9:30 p.m. eastern. sunny purdue talks about the next years farm bill. >> c-span's "washington journal", live every day with news and policy issue that impact too. coming up on wednesday morning the future the senate after the alabama senate election. then eleanor norton talks about sexual harassment to capitol hill. in a call by the democratic women's working group into an investigation of donald trump. scott taylor in his view on tax reform. government spending to the future of docket. watch c-span's "washington journal", live at 7:00 a.m. eastern during the discussion. >> this week the federal communications commission is scheduled to vote on net neutrality rules that prohibit service providers from blocking online content. brandon carr gave his take on the proposal today.

>> i'm with the american it's a pleasure to be here today. thank you for coming. >> of importance is on thursday the federal communications commission holds one of its december open meetings and deals with several important topics. the issue today is the order to restore the internet freedom which includes a number (prudish one is broadband access services information services it was once before. removing the ambiguous conduct standard in the rules,

establishing private mobile service classification for mobile broadband. in providing transparency among other things. the transparency issue is important because it gives consumers better information to make better decisions. there's a lot of noise out there and what this will mean for consumers. today a panel of experts will address the issue. first i want to introduce to special guests. we are very glad you're able to make it join us. the fcc commissioner was unanimously confirmed to the senate took office. before he became commissioner he became commissioner and was a lead advisor to the fcc commissioner on wireless, public safety and international issues. then he worked as an attorney for the office of general

counsel. prior to joining the commission he was an attorney for wiley -- a full bio for all of our speakers today are on your chairs. i think there's a lot to learn on this issue. will give remarks it's my pleasure to introduce you to our speaker. >> thank you for that introduction. it's bigger today. one open some remarks before turning it over to the panel.

i'm happy to talk about restoring internet proceedings. this is a great moment for consumers, immigration, and freedom. in today's the fcc will vote to reduce and obama era unprecedented decision to apply title to regulations to internet services. this two-year experiment has failed. we seen investments in broadband decline. facing innovative services kept on the shelf. all of this has harmed consumers. before the 2015 decision, consumers enjoyed a free and open internet.

not because they had title ii in place commented in. they had a long-standing approach, for 20 years we abided by congresses direction of bipartisan decision that the internet should be allowed to flourish free from heavy-handed government regulation. not a complete no holds barred environment. innovators were allowed to innovate and we saw the internet and the u.s. become the greatest success story. from startups to large corporations launched and succeeded. i'm excited that after this two-year detour were going back to the same regulatory framewo framework. the tried-and-true approach. you step back sure you've seen colorful rhetoric that surrounds the fcc decision.

now to see what's trending faster than the nuance. i think the intersection of the government and they cherish their experiences. what i'm saying is the great title ii head fake. a tribute into title ii, things title ii does that too. one is the portuguese internet mean by repealing title ii will charge you for bundled access to the internet. or make you pay per website similar to what goes on in the cable space. not true. the title ii decision determine

if isp wants to have curated practices they can. this does not change the law, another claim is the fcc vote will raise rates for consumers. they're free to charge consumers more. again, not true. the fcc decision majority went to great pains were not opening the door to isps that's currently the place. another thing is isps are not going to be free to block websites or throttle or create

fast lanes and slowly from the internet. title ii is not a thin line between where we are in that conduct taken place. look at the d.c. circuit decision it expressly said that isps can block provided they disclose to consumers. there's no dispute that's the case. or repealing title ii not going to change the law. the sec's decision is going to be legally unsustainable or unlawful. the supreme court only time

they've spoken to the classification upheld the 2002 decision that found them as a title i information service. so again that doesn't hold scrutiny. i want to emphasize or not experimenting with the newer radical approach that will give isps free reign to do what they want. the title and framework were trying to put in place includes robust protections one that i'll start with as market forces. when they observed that there is says there's a reason why they're not to. the d.c. circuit said it's fear of subscriber losses, there's many people that will market forces as a solution in the broadband market or otherwise. so are not relying on that.

first, consumers are getting back strong consumer protection provisions. 2015 when they voted to move to title ii that decision stripped the fcc of 100% of its authori authority. that was a loss for consumers that they're getting back as a result. second, the federal trade commission has been the premier privacy agency. brought over 500 enforcement cases when the fcc voted in 2015 created a donut hole for consumers had fewer online protections than they did before that. that is where we are today.

