[applause] >> the republican national convention all this week on c-span. the c-span radio app and c-span.org and on monday watch the democratic convention like live philadelphia. >> host: and lawrence strickling is our guest today and you are within the department of commerce. what does that administration do? >> guest: it is the principle advisor to the president on telecommunication and policy issues. we are a unit of the department

of commerce. our principle functions involve managing the use of spectrum by federal agencies, we have overseen a broadband access and adoption program started with the recovery act in 2009. we are overseeing the public safety broadband network development by firstnet. then we spend a lot of time on internet policy matters both domestic and international. >> host: and that is where we want to start. one of the issues you have been working on is ican and whether or not it should be turned over to a group of international stakeholders. is that on tract to happen in september? >> guest: in the community, yes, . in the sense of you have to go back to 1997 and '98 for the origins. but in '97, the clinton administration felt given the choice of having the internet grouped by government or private

sector the choice was let's make sure the prive private sector managers this. so this started a long odyssey to get to where we could complete the naming. two years ago, in the hopes of completing the privitivation we announced plans to complete this and asked the multi stakeholders, the businesses, the academics, the technical aspects, and government who have participated in internet matters for the last however many years to come together to develop a plan to complete the transition. they took two years to do the work. they spent hours in meetings. they exchanged thousands of e-mails and ran up several million in lawyers fees

examining proposals and delivered the proposal at the beginning of march this year. we undertook an interagency review and evaluation of the proposal and concluded at the beginning of june it met the criteria we laid out two years ago that needed to be for the transmission to proceed and it would preserve the plodal of governance, not turn the e-mail over to government, meet the needs of the customers and that is what the report concluded. we hit an important milestone in june. i-can is now completing other implementation matters that need to be completed and they will be reporting in august on if they have completed the work or can complete the work by whau is the expiration date of the contract which is september 30th. there has been a large discussion that emerged in congress. the discussion in congress has

been going on the entire two years we have been involved in the transition planning. we have met with members of congress and on the hill explaining our report and we are hopeful we will be able to answer their concerns over the coursef of the summer. >> host: as you know, you mentioned, congress has had concerned about the issue. >> guest: some members of congress have, yes. >> host: when you hear the phrase we are turning the internet over to international control and out of u.s. control is that accurate? >> guest: no, that is not accurate. today we operate as a private company. the contract we have with ican was to perform tech function.

they hand out ip numbers, and update what is called the root zone file that deals with the names on the internet. all that is happening is you have had this bureaucracies in the united states government between the customers and the company for the last 18 years. all we are doing through this transition is allowing the customers of the functions, the number registries and name registries to contract directly to get the services they need. it allowed efficiency and more accountability but that is really all that is at stake with the particular contract that would expire at the end of september. what the debate has brought into focus are questions about the overall accountability. it is involved in policy making as it relates to the names on the internet. this isn't any part of our contract but a part of the function they perform and the

community wants to make sure in performing those tasks i can is accountability to the members that participate in the process. that has been part of the transition planning as well. developing a plan under which i can will be more accountable to those members of the community than it has been in the past. so turning over the internet, none of that is happening. what will happen is the stakeholders who today participate in the processes will now have an ability to exercise some direct powers over ican if the board and employees don't perform in accordance with the will of the community. that is really, at the end of the day, what is happening with the accountability improvements. that is independent and separate from the contract we have to perform those technical

functions that is the contract that expires in september. they have been lumped together and in some respects misrepresented that somehow the united states controls all of this when all we have involvement in is the narrow slice of technical areas. >> host: let's bring in lynn stanton who is a senior editor. >> what is the plan if they can not get everything done in time? >> guest: that is why we asked them to report in august. if they come to us, or the stakeholders say they need more time, we need sufficient number of weeks to figure out would be an appropriate extension of the contract. that is baked in the schedule and we will have to determine once we get into august whether we will have to do that or not. >> and there was technical testing going on between ican

