bunch of apps and put them on yahoo music because a lot of people go there. let's embrace a chorus, this massively distributed strategy that reflects the culture we live in. >> it seems like there's a real dynamic here that you are addressing between what the consumers want and what technology can now enable. sort of a chicken and egg. it's unclear which is directing which. one thing i'm curious to hear from all of you, is what you think consumers are demanding right now. is this in response to consumers or are you leading consumers? >> consumers are very hungry for this. we think this is one of the most important announcements of the year. that's why we held it for today. we see the hunger in consumers using their devices in so many different ways. it was only nine years ago that we all started using text messaging and we weren't sure that was going to be a business. now, verizon wireless processes 70 billion text messages a

month. this is an evolution in terms of the consumer experience from a mobile platform. that's where our focus is. >> do you think, neil, that you're leading the consumer to the new options or are they demanding them? >> i think a little bit of both. a, the broadband capacity we're offering, there's demand for more capacity and more band width. so with going all digital we're really serving that demand and the bandwidth demand continue to increase. i think, you know, the partnership we have with verizon wireless helps fuel that demand by being able to offer things in both the mobile and the in home and out of home setting. you know, i think that cloud-based nature, a lot of the announcements we have made here are enabled by putting our stuff up in the cloud so we can innovate at a faster pace.

i think in some ways, the technology has fueled the consumer demand. you think of tablets and tablets the consumers didn't dream those up. but there they were. awful a sudden -- all of a sudden -- all this demand came out of it. so i think it's a mix of, you know, technology fuelling it and consumers saying okay now that i have got that i want more. >> then that's question of what this does to content. this is all about consumers accessing content, especially now with the rise of streaming video. how has the opportunity to distribute through vod impacted the film business? >> you know, there are two very different businesses. there's still a very healthy sort of theatrical business or obviously take a look at what the movie like the "avengers" has done in the past three weeks. that audience is still healthy and robust. on the other side of the spectrum, folks are making smaller dramas and smaller comedies and indy films. the idea now that we could have a more direct relationship with the consumer and also reach a

much wider audience at that moment when your title has reached its sort of -- it mass awareness. you know? you can go on and do jimmy fallon or conan and do publicity and traditionally what would happen is those films would open in new york and l.a. and then slowly roll out over the next eight to ten weeks over the rest of the country. now when you do the show, that kid at home in ohio who doesn't have an art house theater near him can go on vod via comcast or some of the other digital platforms and access that title right away. that's been the real game changer for the smaller films that don't have the advertising budgets to compete with the "avengers." >> what is this doing to the music industry? we have seen the traditional record business really be killed over the past decade or two. is this creating a new revenue opportunity for that type of business? >> i would say absolutely. because we're not in the business of selling music, but

we're in the business of offering access to experience for everybody who loves it. a lot of people think of the music business as the business they know it today. but i look at a thousand years ago, music was not a business. it was a public performance. a private performance. only in the last hundred years have we packaged it into a discreet object. give me $10, i'll give you a cd, give me $1, i will give you an mp 3. so that transactional business is a short blip on the continuum of time. where the future of music is, like the dawn of music. which is about access to music, and access to experiences. and i'd say that's what the future of games is, and that's what the future of film is, and that's what the future of television is, and that's what the future of books are, it's not about owning anything, it's about accessing everything. >> accessing it through broadband. >> i have two tera bytes of

music at home on my computer. i can't access it here in boston, it's worthless to me. the utility value has plummeted because i can't access it whenever i want to. but if i can access it wherever i want to, i can appreciate it more and love it more. so access creates the opportunity to raise the value of my music collection. raise the value of my film collection. my game collection. because i don't want to own every movie, i just want to access whatever movie i want. that is disastrous for the dvd business and economics of traditional hollywood, but good for the consumer because it creates more choices and options and takes away barriers to discovery. i think about when i was growing up, i wanted to like classical music. i go to tower records. but i couldn't get into classical music because every cd was $27. and so i didn't get into any classical music at all because there were too many barriers to consumption. now i can pay spotify $9 a month and listen to thousands and thousands of classical albums.

i can discover anything i want. there's no friction between me and discovering and sampling. so that leads to greater enjoyment of music. >> so access is what you're saying, access is much more valuable than ownership. >> i think we're going through a generational shift between a generation that values ownership, to a generation that values access. and i think that we're living in between both worlds right now. >> all of this access is enabled through the cloud and broadband and wireless. >> i think one of the most important things to rio's comment in terms of access, this is massive amounts of data that we're talking about, in rio's example. and the importance of simplicity for consumers, for discovery, for navigation, for prioritization, for research, is what's really important here. or consumers will get overwhelmed. so that's one of the principles that we have in view-dini is we want simplicity.

