it seems like the calendar has gotten away from them a little bit and they may not be able to do with this congress that there is an appetite to change some of the statute. i do find it does prevent, provide a number of problems commission. we are taking advantage, the majority my opinion taking advantage of provisions in the statute interpreting in ways

that are not intended that should not be done in the way they are doing so i have trouble without the commission is interpreting the law but was hauling the law. i don't believe they do in some instances and i've expressed my views on that point. beyond that i do think it's modernizing statutes would be appropriate but that's for congress to decide. >> host: michael o'rielly one of two republican commissioners on the federal communications commission and howard buskirk executive senior editor of "communications daily."