next, you know, it can come at 12,000 years. it is sort of an unbroken chain that can really go back to the very first civilizations in the very first temple. .. from every part of the nation, almost every state, and we're all bound by a simple set of principles. we want to be able to deliver the best quality, highest speed broadband to all americans regardless of where they live. we've got work to do because there still are americans that don't yet have broadband, and we're aligned to make sure we

can actually provide ubiquitous access. it's a great mission. >> host: what are some of the companies you represent? >> guest: well, just this month i was able to spend time with alaska communications, flew down from there to western new mexico with western new mexico communications. both focused on rural communities and extending next generation broadband services to them. all the way up to companies that are national in scope and vision from at&t and verizon and centurylink and consolidated, frontier, windstream. it's a consortium of companies that are very different, different business models but are bound together by a singular vision to get more broadband out to more americans and do so with smart policies. >> host: before we start talking about some of those policies, give us a sense of your background. it's a little bit eclectic, isn't it? >> guest: and i'll take that as a compliment, thank you. i have been in the business of

technology for a good part of my career, leading companies both in silicon valley and in europe building media and internet products for consumers. i've also actually had the opportunity to serve in government. i was able to serve on the national security council, at the pentagon, as the associate director of the united states information agency. i also had the opportunity to lead and launch another policy-focused organization called mobile future which was based here in washington. we've recently moved to washington, d.c. from california where my father has been for the last 13 years, and we're really excited to be here. >> host: well, to help us talk about some of those issues, we want to introduce you to kyle daley, tech reporter with bloomberg law. >> thanks, peter. thanks, jonathan. i wanted to start off, you mentioned that the groups you represent, the companies you represent had a lot of work to do. can you talk about that? we hear about 5g networks, these

ultra-fast, ultra-dense wireless networks. can you talk about how we get to that stage? >> guest: sure. the essential ingredient to moving forward not only with extending more broadband to more american, but also insuring our global competitiveness is this wonderful technology called broadband. our companies are committed to continue to make the investments, provide the fire, the resources, the infrastructure, the networks to get more broadband connectivity to more americans. it takes a lot of work. it takes the right amount of investment, it takes the right types of business models, but it also takes the right types of smart, 21st century, forward-looking policy frameworks that can accelerate, advance and incent the innovation and investment that's required for us to move forward to realize the opportunities like 5g next generation networks. >> you talk a little bit about

those policy frameworks? obviously, there are a lot of levers here. what are maybe just a handful of things you really would like to see out of congress, off the administration -- out of the administration, out of the fcc. >> guest: sure. president trump on taking office set a moonshot goal that we actually should be investing up to a trillion dollars to revitalize and reinvent america's national infrastructure. increasingly, we all understand -- and it is a bipartisan understanding -- that broadband is an essential input not only into the american economic future, but our productivity and also deeply meaningful for so many reasons to our families and communities. so we're going to be working really hard on a bipartisan basis with congress, the white house, with the fcc to insure that when that plan is put in place, it prioritizes broadband, that we have a broadband first approach when we're thinking about any policy making and any investment. that has two sides. one is money, making sure that

the right amount of money is apportioned to broadband investment as part of that trillion dollar pot. but also that we can move forward in a parallel direction to streamline the regulations, to make sure that we can move more broadband more quickly to more americans by moving away from the regulatory overhang compliance and obstacles that unfortunately have made it more difficult for many of our american broadband providers to invest and to do the hard work of delivering broadband to their customers. >> what we're hearing a bit from the white house is that they seem to be easing off a little bit from making broadband a funding priority in the infrastructure package. i just was recently at an event here in d.c. where grace coe, who's a telecom adviser to the president, said that they're more sort of focused as they think about infrastructure and getting something from congress

there on stuff like siting, you know, making it easier for companies like those you represent to actually put equipment and facilities out there and maybe not so much on actually carving out money within that trillion dollar pie for broadband. do you think that that's something you might still be able to get out of congress and out of the white house? >> guest: well, first of all, i've got to say that grace coe and her colleagues at the white house, her colleagues at the fcc are just tremendous public servants who are doing great work aligned together in the idea that we really have to close the digital divide to make sure that particularly rural americans can benefit from the opportunities that broadband can bring. and that has two policy solutions when it comes to developing a thoughtful infrastructure plan. one deals directly with those issues that grace coe had mentioned, things like siting, right-of-ways of way, making

sure we have shot clocks to speed upper missions, permitting, licensing, all kinds of steps we can take as part of an infrastructure plan. but in parallel, on the oh side of that coin, we also have to be serious about insuring the right kind of dollars can flow to american communities to provide more broadband. those dollarshave been flowing effectively through fcc's universal service fund. we believe direct gants and subsidies can provide broadband to those areas is an obligation. we're standing up to that obligation, and i'm really confident we're going to be able to work with the white house and with congress to structure a 40 to let'sic -- a holistic plan to close the divide in our nation. >> host: now, jonathan spalter, a report put out by your associate sews broadband -- association shows broadband has