after the vote on thursday consumers will get back strong online privacy that can be enforced by the ftc. there is federal antitrust laws. the sherman act makes clear that as it enters an agreement that am falls blocking or throttling websites that will be unlawful. section two applies to vertically integrated isp. will attempt to discriminate against another provided unaffiliated in terms of conte content, that's subject to be an unlawful. fourth, state attorney general's consumer protection laws and this is where there's been some confusion. the order makes clear state-level net neutrality laws

are printed as a matter of law because it would conflict with a title i decision. it's clear that they are not preempted. consumers should benefit from those. finally a transparency role. they're adopting a rule that's likely more robust than what you would see said ensures consumers have full disclosure and if providers don't live up to the their power to take enforcement action. there's also claim that the regime is more difficult to enforce because there's a claim it doesn't have rules. this point misses the mark. the fcc we have a long those are not self enforcing.

the same will be true after our vote. the ftc has legal standards, precedents out there, what are some of what they are and they can take enforcement action to ensure consumers are protected. i think it's a great moment for consumers, for getting back to the same machine that govern for 20 years. they had robust consumer protections and saw them launch and thrive. consumers benefit being protected. it's not a new experiment with the free market approach. i'm excited about it. this is a two-year detour they were pushed into, the senate committee found through political pressure it's not a

place they found that they're going to go based on independent judgment. it's great that were getting back to this bipartisan consensus. how to take a couple of questions. from the sunshine time at the fcc. it prohibits lobbying of decision-makers during this time. see you cannot make a presentation to me that goes to the merits. if you're not certain it's probably best not to say anything. then we can transition to the panel. >> i think it may think it's difficult votes completely

devoid. anyone have a question that's not a presentation? i think we probably have some would be presenters but that would be appropriate. >> want to think the commissioner. [applause] >> thank you. sounds to me to some extent we have some regulations put in place to fix something that was not a problem. without any evidence to benefit but it seems like there's no surprise we've seen some decline investments since 2015. how do we get there? what are the various aspects of

the order? how will restoring internet freedom affect consumers, investors and innovators? does congress ultimately need to have a role. there's a number of issues to be considered and with that today we have an expert panel to clear up these important questions. moderating on the panel is randolph mae. randolph is the founder of a free state foundation. earlier he worked in policy research at a major law firms. prior he served as assistant general counsel for the federal

communications commission. the full bios have been distributed. as always it's an honor to have you join us today. >> thank you for organizing the program. it couldn't be more timely. thanks to the american consumer institute for the work you do. we would jump right in. i'm going to introduce a panelist by their affiliation. then i will ask them to speak initially, no more than five minutes. unless the five minutes will be fine. maybe even prefer. we want to make sure we have time for questions. with regard to commissioner carr, you don't have to be quite as careful in asking a question to these noted panelists.

they are not covered by the sunshine act. we do want to have time for questions. i just want to say briefly before introduce the panelist, i was associated general counsel of the fcc from 1978 to 81. spent a long time since i've been watching the fcc. i have a concern really that the way of proceeding like this the comment process in my view has been subject to some distortion. public participation is welcome and important.

everyone can file a comment. when you get into arguments about this case with 20 million comments and you argue with a 50000 are valid or not, what is happening now disturbs me. it diminishes the notion of the expertise of the fcc. in the fcc's institutional integrity and the role of expertise. i hope we don't go too far down that road. ultimately what will occur on thursday should not and will not be based on the vote, how many comments are born against a particular proposal. this shouldn't be the way the process works. if that were the way it worked

their way to not need the fcc to make that decision. that's important. with that, going to tell you who's on the panel, we have katie maccallum, baron, who is president of tech freedom, shane, a fellow at the american enterprise institute. we have steve who is the president of american consumer institute who is putting on this program today. remember the speaker will only speak for five minutes. on task baron if he will lead off. he's been a leader in exploring the ramifications of the fcc

actions. you'll probably agree that if the fcc doesn't have the legal authority to maintain these rules, that goes a long way to answering the question as to what the fcc should do. i will ask baron if he will speak first. in fact that is the first question to be asked. if they decide they don't have authority then that's it. that's how agencies are supposed to work. you don't start policy questions are looking at comments. you say what authority do you have that you can validly claim. and then using that to the

extent to camp. the draft order that will be voted on concludes the two major claims of authority made by obama were mistaken. that is 2010 claiming 706 was an independent grant of authority. in 2015 with broadband. fcc is reversing those menaces there's no longer any basis for net neutrality rules except for the transparency role. judge silverman in 2014 noted the fcc always argued there is a simpler basis for upholding that rule. it's on that basis the fcc is maintaining that. we're revealing back to status quo. at heart, as a legal issue that should not be controversial. if anything people who are