because we want customers to have an outstanding experience, and we want to make sure that they come back, and that they continue to use it. and their curiosity is piqued and their hunger for more consumption of content is there. so that's the principle on top of our high-speed network, lte network that we're focused on. >> i think it's interesting, because both you and rio, ed, are content providers and we're more distributors, dan. and the conversations between content providers and distributors are much more interesting these days. it's not just pay this rate and get that content. with the digital component of all the arrangements we make, it opens up a lot of possibilities that we didn't have before. >> i think also, the other thing that's changing is the type of content. you know, you're starting to see web series or webisodes get more popular.

take a look at something like "funny or die" and the short form skits which are the perfect thing to consume on your smartphone while you're in a cab or something like that. a lot of filmmakers are starting to talk about, maybe there's a way we break up our indie film to offer it up in smaller chunks. take a look at a program, like madmen, which has really changed sort of that hour-long program. it's more like you are digesting a mass sive novel as opposed the the one off episodes you used to get. i think, you know -- and it's interesting. i don't know who's dictating what, is it technology, the audience? i had an interesting thing two summers ago, i was at a friend's house, and they have a big screening room in their basement, and i got the assignment to go down to the basement and get the teenagers, they're downstairs watching the movie. i go down to the basement -- there's four kids in a beautiful state of the art screening room. in the back row watching two different shows on two laptops. i saw that and i was like -- >> this is the future. >> it's a brand-new world.

this is the future. >> the other thing that i think ties into that that is important, so we're the largest provider in the united states of wireless service. 300 million users across all of the carriers. and now with the interest and the desire that consumers have, if you're a content provider, i think that those 300 million customers would be of interest to you, in terms of the delivery mechanism, and the vehicle. i think we're at the very beginning stages of that transformation. but i think it's an important profile of our wireless industry. >> now, earlier you mentioned just the massive amount of data. streaming videos, movies, takes up a lot of data. i know you recently revised your data caps and raised the data cap. i'm curious what you guys think and this is something you think about as well how the consumption of all this video is

going to be changing the way people pay for and consume data? >> i think from our perspective, we had a more rigid structure in place, we wanted to make it more flexible for the customer and give them more choice. so if they wanted to consume, you know, terabytes, for example, they could buy tiers that would provide that for them. really, from our perspective, it was about flexibility and choice. it seems to have been well accepted. i don't know how you guys would look at it from a provider perspective. >> yeah, i think that it's reasonable to pay more when you want to use more, right? and i think that i certainly see that there's a finite amount of capacity, whether you're talking about a wireless network or not. and i think that at the end of the day, that, that the worst thing that can happen is audiences feel, consumers, viewers, users, feel like their ability to consume and discover

and share is limited. and i can't watch that movie, because i got a warning saying i was at 80% of my cap. or i can't upload the video of my kids because i'm afraid -- i don't know where i stand with regards to my cap. and so that retards usage. and slows adoption. and is not good for anybody. >> right. >> so i think that the ability to -- if i use more, i should pay more. i totally understand that. but kicking people off because they hit their cap, and then cutting off their service i don't think is great. >> we want them to use it. >> right. so i like the idea of optically changing the way you perceive your limits, and being able to offer people unlimited consumption if you're willing to pay for it. i think that's always a reasonable thing. >> dan? >> yes. so you mentioned warnings.

we consider them friendly consumer reminders. >> yes. it's all relative. >> yes. depends where you are. >> yeah. >> yeah. so on that principle, we give notices for data consumption to consumers that 50%, 75%, 95%, 100%, and then we also give them an option to continue to upgrade the data. so our focus is to have a phenomenal consumer experience, and to never have the consumer surprise. so we've gotten great feedback from the consumer community around those notices. and then we have tiered pricing. now, one of the things that consumers are going through is to understand what a gigabyte means and what -- you know, how much that is. so we work very hard at the point of sale, and in our service delivery centers, to help educate consumers around that. so i think that the industry -- the wireless industry is doing a good job in responding to those needs.

i do expect that the consumer interests in data, and data consumption is going to continue to increase. and i think that you'll see that the tiers for consumption will continue to evolve. >> it seems inevitable people will just consume more data, whether it's through wireless or broadband. but rio, are you saying that you think consumers sort of need to be re-educated about how one pays for this? >> i think it's an evolution. i don't think consumers should actually have to understand what a gigabyte is. i think it's useful that they understand how it is in the context of what they're paying for. but i think that it's very hard to translate how many -- is a stream on an hbo show a gigabyte or not. if i watch madmen on netflix its that a gigabyte or not? it's a logical leap. i don't think a consumer should have to make it.