leveled off. why is that? >> guest: well, it's troubling. we have been experiencing in the last two decades a wonderful increase in the amount of investment that our companies, broadband providers, have been making in our nation's networks. it's been a trillion and a half dollars of network investment by america's broadband providers, by our members at u.s. telecom. although two years ago when the last fcc decided to impose 1934 utility-style regulation in creating framework for our internet, we began to see in a very troubling way that that slope of investment had actually begun to go down. and in the last two years, we've seen it decrease about $2.5 billion from about $78.4 billion in 2014 to $76 billion today. that is an alarm bell that has woken many of us up to the realization that we need to go

back to the smart policies that will allow us to bend the curve on that investment slope, to create more abundance than austerity when it comes to our nation's broadband infrastructure. and if we can put in the right types of policies, move forward with smart, lighter touch approaches, our companies will be incented to do more to invest in our nation's broadband infrastructure. we have work to do to get that done, but the steps that are being taken today by the administration, by ajit pai at the federal communications commission, by an increasing community of folks that realize that we need to move forward not backward in the, towards the internet future is a positive sign. and we're going to try to work hard to advance those efforts. >> host: when you look at that $76 billion of investment, where does that money go? does it go to wires to the house? other places? >> guest: it goes to many different parts of the broadband network that we increasingly

rely on. it goes to investing in upgrading and maintaining the wireline infrastructure that connects our nation to the wireless infrastructure that relies on the fiber that composes our wireline world, it goes to managing these vast networks, it goes to insuring that we actually have the deployment capacity, the work teams, the folks that are climbing the poles, that are digging the trenches, that are doing the hard work every day of attaching, connecting our nation to this indispensable infrastructure which is called broadband. >> i did want to return a little bit, you know, the 2015 regulations that you referred to would be the fcc's open internet order classifying broadband as a telecom service and instituting a number of net neutral the city rules -- neutrality rules. there have been some groups that favored those rules that have

disputed some of the findings like you guys had about broadband investment, they say, you know, that it's not entirely clear that there's a direct correlation to the open internet order and that it's not looking at the whole picture. it's not looking at the other side of the investment from the googles and the amazons and the sort of the companies on the other side of those networks. how would you respond? >> guest: sure. well, first of all, ustelecom for 21 years has been producing annually what i think is broadly considered the gold statement of how much actually our -- the gold standard of how much our companies are investing in broadband networks. other groups have come up with their own numbers that have included things like $3 billion for smartphones that are bought by a wireless carrier and leased to their customers, $10 million

for investments by another american wireless carrier in mexico for video services, neither of which are actually covered by the title ii regulation. it's very clear if you did an apples to apples comparison and took out those inputs that their numbers would reflect exactly what our numbers i think clearly stipulate, that the actual investment by american broadband providers in our networks have been going down. it's great that certain internet companies are making investments in things like data farm, cloud infrastructure, products and services. and they should continue, continued to do so. their total investment is a fraction globally of what ustelecom members actually invest in our network, and it's got nothing to do with the actual investment that goes in to maintaining and building american network infrastructure, the broadband investment. but all investment should be

encouraged, and we should have smart policies that incrept more, not less investment. it's all a great thing, and we're determined the make sure that our companies have the confidence and the line of sight to make those investments in an even more aggressive way going forward: >> thinking about net neutrality not just in terms of investment, but just in terms of principles of an open internet, obviously efforts that the current fcc is undertaking to reverse that classification to ease back some of those rule, you know, it's got a lot of people concerned. would your industry be willing to offer any sort of hard commitment to upholding some of the principles that people are really worried could be eroded? >> guest: sure. well, the important point is we need to take a step back from that fear. we live in a very contentious environment, very contentious political moment. the fact is that america's

broadband providers, ustelecom members have made an ironclad commitment to maintain net neutrality protections for their customers -- no block, no throttling, transparency. those commitments existed before the imposition of title ii, and the commitments to them are going to exist after the reclassification back to title i. so this debate isn't about net neutrality, it's about whether our companies are very clear about maintaining their commitment to protect the principles of net neutrality and to advance those principles. this debate really is about whether we want as a nation to have our most important technology advance potentially of our lifetimes, maybe of our history, the internet, governed by regulators using 1934 era rules. an era of the outhouse, not of the smart house to guide us