worried about government claiming too much power of the internet might be afraid what this administration might to should be applauded the decision. for the same reason in 2010 they were warning the previous claim of authority over the internet was a trojan horse for broader regulation of the internet. i would say the same thing. that's why tech freedom has joined a lawsuit joined by small entrepreneurs and innovators who want offers a voice over internet services. they're afraid the legal interpretation open the door to blocking services they want to offer the to the services been subject to title to regulation. the 2015 order not only said that broadband in general is a title to service but it had to

go to great lengths to justify broadband. it said anything that uses an ikea address could be subject to title two. that undoes the line the fcc drew between the internet and opens the door to fcc regulating the entire internet. that's why were glad the fcc is on doing all of the and handing authority packed and not just the federal trade commission but also the state attorney general. the superintendent for size that if you have no confidence in republican ftc or department of justice, the states can bring the cases too. they have fewer resources but if there's a problem though sound

the alarm. if they don't bring enforcement actions it's because there's not a problem. since i don't have a lot of time, want to say that while i'm very glad to see the fcc is on doing these claims and will continue to argue in court the agency should not get deference in claiming that authority, ultimately they will win the next round of litigation for the same reason they want the last round. that also means who were reverted back and claim the same broad sources of authority over the internet. will continue to argue with the supreme court that they need to know that congress needs to act and fcc should not be able to claim that. unless the supreme court takes

it up will be up to congress to resolve this issue. so over the next few years i hope we have a way of making a permanent through legislation. it's ultimately how we will resolve the fight. >> thank you. i think it's important to start with legal authority issues. i think next i want to : steve, steve, i'm sure you want to add to your introductory remarks and say more at this time. then we'll move down the line. >> thank you. i will defer to the panel. the sense you gave me the opportunity i will pass up the mic. just to put on my economist head, as i look back think it's

an important issue we need to think about. when you look at title ii regulations, the reality is governments can fail. regulations can be imperfect and costly. for example, when you look at onerous regulations there might be heirs on what might be good market conduct instead of remedying back conduct later. these type of errors can be costly. they create uncertainty in the market which chills investment. they can increase costs and fees, they can take away opportunities of value limit price differentiation which is important for maximizing consumer welfare. and they can lead to rent seeking and gaming. with the alternate over to the

panel and let them handle the rest of this. >> lets your next from shane. >> i want to thank you. i'm sure you've taken many e-mails, phone calls and have a lovely thanksgiving. the dad said explain why we don't have net neutrality. this will be somewhat results i just want to review real quick the issue that's been brought up that seems that a natural thing we want no throttling or blocking. most of these have been agreed to by the isps merger or

acquisition. those reasons why you might want to do any of these things. i'll highlight those. with transparency in place you'll understand why this took place. this is a major reason why we have cyber attacks. if you don't have an ability to throttle or block it's one of the reasons why we had the major iot where they could take baby monitors and operators over. you can see that on the system where you are in the stack. you might be the isp. now they can see and have to let it wash over them. . . . .

a lot of the great things we are seeing with 5g one of the reasons why self-driving cars will work is because the information flow will be seamless. the information flow to be seen seen -- seamlessly may need to prioritize the information that comes from the automobile to the downloading of netflix. it won't interfere with your downloading of video and i think there's a lot of misunderstanding if you put something at first it automatically queues everything less. there've been several papers i can point you to on the item. those are the three bright lines and issues that have a reason for occasionally doing something then blocking. a lot of it is to protect the

internet which we haven't heard a lot about. we have heard a lot about killing internet that we haven't heard a lot about protecting the internet to a lot of things are the surprise me especially if you're trying to talk about this with lehman revolved into your plan -- european cautionary. we have a fear that things will happen. there've maybe been two incidents on throttling. one is when comcast was moving from one set of systems to another and they are legitimate or see -- reason to do it. and then we just had early on when you have a lot of downloads of illegal content and there was a point where the ip's are trying to figure out how we manage people downloading full major motion pictures on the system and throttling. early in 2007 so the precautionary principle is like them monster under the bed. your kid assured it exists so i

think we have to look at why we are looking at these ideas and what is an appropriate time if any to use the bright line issue. the new on line consumer protection ammo use that the if tc said they will enter into later this week is very important because it puts us back from taking the precautionary principles of the fear things that might happen which very often does impede what we need to be happening in technology which is innovation in looking at the specific cases of what is actually happening and what do we do to make sure it's not more than one case in the one cases prosecuted case is prosecuted and the ftc is the place for that to take place. just another point and then i will hand over the microphone is a lot of times you think that you are having problems with your issues in the ip is the only thing you have a, you understand what's coming from them and the fcc looking at