i know on my train ride here to boston, i was on my verizon lte ipad, i had a ten gigabyte plan and i wasn't sure where i stood, and i was going to watch a movie, and i didn't know -- i found myself in this gray area where it was potentially going to cost me more money to watch it. that's always a red flag to me. if i'm feeling it, then other people are feeling it. and then that could retard adoption and consumption. so i think at the end of the day, people should -- i'm not disputing people should pay more for access, or if you're going to access more, you should pay more. i'm happy to pay more. i never want to have that cut off. or i never want to feel like i shouldn't watch a movie because i may or may not be near my cap. >> sounds like you needed a friendly reminder. >> yes. >> are news services like view-dini -- or they're expected -- i would expect them to

drive so much more video consumption. do you think they're actually going to be driving technology and pushing us toward sort of the new 4-g landscape where everybody is consuming at a higher -- i know this is something we've talked about, consuming at a more high-tech level? >> well, from our perspective, you know, we compare the rollout of our lte network, our 4-g network to our 3-g network. and our data consumption on our lt network, which has only been commercial for 18 months, is much deeper than our 3-g network was after three or four years. and it's all driven by the quality of the devices on our network, and then the consumer desire. and all of the different options that consumers have to consume, you know, sports and news, certainly business. and movies and entertainment. so i expect we're going to see continued growth.

that's why we're so focused on -- as an industry on the importance of the spectrum in our industry. and we think it will -- you know, it's the cornerstone of meeting consumer demand. >> i want to just applaud -- and say one thing. i'm constantly in awe of how fast my lte network is, and how deep the coverage is. i don't want to say that in any particular way. if you would have asked me ten years ago would i be able to have broadband speeds faster than what i get in my residential home at that time, you know, on the go, i would have said that's out of a science fiction movie. that it could ever be -- that a radio network could be that fast. so i'm constantly running speed tests and sharing that with friends and telling people how fast it is. it's really amazing that that's -- i think we sometimes take for granted, you know, that we have this ubiquitous wireless network that operates at incredible speeds. you know, that it's available

today. we blink like it's no big deal. and it's like -- for me, it's like we're living in the future. >> just yesterday comcast announced with four other cable providers, you'll give viewer subscribers to each other's wi-fi hot spots. that's 50,000 -- access to 50,000 hot spots around the country. >> it's a partnership among the various cable providers to have a common standard, so that one could in effect roam from one area to another. so if you're a comcast subscriber in philly and go to new york, you could access the time warner cable television wi-fi networks. i think dan and i have been speaking about this, and i think it's very complementary. the spectrum and wi-fi work together, in the home, and dan's great network out of the home. and they're symbiotic and complementary. i think it's a great combination for the consumer at the end of the day to have access to both wi-fi and lte network. >> and that makes it easier to consume more of your movies or of your videos.

i have to ask on the heels of the facebook ipo on friday, i'm curious how you see facebook and social media impacting digital distribution, whether it's impacting the way people search and find, or recommend and share. do you see an impact from social media? >> again, you know, where i'm operating on these indie films, it's a complete game-changer. from a marketing perspective, the kind of word of mouth you can generate and then spread, whether it's facebook, and also twitter has really changed the conversation for us. as far as people accessing content via facebook, it will be curious to see where we go the next five years with that. >> for us, it's been a tremendously powerful evolution in the history of music. music has always been social. you've always listened to music with friends, gone to see music together, told your friends about music. it's really the best form of

marketing on the planet, when music is good and moves you. so it's a natural evolution of that. for us, we move to an all-facebook registration. we've seen only 60 days ago, you know, 1,600% increase in the amount of music shared and music consumed. so for us, it's been the right decision. and we work closely with them. >> yeah, we do as well. i look at the importance of social media being, how fast it's helping to change the industry. so consumers are the thought leaders now. it's not one or two individuals. facebook and the other social media is really enabling that. i think it's going to help drive the speed of innovation. i also think it's going to help drive competition, which is very, very good for our industries. we want to see extremely aggressive competition. and if we have that innovation

will occur, and consumers always win in a highly competitive world. >> i think we see social as an interesting way of sharing the content with friends. we've launched the x-1 platform. we're launching it in boston in a few weeks. it lets us integrate apps like facebook and platforms. any sharing platforms into the experience. i think the consumers would want to put up a browser on the screen. i think we want it integrated. rotten tomatoes, for example, helped rate the shows. and the beauty of having everything up in the cloud is we can do that in a matter of a week or two. so we're able to move at a much faster pace and meet consumer demand. >> i think the question is

whether they will feel comfortable having everything they watch be sharing everything on facebook automatically. so right now, when i read a story on yahoo news, it publishes automatically. unless i opt out of it, it's positively sharing automatically. and so, i know that's been an issue of debate. and there are even some legislation and laws about it as well. it's not about sharing a show. it's about, will my television service share automatically on my behalf with my friends if i allow it to? >> i don't know. i think it's a good question. you know, at the end of the day, i kind of go with consumer demand will pull the technology and the industry where it wants