forward. using the idea that the internet should be treated as a public utility. i've met many internet users around the country in this woul. some have good things to say, some have bad things to say, but i haven't met a single internet user that wants their internet to look more like their gas or water company. >> host: what percentage of the u.s. population does not have access to broadband? >> guest: it's a very small but meaningful and important community, about 13 million americans. most of them live in rural communities. most of those communities can put broadband to tremendous use creating jobs, connecting to services that would be difficult to get to in health care, public safety, education. we have to all collectively roll up our sleeves and find the right policy frameworks to make sure that those 13 million americans can have access to the benefits of broadband, but that's going to take smart and

wise policies. it's also going to take policies that incent more investment on the part of broadband providers or and commitments by our federal government to make sure that we can have the resources and the right types of regulatory policy infrastructure to get there. >> host: what percentage of americans don't have a choice among broadband providers? >> guest: almost none. it's extraordinary to think that we all use networks right now that are called 4g lte. virtually every single american has access to that network, and it was extraordinary to see the ramp-up period. it was only 18 months to get there nationally. 96% of americans have a choice of at least three wireless carriers. almost 90% of americans have a choice between at least two wireline providers. the competition as we move forward with more investment, as we move towards 5g networks, faster, more ubiquitous networks, denser networks is only going to increase.

and that competition will potentially not only catalyze more choice, but also give consumers a new range of products and services and opportunities to do things online that we can't even imagine today. >> host: when you get into a situation like we're currently in where google and amazon are having kind of a smart device spat, does that affect the entire ecosystem of the internet? >> guest: well, the it -- it isn important point. we in the broadband provider community were singled out by the last fcc to have special rules apply only to us. the movement now in the fcc is to establish a new set of net neutrality protections that will actually encompass all of the entire internet ecosystem including companies like google and amazon. our broadband providers in our nation have been very clear to maintaining net neutrality

protections regardless of whether there are rules or not set by government. they have and they will. i can't say the same for some of our biggest internet companies. it's a bit ironic. it's time for them to catch up, and it's time for us to move forward with smart, holistic net neutrality protections that will integrate not only broadband providers, but as importantly, the entire scope of companies that interact with consumers via the internet including the biggest amongst the internet giants that are out there. >> how would you envision something like that being enacted? the ftc sort of puts out guidance saying we're going to start considering this anti-competitive, would -- are you looking for legislation? >> guest: well, right now the fcc is in the process of establishing a reclassification of broadband as a title i information service, and in so

doing the new cop on the beat will be our nation's premier protection agency, the federal trade commission, which has not only the resources, but the expertise to insure consumer protections across all parts of the internet ecosystem, not just broadband providers. in addition to the ftc, they're not alone. there's the body of antitrust law that we have, the court system. we have 50 attorneys general that have consumers' backs in providing broad, general consumer protections to them as well. ultimately, however, the work of insuring net neutrality protections, of developing a thoughtful and consistent national policy framework for this most important phenomenon that we call the internet is the responsibility -- i would even say it's the obligation of congress to undertake. we've got work to do to push that log up the hill, but i am confident just as we were able to do in 1996 in a bipartisan

way where democrats and republicans came together with a common voice and in common cause to develop a national policy framework that now 21 years later we can do the same thing. it's time. consumers expect and require and deserve nothing less. >> so is that the vision of the bill that would have bipartisan support, that would enshrine some of these protections that people are really concerned about, no blocking, no lot toking kind of thing and apply it to the entire ecosystem? >> guest: that is the goal. and right now it's a bit of a distant goal, but we're keeping a focus on working with members of congress from all sides of the political spectrum to come to an understanding that the time is now to move forward to creating bright line protections for consumers, protections that our companies already commit to in areas such as no blocking, no throttling, transparency that

can be applied not just to one part of the internet ecosystem, broadband providers, but to all parts of the internet that consumers every day interact with including our largest internet company. >> part of the push against sort of what the last fcc did coming from critics of the obama administration, i suppose, was that it was overly regulatory, it was overreach. obviously, if congress is updating the statute, then that's not overreach, it's what they're telling the fcc what they can and can't do. but nevertheless, it sounds like that's a whole new class of regulatory powers that would apply to the internet companies, you know, on sort of either side of the network. wouldn't that be overly

burdensome in some ways? >> guest: well, the importance issue -- the important issue is whether we have the vision as a nation, as a society is but also as a congress to fashion the right kind of regulatory and legal framework that would find the balance between catalyzing and creating incentives for innovation and investment while at the same time providing the right kind of consumer protection so that all of us can have confidence. whenever we go online, we can have access to the content of choice when we want it, on whatever platform we want it on. privacy protections. a list of must-haves that we as consumers understand are very, very important and that our companies in the broadband community have committed to. i believe that that balance can be found. it was found in 1996, it's been reiterated even in the fist six years of -- first six years of

the obama administration which understood that principles based on a light touch approach that would take a more permission-less vision on the need for innovation in our country is the right way to go. will we be able to get there? i believe that we will, i'm optimistic that we can. we've got some work to do though to make sure that we can return back to a common vision, a bipartisan vision about why consumers expect and require those types of protections, but that they be fully applied to all parts of the internet. >> host: jonathan spalter, should alaska broadband or the company in western new mexico or verizon be able to offer the so-called fast lanes to consumers? >> guest: well, the fact is that in our internet society today there are many important reasons why broadband data and broadband traffic should be prioritized.