upload time in download time that we are not actually looking at the load time of the web so the next time you are browsing and you think this is taking forever we expect things to look within three seconds and in internet three seconds if you look at the web site especially new web site they are probably under 140 domain names in the average 5000 pieces of information. that doesn't load in three seconds there's a band of men. we are asking a lot of the system and what we really need to have happen is we are working on the next generation networks can provide the internet we are all looking for today and the next generation. >> shane, thank you very much. last but not least as we say we are going to call on katie mccullough. i would just say most of you probably know her twitter handle is @digital liberty and i have to say that's very apt because she is a great promoter of digital liberty so we thank you

for all of that. >> thanks so much. i thank you all for coming out to listen to this conversation. we are hearing a lot of the theme of transparency, transparency, transparency and one of the things that i think it's great is great to point to is this is the most transparent fcc that we have had. if you look at we have the open internet and internet freedom order out three weeks ahead of the meeting. the internet order we didn't see until a week after was voted on, two weeks, excuse me. so this kind of transparency has been really help all for us to continue to have this discussion in public and to talk about how this is going. so we are looking at how this chairman particularly ended the previous administration talked about transparency and now he's definitely practicing what he is preaching as are the other commissioners. we have had the opportunity to review this and talk about it and looking at transparency it's

very important because this isn't saying there shouldn't be someone that's regulating misconduct as both berin and shayna potter that you have the fcc and it turned general. the transparency will give those a tool to find bad actors but we don't want to in a setup where we are presuming harm before it has happened. that's the kind of thing that precludes any kind or a lot of the innovation going forward. if you think about where we are going to be we can't imagine. before the iphone was here we can imagine could imagine what that was going to be so setting these full before anything is happen would be problematic for innovative future. that's the first on transparency. we don't want to freeze things where they are and when you talk about applying utility regulations to the internet come the internet has only been around commercially for 20 years

and you look at the innovation on the internet and compare that to our utilities which you are say are controlled by the government. they are regulated. the fees are regulated and networks are regulated networks are regulated that they are set not by what customers want but what the government thinks should be happening and i think example it would translate well to the internet. in looking at those things i think we are wise to have a new rule that responds to that her son doesn't presume that people are doing things wrong before anything happens. it's just a better system to be underpinned another aspect of the road once touch on was preemption. we saw after the title ii rolls went into effect in 2015 and number of states coming forward with their own rules that amounted to data localization and that's a major problem worldwide.

you all talk about you don't want to see the internet broken up with data stored in areas. we want information to flow in people to have access to that. if states draw borders around their own internet pre--- creating their own privacy rules at interferes with interstate commerce so i going back to title i we avoid that issue and it's clarified that the internet is an issue of interstate commerce. this doesn't conflict with anything that happened before we talked about some people might ring up the issue of municipal broadband where pretold the fcc you can't mess with what states are doing their. that was because the fcc was intervening in how states were managing their budget so a state actually creates localities within it. localities have no constitutional protections. they are a manifestation of the state and the state manages them so the federal government does

not have a right to come in and tell a state how should manage its internal government and that aspects of these are not the same kind of things we are talking and interstate commerce issue. in talking about privacy we really don't want to have states making these kinds of rules. we do want the expert agency, the fcc to be working on this. in fact right now that the workshop going on about informational injury and the fcc has been looking at these issues for decades talking about how data should be used in about privacy and we don't want to preclude different business models before they should come up. we don't want to hamper unlimited data. we don't want to prevent -- perhaps it could be compensated for the data were exchanging for companies. i think that would be problematic in some of us would like to be paid for using facebook ads. i will just stop there.

>> katie thank you very much predators glad you mentioned water during your presentation because it reminded me in susan crawford spoke she was one of the leading opponents of net neutrality and she flat out unabashedly said she thought the internet should be regulated just like we regulate electricity and water. delivery. water just hasn't changed that much over the last couple thousand years. but the internet but that makes me wonder if that's really that's the way the internet ought to be you are regulated. what i want to do and you guys in the audience may be thinking of questions but let's do this. i want to touch on the investments. no commissioner carr mentioned

one of the important considerations for repealing the regulations is the impact on investment and at a time when our economy needs more investment that's also important important. i will ask the panel but i know steve is certainly an acknowledged leader and the economics field. steve do you want to just explain succinctly if you can buy the current regulation does have an impact and if you think it does on investment from the isps? >> we have observed it. if you look at the decline of happened within several quarters of the decision itself also an

absolute reduction in the number of rock band wired lines on the telco signs, we have observed that. we have had testimony from a number of small isps who have indicated the same thing. the reason gets back to what uncertainty does to the market increasing the cost to capital a member of number of the other issues i mentioned before. when you get into this mentality that says you can commit an error based on your conduct which in the end they be good conduct. what you end up doing is you snuff out good innovation rather than later on in coming back in saying hey in retrospect was this the right thing to do.