to go. i'm not sure how that will play out. >> consumers are driving all of this. the technology certainly leads them in some cases. but it always seems to be about the kids. they kind of dictate to us a lot of the time. >> there's certainly very cool technology down on the hoe floor that addresses these consumer demands. unfortunately we have to wrap it up here. i want to thank our panelists. thanks so much for joining us. very interesting conversation. thank you all. >> thank you. >> president barack obama is urging europe's leaders to act quickly and decisively to solve the continent's economic crisis. he says the crisis in europe is partially to blame for continued economic weakness in the united states. tonight is the 68th

correspondence dinner. john boehner is the house speaker. entertainment by wayne brady. now a conversation with julius genachowski. this is about 20 minutes. mr. chairman, great to see you. >> good to see you. >> good to see you. >> let's start easy. the dynamics of the commissioner is always interesting. and less than a week ago, you finally got your full complement

of commissioners, both of whom has blessed us by coming up to the cable show in the first week. what does that mean for you? is that exciting? new difficulties? >> it makes it harder to get conference rooms. but no, it's great. look, i've been very lucky. we've had a very well functioning commission that's got a lot done. we've got a lot done unanimously in a bipartisan basis where we disagreed, we've been able to disagree without being disagreeable. and now we have two experienced, accomplished, smart, new commissioners. i couldn't be more excited. >> did you know them before? >> i did. i did. i think ajit briefly worked for me. when i became chairman of the fcc, ajit was still in the general council's office. >> i think jessica worked for me at one point. it's great to have you. you know, if you could tell, you've been here for a little while. the cable industry is very focused on innovation. even though it's sort of an

overused word, we believe we're struggling hard to be on the cusp of the next explosion, creative in our products and services. and i just wondered whether that's some of the things that have interested you most about what you see in the innovation around video? >> absolutely. i don't think innovation is an overused word. i'm excited about the innovation that we're seeing across the broadband economy. if i could start at a higher level. across the board, we're seeing tremendous innovation, and investment in networks, wired and wireless, in apps, in a number of important areas. america is back. we've regained world leadership. on the wired side, you know, here's something that i think most people don't really appreciate. three years ago, cable broadband

networks had -- we were only 12% were capable of providing speeds of more than 10 or 20 meg a bits. today with the rollout of doxis 3.0, over 80% of cable subscribers are in systems that are capable of 100 megabits or more. we set a goal for 2020 of affordable 100 megabits to 100 million homes in the u.s. with the rollout of doxis 3.0, we're well on our way to hitting that goal. >> that's terrific. we've been bragging that, you know, what a difference a day makes that the cable increased speeds of 900% in a decade. and that's really extraordinary. i know when you took over as the chairman, it was really critical to you to try to advance the position of the united states, to improve the pace of that broadband. would you say you're relatively satisfied? i know we always have more to

do, but do you feel that both under your leadership and the country and the industry, you're really achieving what you had set out to do? >> yes, we're moving in the right direction. in some areas, mobile as an example, we've regained global leadership in broadband. mobile innovation in the u.s. is the envy of the world. we're going to be the first country in the world to roll out 4-g, and we're making tremendous progress in terms of speed. our apps economy is just incredible. on all platforms. working together, we're starting to make progress on the adoption issue, the broadband adoption issue. so it's interesting. sometimes i like the fact that we challenge ourselves as a country. it's good. it's what motivates us. it's also true that when i go and meet my counterparts from around the world, they're

increasingly envious of what they see in the u.s. around broadband and innovation. it's not the time to let our feet off the gas. we've got to keep moving forward. and we have a lot of very significant challenges to face. some of the challenges are the kind of challenges we want to have. they come from our success. they come from increased demand, increased consumer consumption, increased consumer demand for wireless and wired. that's the kind of problem we want to have as a country and we need to work about getting over those challenges. >> there's an esoteric dispute over whether wireless is a real broadband device to the internet. but you seem to be sort of a passionate spokesman for the view that it is. it has real value for consumers in that regard. can you say a little bit about that, complement, competitor, reality? >> all of the above. and we don't know yet exactly what role mobile broadband will

play in the ecosystem, because we don't know yet the speeds are that people will want for different services. and that's fine. you know, some of the most exciting things that will happen in the next few years are things that we don't know about and can't predict. one of the things about wireless that's very exciting, and the cable industry has been a leader, has been wi-fi. it's an unlicensed spectrum that was put on the market precisely to lead to innovations that no one would expect. it's given us wi-fi, which is now playing a very important role in consumers' lives, a very important role in offload off of our mobile infrastructure. cable has been leading the way in innovating around wi-fi. i was very pleased to see the announcement yesterday, a number of difnt