the brave first responders, the fire women and firemen that are rushing into danger in southern california expect that the broadband access and data communications that flow over broadband will be prioritized. the driverless cars of the future, we will have to expect that those transportation networks will have prioritized access to broadband so that they can remain safe. our doctors, our nurses, even our surgeons of the future who are providing robotic surgery which will be a reality soon will have prioritized traffic so that they can do the work of providing health care. and so prioritization already is a reality. i also think that the more choices that consumers have opportunities the experience, the more tools, the more pricing plans, the more variety that is offered to consumers is a good

thing. and it's also very clear, broadband companies understand this, that if at any time they do not provide their consumers with the experience that they want, that those consumers are empowered to go to any of the competition with the click of a mouse and is with a vote of their wallet. it is the consumer that must be in charge of ultimately what kind of consumer experience they want. our companies are listening very carefully to them. that free market is thriving, it's working. it's created this extraordinary internet that we are all enjoying today. and the net neutrality protections that we also are enjoying today and will enjoy tomorrow. >> as you alluded to, stuff like emergency services, the prioritization of that is permissible or was permissible under the 2015 rules. why is it so important for isps to be able to prioritize

other traffic if it's, you know, just streaming video? >> guest: well, what's important is that there should be opportunities for consumers to have access to different kinds of content and different types, in different types of service models so that if a provider, for example, wanted to provide lower cost or even free content, provided sponsor data, that those opportunities would not be blocked by a government regulator. imagine if steve jobs had to present his pricing plans to the fcc as he was thinking about the future of the iphone. i don't think we would have one. if jack dorsey had to submit for prior approval to the fcc or to another government body content service ideas for approval, i don't think we would have this wonderful company called twitter which hard transformative in so

many societies. so i think we immediate to take a step back -- we need to take a step back and realize our companies, our consumers are aligned in trying to find ways of innovating and extending the range of choice and opportunities and that we do have the full protections that are available through institutions like the federal government, our courts and our states to insure that there's fair dealing and no anti-competitive behavior in our internet. >> you know, you mentioned the early days of companies like twitter, like apple. it strikes me that there could have also been other outcomes if they couldn't afford to have traffic prioritized, for instance. so i guess this is sort of an overarching question, but how do we make sure that the start-ups, that the smaller companies and that the consumers themselves are in the left behind? >> guest: right. well, i think that the core principle of net neutrality is to insure that any content can be delivered on any platform at

any time of the consumer's choosing, and broadband providers are committed to those principles including no blocking, no throttling, transparency, no anti-competitive or discriminatory prioritization of content. if any of america's internet providers or broadband providers or internet companies stray outside of those rules, consumers have enforcement mechanisms that they can turn to make sure that those companies are held to task. and that's the, i think, the important point. net neutrality will continue to thrive and, i think, be strengthened because it will be extended beyond broadband providers to the entire internet ecosystem is, and that's a great thing for consumers. >> host: jonathan spalter is the president and ceo of the trade association ustelecom, and kyle daly works on telecom issues for bloomberg law. gentlemen, thank you.

>> guest: thank you very much. >> well, every month for the past 20 years one of the nation's top nonfiction authors has joined us on our "in depth" program for a fascinating three-hour conversation about their work. just for 2018, "in depth" has invited 12 fiction authors onto our set, authors of historical fiction, national security thrillers, science writers, social commentators like colson whitehead and brad thor, brad metzer e gerald dean brooks and many others. their books have been read by millions around the country and the world. so if you are a reader, plan to join us for "in depth" on booktv. it's an interaboutive program the first sunday of every month that lets you call in and talk directly to your favorite authorities, and i -- authors,

and it all kicks off january 7th at noon with david ignatius, author of ten national security thrillers. you can join us live on sunday is, january 7th, or watch it on demand at booktv.org. >> good evening, everyone. can everyone hear me well? good. i'm mary mclaughlin, program coordinator with the smithsonian associates, and i'd like to welcomeo you to what promises to be the very perfect halloween evening. [laughter] on the grisly world of vick vicn surgeon surgery. before we begin, i'd like to ask everyone the please check their cell phones and make sure they are