so it's this kind of thinking that is a little bit backward and creates this uncertainty that raise the capital costs and chills investment. it's really as simple as that. it gets to be a matter of increasing industry costs and those costs flow in the form of higher prices than any time you shift the supply curve not only do you get increased cost but you get restricted output and that is what you would expect. that's microeconomics and unfortunately you know that's the problem with onerous regulations. now looking at these things after-the-fact you say hey somebody stepped out of the bounce was something like that, that's we have antitrust laws of the doj and the ftc to come back

and take a look at whether or not there had been some violations. to do that as i said early on to not allow internet service providers to experiment than you are not going to get experimentation. the three minutes you would get on the phone there a lot of new plants coming out to provide three minutes of civics so you could watch it be spn and various other on line providers and the fcc indicated they may look at those case-by-case aces and essentially can't give why minutes for free. how do consumers benefit? how do consumers benefit from plans that offer free services but i don't want to go any further really. the point is when you do

something like that you chill market investment is what investor wants to take a risk on something when they don't know whether or not the investment they made will pay dividends. we are talking about long-term investments that people have to put in the ground and it's a short-run decision. as randy made the reference to water the internet runs at lightning speed. we have fcc policies potentially moving at glacier. >> i agree with that characterization but i want to be really clear the problem is net neutrality so let's distinguish. net neutrality is an operational state, rights and privacy on the same level as that of distraction. then there's a question of the specific regulations that were put in place. then there's the underlying question of the fcc so the problem here come the thing that

has the effect on investments in the recent fcc had always been reluctant to impose broad carriage regulations upon the internet across democratic and republican chairman was the concern about that margin of uncertainty which is not about net neutrality come it's what happens when the fcc opened that door. i want to be really clear the fcc will of said in the last chairman said don't worry all we are doing is we are just using title to a little bit to do net neutrality so don't worry about it. you can't have just a little bit of net neutrality or just the little bit of title ii anymore than he can be as the old saying goes just a little bit pregnant. it's really one or the other and the reason is that if they say don't worry we are just forbearing from the rest of title ii's about worry about it that forbearing decision can

bieber first just as easily as the fcc made that initial decision and moreover don't worry because we are not applying all the other parts of title ii what they did find was the core title ii section 201p is about justin unreasonable passages and two was about discrimination. upcoming carriage regulation. everything else is just more particular implementation of that. once you have those on the table you are regulating broadband providers as common carriers. you are doing the very thing that schakowsky and the others who decided not to apply title ii. those are the things that can affect investment and the only way to remove that uncertainty is for the fcc to disclaim that power and i say said earlier for congress to take it off the table permanently or for the

supreme court to enroll in that issue. >> okay i think what carr was referring to -- berin was referring to didn't want to drop the whole morass of public utility in the broadband pipe. that was a direct quote and he was prescient. i want to ask this question and then maybe anyone on the panel or more than one could answer it. we have seen so many instances recently where the edge providers google and facebook and twitter and others where they quote discriminate or take actions that are not neutral. they wouldn't be considered net neutrality as some of us think about that.

chairman piemack has in the last week or so provided all of us with a list of a bunch of those actions. those are the advocates of course that are out front and advocating, maintaining title ii regulation. i guess my question is this. i will just say for myself to be clear i have never had a place in regulating those companies are restricting their speech. i don't think that should be done but you know there is a situation here where you have differences in their actions and how do you think about those in terms of net neutrality so i guess i want to ask the panel and maybe this goes back to the fcc, does that trouble you at

all and what do you think if any, the answer should be to put these two types of firms that are in the internet ecosystem as we say you know on an equal footing if anything? >> one of the things that is important is the system is global and we all need to be working together on that. when you think about twitter facebook google and apple and what china's going through it does have a warning system of the challenges we have for the internet ecosystem especially from an internet government perspective. we are all part of the multi-stakeholder process is something we have an appreciation for because it very much falls in line with our constitution. the rest of the world this is see it that way. i can understand why it goes

back to the monster under the bed. the way china and russia are saying we does want to be able to handle her system in china thank you very much in the fact that we see that as an interference that would be our first amendment right but one of the other things that is happening is having control of system means they can help with all the bad things that are happening. as we saw with the russians in the election in the very beginning we didn't have a clue how that was being managed and we are learning it real-time. that's important at every level including the providers. we are learning how to protect the system and protect the internet. they say in 2020 and want the internet to be as cool as it is now. in 2020 i don't want to be thinking remember the internet? yeah. >> to follow up on that at any point you don't really want to diminish property.