and veriify. has that been completed? did they manage to that and everything is fine there? >> guest: my understanding is testing that required 90 days of air-free activity concluded this week and they did pass the test. in other words, the new system by which ican will transmit changes directly to varside has been proven to work exactly the same as the current system does. so the one technical change that has to occur as part of the transition has been tested to be fully operational and impleme implementable. >> host: does congress have the authority to stop this transaction? >> guest: i think they could engage in this. the contract is set to expire in september and can expire on its own terms. we made it clear to congress,

because they wanted to time to look at it and have done that three appropriation writers, that nothing will happen before september 30th. we are hoping as they become more familiar with the plan and more familiar with the analysis we and the other federal agencies conducted on the plan that they will get comfortable with it. i have seen reports from some sources that we are pushing this, rushing through to get it done and it is a radical plan and none of those things are true if you take the time to look at what is at stake and what the community did and how we analyzed it. to say we are rushing things on a policy that was established in 1997 and here we are, you know, 18-19 years later, this doesn't bear any sort of scrutiny. this is taking a long time to get done because it has been done carefully. indeed the community has taken two years to develop a consensus

plan that has been agreed to by businesses, governments, academics, civil society, they worked tirelessly for two years to develop this plan and present it to us. i think everyone in the process who was really part of the process thinks it is now time to get this done. >> congress has asked the accountability office to report on whether united states has an ownership stake in the underlying sort of names and numbers and whatnot. if that report comes back and says that they do, the administration supposedly doesn't have the right to give away u.s. government property without congressional consent. is there a plan in place for that? >> well, i don't know when gao will complete its work. i would be extremely surprised if they conclude that there is any government property at stake here. i know how the contract works. when we contracted with i can to do this work no government property was given to them.

there is no government property that will be given to them at the end of this contract. our own lawyers have looked at this in great detail and concluded there is no property issue here. i would be surprised if gar were to conclude otherwise. >> and that is not real or intellectual property your lawyers looked at? >> well, the roots on file is a directory. it is public. it is made available to anybody who wants to have it. you could go download it today on the internet. it is not proprietary. for the internet to work it has to be widely distributed because at everything point in the internet where people have to do look ups they have to have ability to access the root zone file to figure out how matters ought to be routed on the internet. it is totally public, open, non-proprietary document.

there is no way that in and of itself is property. >> what is the downside -- you said it has been on this path for a long time and you don't understand what people are saying about what the hurry is. what is the hurry? what is the downside if you don't complete it by september 30th or october or november? >> guest: it would depend on the reason. we are at a point where the community says we have done what you have asked, we have done the work, here is our plan, it is a consensus plan, we all support it, it has been vetted by lawyers they hired, we hired corporate governance experts to review it and they gave a clean bill of health and said it was sound with principle of government so without reason if the united states were to say just kidding we don't really intend to let this end it would have drastic consequences internationally.

beyond going to bait here, and this goes back to some of my earlier remarks, who do we want making these discussions? governments making these decisions or the people who actually build, operate and transact business and exchange information on the internet, do we want them making the decisions? the choice we made in 1997, that the clinton administration made, was we wanted to be the community. that has been an ongoing debate internationally for years. there are countries out there today that insist the internet ought to be managed by the united nations or the international telecommunication union or another intergovernmental body. four years ago at the world conference on international telecommunication india -- in

dubai and only 55 countries opposed this. what we have seen over the last several years is countries now coming back and signing up to support the multi stakeholder model of governance. almost 30 questions who signed the regulations in dubai now support the proposal that has been propez -- proposed to us. that has been done through a tremendous amount of diplomacy by folks at the state department. we risk loosing all of that progress if the united states basically doesn't live up to its word and complete this transaction. we are not the only ones saying this. there have been a number of papers that came out since march. the former secretary of homeland

security joined in a paperer with general cart right to point out the implement -- implications if we don't follow through. you are handing a great talking point back to countries like china and russia who prefer the intergovernmental approach and giving them an opportunity to go back to countries where we made progress over the last three and four years and letting them come back and say you cannot trust the united states, they don't really want to give this up, we need to bring it back to the european union. the folks that want to protect internet freedom, and i think all of us do, democrat or republican, administration or congress, we all have that as the goal. i think people need to understand we might hurt internet freedom if we reneged

on this agreement. >> host: larry strickling, the finding of spectrum is spornt. how are you doing on that front? -- important. >> guest: we know where it is but we need access to more spectrum to provide more wireless broadband services to the american public. as you may recall, the president back in 2010 set a goal for us and the fcc to identify 500 mega hertz of spectrum to be used for broadband. we are half way through that. we have identified about 245 mega hertz of that goal. we have a number of bands under active krgz now in terms of trying to -- consideration -- come to a final judgment.