when you are looking at the ability to control your platform those things are important and in going back to principles that can be across the entire ecosystem limited government that's its role is to afford contracts deter fraud and arbitrate is what the fcc's transparency process leads to. and that way you can respect a platform's ability to moderator manage what's going on in their putt form and also respect the platform's ability to monitor what's going on in their network to manage a more reasonable network management. so if you are looking at again just the principle to deter fraud, to arbitrate and enforce contracts that works well across the entire ecosystem. >> is more than that. the fcc has broad authority to protect consumers from unfair

practices as well as police competition. no one here is saying that we should have a no-man's land of lawless internet. the ftc and the state ags and the department of justice quite have quite robust power to protect consumers. we can focus on the ftc in my and my own core focus is on the ftc because that de facto federal technology commission. has broad authority to deal with new technologies how did they develop and to deal with new problems and i smile a little bit when people say how do we protect consumers without specific rules on the books? the whole point of creating the ftc was to give them the broad standards and they could apply case-by-case and to build a common law over time to address those issues. i have my own criticisms of how the ftc works.

it is becoming more important as we talk about those processes but no one including me wants to tie the agency's hands. we are simply saying we should understand how the agency works and make sure it's building a defective common law but it absolutely should hold companies to their promises, for rent practices that harm consumers and stop texas is that harm competition that approach will be a back-and-forth between plaintiffs and defendants both private plaintiffs in government actors over time. we will deal with problems and importantly if we find there are gaps in our process we will legislate. that is what always happens with the ftc and that's why the ftc hasn't found it necessary to use rulemaking authority that it does have when issues come up like the toll register at the

children's on line privacy protection act. that is the approach that i would trust in going forward and i'd be happy to have a conversation and technology neutral way. >> i'm going to ask one more question and then i'm going to ask the audience whether they have questions. this question i was thinking about it when earlier the panels were talking about innovation and how they thought that the current rules, the title ii rules stifle or perhaps stifle innovation. something that i've written about sort of puzzled over for a number of years is this. in trying to understand why certain people in these positions in this proceeding, you know google and facebook

both have advocated maintain current rules and for example google has said many times, i've actually been on panels like this which they set it and president obama even said it last year, that they are not concerned about google or facebook protecting themselves at all because they are big enough to protect themselves. they are concerned about the next google. google says it's doesn't need an annette neutrality rules to protect itself. it's concerned about the next google and so forth and having been around washington for a long time that makes me really wonder what's going on here. you know i think in fact these rules that are in place, this is what i believe that the rules in place actually serve to protect

the large incumbents of the net neutrality providers to make it more difficult for a new entrant the next google or the next facebook to actually be able to use the increased flexibility to gain a foothold and challenge those incumbents. that's at least a theory i have. i want to ask the panelists, maybe see if his perspective as an economist. what do you think about the next google theory? >> can i combine that with going back to the question on investment and you talk about stifling innovation. because it looks the same to us when it comes across we don't always understand how much is changing both in the underlying infrastructure as well as the edge so there'll be network virtualization that will change things.

a lot of times it's the only asset google element. we look at the browser to see the difference in what's going on. a lot of that is now divided into apps. i think the one thing that we may see coming out of china is having one app that aggregates everything so right now we are popping in and out. you come back in to facebook or you may go over to what's app or something and there'll be more of the aggregated app that will help you manage a lot of things in your life. there are reasons why they are doing it in china. there is an element that is seamless in how we manage things. think what we are going to see is probably a little more aggregation with the way that we manage our own individual financial services and our technology as well as other things that go on. there are multiple things be on social media than just basic networks that we are looking at here. >> okay, let's see whether anyone in the audience has a

question. if you could just lean more in the direction of the question in the presentation in that way will be able to get more questions than an if you can identify yourself as well when you have a question. >> i wanted to ask some questions specific to small businesses. we represent small businesses that don't have the purchasing power of some large corporations and they depend very heavily on the internet in order to survive in many cases. some of our members have expressed concerns that repealing the fcc regulations with their businesses at a disadvantage because they are worried that their webpages won't be able to load as quickly as a webpage for a large company that has great purchasing power like target or walmart and people will exit the web site and not buy their products. is that concerned solid are they misunderstand the impact of deregulation?

>> if they have a good web designer they shouldn't be having a problem. they don't know for end-users sending it to target walmart amazon or the small business down the road. from that level of architecture it's a matter when i mentioned earlier there is a report by a guy named richard bennett. the best thing they can do is invest and make sure they are on a system that doesn't put too much on the front page. one thing i would say that they have a concern with that actually having your internet service provider could be more valuable to them is using cybersecurity. small businesses are huge target for ransomware because a lot of times if you lock up their web presence they are making no money that day or that week. ..

or something else that requires latency, so she mentioned this earlier, prioritization doesn't necessarily mean something loads slower. it means that some things have

to get prioritized. so, when you think about a video call that requires more data than it does to simply load a webpage, that is an instance of network management so that those things do appear seamless and the same. i wouldn't think that would be a problem and to your point about how those are functioning a lot of times the things that slow down the webpage is the advertising and decide and how much data there is behind it and whether it's video or those sort of things so there's a lot of other things to look at rather than title ii type of rules. it's more about the government control of the internet and what kind of regulations for state and local government can put on the internet and less about that seamless nature that your businesyourbusinesses would wane customers to experience.

>> legal and practical remember again as the commissioner said under the fcc's rules, if a broadband provider wanted to opt out of the framework and start discriminating it could have done so. to make that clear if you thought that was a problem, it wouldn't in fact address the problem but as a practical matter there is no market for doing what you are subscribing and i don't think there ever will be. concerns that the entrepreneurs sued over the litigation were not about that. what they want is the theory of the usual circumstance of offering real-time high-quality voice streaming where what really matters is latency, so this idea that websites won't be able to get the services they

want. that run-of-the-mill service is not going to be affected. some services being able to ensure that there is quality given to the delivery of their packet, that is where they were concerned and you can do that without affecting the delivery of others. >> use the microphone. >> thanks. i am a consumer advocate. two questions, first when it comes to the question of broadband investment and its decline, there are several including the two of the largest ones in the country whose investments have not declined in the last two years and that

includes verizon, comcast, charter, media. i have a question if we are somewhat overstating both the amount and the impact of net neutrality on broadband. second question, i didn't hear anybody on the panel mentioned the current case with regards to at&t some of you know the largest ones in the country and it went to court to remove the ftc jurisdiction from itself, and the case is being called back and hasn't been resolved. so the question, first does it make any sense to revoke the

regulations when you are relying on the ftc to do so much and at the ftc matheftc may not be abld secondly, why didn't any of you guys mention is? it seems relevant with all of this talk. this has to do with the at&t mobility. >> i didn't mention the case because they didn't have time and it's pretty complicate compo that we try to walk you through this. they have jurisdiction over all companies in america except those that are excluded in the jurisdiction that includes common carriers. now, i'm tell the panel decision the ftc had always understood that meant that it was activity based so if you were a company that offered a common carrier

service, the common carrier service would be regulated by the fcc or whatever agency was regulating you and left in the jurisdiction. in that circumstance it would be a clean transition in the classification the issue with transition smoothly back to the commission. the panel decision would have created some issues, so the transition would work with a company that offered both services like for example google fiber offers broadband service as well as now a voice service, so there was a concern that a company like that would still be in that jurisdiction exclusively becausthe jurisdiction exclusivn carrier and it would revert back

to the jurisdiction and fall into no man's land. that is the concern. they end up with the full conclusion, but it took a very unusual step of gatekeeping the underlining panel decision so that panel decision essentially never happened. it's still a question and possible that they might ultimately lose now and might prevail but it is extremely unlikely and the same likelihood as before because that question is going to fix this. if you are concerned about that, then the answer is to legislate

the common carrier exception that they've long called for is an easy fix and something that again is speculative at this point. i'm not aware of any so the wall everywhere else in the country would be the same, so it is a fair point but it is pretty speculative and unfol i'm told e issued a decision which could happen pretty soon, there isn't a problem and they would be one of the first organizations going out for the congress to legislate immediately and even this congress assumption can pass the bill pretty quickly.