part of that is the over 120 mega hertz that is being auctioned off in the incentive auction of the fcc. we are focused very intently on spectrum in the five giga hertz band that has been of interest for more wi-fi use. this is an ongoing effort. what allows us to make the progress we are making the government and industry collaboration. we saw the aws three spectrum last year that delivered tens of billions of auction revenue, far more than anybody predicted, was made possible by the fact industry and government worked closely on the broadband before it went to auction. and we are making progress understanding how government agencies and industries can share the spectrum. that is going to be the new

paradigm. i said spectrum sharing is the way we have to go in the future because och the growing needs of federal agencies and industry to make maximum efficient use of the spectrum. >> host: are you meeting resistance going to federal departments and agencies trying to get some of the spectrum they control? >> guest: it is not resistance but you have a set of missions they have been asked to perform and the need for them to understand, particularly in the sharing environment, will the equipment they have deployed continue to operate as it needs to operate on things like protecting air traffic systems, making sure that we are getting weather reports distributed the way they need to be distributed around the country. they are important, lifesavinging type measures we need to make sure are being performed adequately and agencies naturally have concerns that when we start introducing other transmitters into those spectrum bands it might interfere with their ability to

do their work. so what we have is a thorough, active process to understand through analysis and testing what are the implications and the effects of bringing these different types of system together in the same spectrum band. my feeling is we get good cooperation from the federal agencies in conducting the analysis but we want to make sure they are done properly because the worst thing would be to miss something that leads to problems down the road that we didn't anticipate. overall, we are getting excellent cooperation from the agencies. >> you said you hope the next administration would continue on the same work on spectrum. what do you think would be the outcome if they turn away from sharing and go back to trying to find exclusive use? >> guest: they will be unsuccessful. i don't think there is any turning back and i wouldn't expect there to be. the need for additional spectrum

is a need that is not going to go away at the end of the obama administration. it is going to continue to be a need for every administration following on from this point forward. but i don't think there is any serious thought that you can do it any other way other than through sharing. i think the sooner we can get everybody fully aware of that and organizing their own rnd programs to facilitate that the better off we will be and the faster we will be able to work through some issues. >> another issue on your plate that has something of a deadline is the first responder network authority which is overly independently housed within tia and i think that is a unique arrangeme arrangement. >> guest: we have not found precedent anywhere else. >> when will first responders be able to use this?

>> guest: firstnet needs to find its strategic partner and they are in that process. they put out on an rfd seeking interest from companies to come in and indicate how would they partner with first net in terms of being able to use the spectrum that was allocated to this by congress and utilize leverage their existing infrastructure to deliver services to first responders. i think the expectation is firstnet will be able to make a selection on that before the end of the year. from then it will be a series of intense months as they work with that partner to develop plans for each of the states as to how this network would be deployed. then each state will have an opportunity to look over that plan and decide yes, we want to sign up for firstnet or they will have an option at that point to opt-out and build their

own access network, radio access network in their state as an alternative to having firstnet do it, but that network will have to be integrated into the overall firstnet core network in order to provide services an an across the country. as to win first responders will be able to sign up for services i think we are still a ways away from that. but firstnet is making good progress. the next big milestone is finding this partner and concluding a contract with a strategic partner. >> it was critical that ntia was taking to much of a hands-on approach to the firstnet activities. do you think that is fair? is there something you would do different if you could start all over from scratch? guest ge i don't think those