>> that is a thorough explanation. we don't want to see the investments go down. there've been several studies ss that show that and part of the f the problem is the apples to apples comparison. you need to have investment in fiber there are several companies that are going to be engaged in death beyond just your regular isp. however there are several studies that show this is a challenging year for them the last two years and the decline.

when you talk about investment, it is important also to understand that it's not whether you have some absolute increase in investment or decrease. the way you want to think about is whether there's less investment than there otherwise would have been absent the regulations. it's less than it would have

been absent the regulation. it's interesting it is a compared investment before 2010 when the rules were first talked about and then after 2010 show a decline. it would have been about 30 billion more annually and about 20 million more, so with that uncertainty it doesn't necessarily mean there wouldn't have been investments just as there would have been more.

in that specific stud specific a compared to other industries to find a baseline that is even for everybody. >> is there another question from the audience to be have a question? here in the front row. can you identify yourself? [inaudible]

[inaudible] title ii doesn't do any of the things it claims it does. the circuit is upholding the classification and described the regime as a voluntary one of consumers and companies could opt out of, so if you are concerned there is a problem, i would reiterate to you it is not a solution if you think it is if what you want is a clear legal basis for addressing this, we

have supported this legislation for years and continue to do so. i happen to think that it is better for that to live at the federal trade commission but i would be happy to codify the underlining core rules if people are concerned. that is the issue, people are concerned in the case-by-case enforcement alone is too difficult a small company to bring to complain and so on and so forth but that should limit in definitely a hard question is what you do on the margin, things like giving away free data.

the one is an ftc standard of dealing with meaningful harm to consumers i think that is a great solution to the problem we could put that in legislation. they are going to police against the companies in the interim and that will be fine for as long as it lasts and unfortunately it may only last until the fcc where we write back to where we were last year in the legislation. >> i would say that we do have a regime we should be following the clarification and interpretation would be helpful in congress. the discussion on what to codify would come up in the future.

talking about the slowness of congress is a way to do that and it gives designed for a purpose and creation of congress so to just start putting out rules from unelected bureaucrats who don't have that much accountability isn't the direction that we should be going on that. when we look at the consumer response to things we have seen that a lot in the past year with people having expressed a certain opinions about the corporate ceo or a product or a store having a particular product.

i think our time is drawing out and unless anyone has one more question i see one in the back we will take that and wrap up. >> over the past couple of weeks we have been getting a lot of constituents who are concerned about their prices going up for internet access i would like to see if we can get some more information on that. on that point i would say your prices are not going to change any more than they would with the market and we are looking at. it's about a year ago or two years ago there haven't been any major changes when you see the prices change for the transparency requirement from title ii when companies disclose

prices they are not required to disclose on top of that and when i work on the consumer advisory committee at the fcc we were working on the broadband label and it was decided that it would be too difficult to include local taxes and fees on internet access becomes. on your mobile phone, taxes can be up to 22% and that is about the average sales tax rate and that is with title ii it doesn't prevent the net neutrality but it does add more government

involvement, more ability to add fees and more ability for states to harbor the internet at their borders and that isn't something that we want. the ability to tax broadband and impose service contribution depends on the classification. they were smart enough to wait until after the election to drop the shoe because it was a loser and that is the only reason it hasn't happened yet so that is the thing that would have raised prices for broadband and that will not be possible once the fcc undoes the classification but regardless of that, let me point out the irony even though it doesn't have anything to do busineswith this neutrality bute last fcc assured us they were

not going to use title ii to regulate prices. as long as it is on the table, that is a very real thing. that is the argument the other side is making now having said that they would never dream of using title ii to regulate prices, so if that is the concern, then the fcc is doing a great deal on that right now with the advisory committee to work on broadband deployment. they have broad bipartisan support and that is where we should be focused. >> on thursday, let's see, today

is tuesday. on thursday, the fcc will be meeting on this. i think that we covered the waterfront and we have been fortunate to have an expert panel to talk about the legal authority of the fcc and all of the various policy aspects of the decision confronting the fcc. so, hopefully you will agree with me that he has been educational to do that. my hope is going forward the fcc will remain an institution where we value the expertise of the commission or whether we always agree with them or not and if not, to become a place where we get is or ought to be influenc influenced. we got the protest at the front door, whether there are a million more comments here or there because if we do that than actually it will be devolving

into political institution and a place for politics is right up here in congress. i want to thank the institute for sponsoring a program so timely and educational and join me in thanking the panelists. [applause]

>> it's approaching 9:30 in the east end 8:30 in central, voters in alabama have gone to the polls today and they closed about 90 minutes ago. let's look at the latest results courtesy of "the new york times." the republican roy moore is ahead by six percentage points with about 228,000 votes and for the democrat