comments understand the reality of what firstnet faces. when the law was passed, it provided several pages of how to pick a board. the board is 15 people. everything else was pretty abstract. so the board was selected but at that point in time firstnet had no employees, there was no ongoing operations, basic systems didn't exist so, yes, ntia had to provide legal support, media support, accounting, at the outset because all you had at the beginning was the 15 board members. it took them many months before they could even hire an ex executive director for the organization. firstnet had to rely on ntia for the basic survival needs during the first few months and maybe people didn't understand there was an ongoing organization

slotted to do these tasks. now several years in they have grown and have their own staff performing many of these functions and our role is now providing more counsel and some oversight as required by the statute. >> host: larry strickling, since graduating from harvard law school you have been working in this world. chief of the common carrier bureau there, and worked for broad wing communication, and then you were policy coordinator for american campaign where you looked at technology issues. what did you get right in 2008 when you were developing this technology or helping with the technology policy? what did you get right and what do you wish you would have done differently? >> guest: i cannot think of anything we should have done different.

the focus was on expanding broadband access and adoption. that is so pivotal to so many issues we have in our society that giving people access to high-speed internet, to be able to use it to get better education, to find jobs, to communicate with other people, i think that was a key focus at the outset and it was important we do that at the outset. we had the community with the grant program under the recovery act to do just that. we at ntia stood up a grant program in 90 days to put $4 billion in grant money out around had country and the results of that have been nothing short of amazing in the sense that our grantees built over a 115,000 miles of fiber and high-speed infrastructure and connected tens of thousands of anchor institutions to these networks and i think it has a

had a measurable impact on this. industry has been doing its share and they are able to spend more money than we were able to but i think the pump priming we were able to accomplish through the focus we made on the recovery act grants in 2009 has been important in terms of seeing the expansion of broadband around the country. >> host: from your perch as administrator of ntia for the last eight years and given your background, what was your reaction to the house being periscoped live on national tv and the use of that technology? what was your reaction to that? >> guest: very positive. i think as the new technology develops we need to find ways to have them utilized to people. all of the advances we have seen over the last eight years in terms of the new technologies and what we have needed to do and i think the obama administration has done this is

provide the environment in which that sort of experimentation and innovation can take place. i would expect any administration following us to be equally as focused on providing an environment conducive to further innovation and exploration. >> one way you looked at those kinds of new technologies through the policy task force at the commerce department and multi stake holder meetings to develop guidelines on privacy and respect to drones and on screen, you know, from apps, but consumers walked out of one one of those proceedings on new technology and then were critical of what came out of the process that when they walked out was largely dominated by industry. do you think as the future for the multi stakeholders

process -- how many legs can policies that don't have buy in from the consumer community really have? >> guest: keep in mind that what these processes were intending to create were best practices and codes of conduct. they were not establishing government policies in the sense of this is now the policy of ntia. we have had to be very careful through these processes not to impose our own judgments on these outcomes. what we have tried to do is provide an opportunity in a facilitated environment for parties to come together and solve problems. there is no question you can get the best outcomes when you have the broadest set of interests in the room. i think the final outcome would have been stronger if they had stayed in and participated. it didn't stop the folks who were coming together from

developing what is an initial set of best practices and i think we are all better off having the work done than to simply shut it down and down nothing. nothing would have shown up in its place but we have a group of committed people who stayed at it and came up with something that while early in the process, and certainly something that will be worthy of coming back to, perhaps multiple times as we see this technology develop and get deployed and understand better the ramifications of it but we have the first step. we made the first step. i think that is important and what we have been trying to demonstrate through all of our work on multi stakeholder discussions is we don't have to aufbl the problem once and for all but we can make progresses and get parties to come together and talk about it. each piece of output we generate is another bit of progress we are making to help solve the issue.

eventually as the issue becomes more concrete, congress might want to legislate in the area and eventually maybe there is an opportunity for regulation to take place but that should not detract from the fact we are making progress with the people who want to make progress in the meantime. i think our work in this area has been important in showing how you can bring people together to reach consensus and we have made progress in the actual outputs of the groups as they relate to drones, facial recognition, and apps. i think the world is a better place having the codes and practices developed as opposed to not going forward because you didn't have everybody at the table. >> host: larry strickling is the administrator of the national telecommunication administration. and lynn stanton is the senior editor with telecommunication reports and this is the "the communicators".