lit fwater with experience at the supreme court including work on more than 100 cases. watch monday at 9:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. join the conversation. and follow us at cspan. we have resources on our website for background on each case, the land marc cases camera pan onpoo companion book and the podcast at cspan.org/landmark cases. >> now, a discussion on net neutrality and what's called the digital divide. the annual telecommunications policy conference in washington, d.c. was hosted by the free state foundation and it starts with a video message from fcc chair.

it's about three hours. >> good morning. thank you to randy may and the free state foundation for this opportunity to help kickoff today's event. the only thing people hate more than the long video is anyone who makes them wait to hear from david. so i plan to keep this short. the theme of today's forum is connecting america. this has been the prevailing theme of my chairmanship. i said closing the divide would be my highest priority. ever since, i've tried to just run my mouth, but to be on the run. i've logged over 4,000 miles on the road and to highlight their stories. the most effective thing the fcc can do to connect many americans to faster, better broad band is to remove barriers. as someone put it at the free state foundations 2016 gala, we

need to fire wheeed whacker. we have scrapped heavy handed utility style title ii regulation and restored the light touch framework that led to $1.5 trillion in network investment and u.s. leadership in the global digital economy. modernized our rules for business data services. to ease unnecessary rate regulation and competitive markets and increase incentives to install infrastructure. we've launched nicinitiatives t deployment wireless and wired infrastructure. i'll talk mb b b at this later b and weave removed obstacles for companies looking to use next generation satellites to improve the speed and capacity of satellite broad band.

i have no intention of going down. looking ahead, i thought i'd focus on the sub theme. enhancing the gig bit and 5g future. the beauty of our next generation wireless nwork is th they can be one in the same. it will unleash the internet of things and unlock innovations yet to be imagine. it will be infrastructure heavy. some project it will require at least a 100 fold increase and many of the rules were designed for cell towers. we took an important step on the front last week. we adopted an order make iing cr that the fcc doesn't need a federal historic preservation and virmal review for every single small cell.

a review estimate that is the new rules will create savings of $1.56 billion. it will generate up to 17,000 new jobs. and will speed the deployment of next generation networks. this won't be the last order to come out of the wireless infrastructure proceeding we launched last year. and special thinanks to commissn mer carr, who is leading the push to get our rules 5g ready. of course, spectrum will be critical to our future and we're busy on this front, too. the big ticket item for 2018 will be an auction of the ban followed by an option of the 24. to set the foundation for these, i circulated to my fellow commissioners just yesterday a public notice seeking input on auction procedures. we'll vote on that at our april meeting. we're continuing to make process on air waves in the spectrum frontiers proceeding.

last month, we raised our eyes to the spectrum horizons, looking to open up above 95 gig hertz for commercial use. mid band will be critical for 5g. this is why we partnered with md riddle. and also why i asked commissioner o'reilly to take the lead on the 3.5 gig hurts band. we're also taking a close look at 3.7 for terrestrial use and help to propose next step ons that in the coming months. and we're taking another look at unlicensed opportunities below eight gig hertz with a particular focus on studying opportunities for shared use. the good news is that they'll be joining you this afternoon.

but let me close by thanking free state foundation once more by elevating the discussion on communications issues. the goal is clear. connecting everyone and bringing the benefits of the internet age to all americans. meeting that goal won't be easy, but events like this help steer us in the right direction. so thank you to free state and thank you to everyone taking part in this important discussion about the future of our digital economy. have a great conference. >> thanks to the chairman for those remarks. i'm grateful to him. originally, he was scheduled to be b here, but conflict arose. for those of you who may not know, i think he was the person

that talked about taking a a weed whacker to regulations at the fcc. and you know, i don't know whether you want to refer to it as a weed whacker or what, but to my mind, chairman has done a good job and gotten off to a fast start. in terms of looking at regulations that may not longer serve the public entry in light of the public change. so now, it's my pleasure, i know administrator reynolds is here in the room. there you are. it's really a great pleasure for me to introduce david reddle.

i'm going to say this now. we have the complete bios of all our speakers in this nice brochure and that includes david's bio, so with his permission and everyone else's today, i'm not going to go through the whole bio, but just give you the very basics. and for david, of course, the most important thing is he's the assistant secretary for communications and information at the department of commerce. a position he assumed in november of last year. and in that capacity, he has the dual role of admin stater of the national telecommunications administration, the executive branch's principle adviser on

telecom policy. and assume iing this job, david many of you know was the chief counsel at the white house of committee on energy and commerce. and you know what i'll say b about that, just to put it in one sentence is that i think all of us have an understanding of how having served in that role for many year, how many years was it? okay, i was right. almost seven years. probably was not another job you know in washington that could have prepared him any better for the job that he has now. so with that, join me in welcoming david, please.

>> well thanks, randy. i'm proud b to be here speaking today and i'd like to thank you for single handedly keeping the hash tag alive. it's been some time since we had used that on capitol hill so, i'm glad to see it's still kicking. i've always appreciated free states many years of working on communications issues and certainly, the value that you have in bringing a robust and intelligence debate to some of these issues, so thank you for having me. today's theme is timely and fits well with our goals, which to expand spectrum, support development of 5g and help connect all americans to the internet. the administration has made clear that connecting all americans, especially those in rural areas, is a major priority. we know that too many americans still lack access to reliable, affordable broad band services.

wee helping communities gain access to technology, promote economic development and unleash american innovation. our broad band usa program supports community leaders seeking to expand connectivity. we work together to identify resources and provide technical stance and have helped more than 250 communities develop public private partnerships to meet their connectivity needs. our state leaders network helps facilitate information sharing among representatives for more than 20 states. we just concluded a highly successful summit in tennessee where we worked together with the tennessee economic dwopt authority and brought more than 200 state and local officials to share best ideas for improving the state's connectivity. we're also ensuring there's enough speck rtrum. i want to mention the core missions is trstriking a balanc and the needs of federal agencies in their important

missions. thanks to the hard work of our radio advisory committee, the two principle advisory bodies we have on the government side, ntia was able to announce a selection of 35 50 megahertz to ercommercial services. we have a lot of work to do to determine if this is going to be viable for us to have go to auction but we have to work now to figure out whether we can sort our incoupkucumbentincumbe. it's add jay sent to the service spectrum and could help fuel our nation's 5-g leadership. dod plans to submit a proposal under the pipeline act to carry out a study to determine the potential for reallocation r for wireless services in this band without harming operations. we hope the result of this hard work will be b a win win that enables the continuing growth of

the industry while also maintaining the mission critical systems. the pipeline act and relocation fund are two of the strongest tools we have. but we want to have every tool possible to ensure we are making the most of our nation's scarce resources. the law says that's our priority and we'll continue to look tr for bands to clear, but we know there are other bands we're clearing out government users is not an option. to that end, nta continues to work to implement novel approaches. for example, the president's budget for fiscal year '19 includes a proposal to authorize ntia to administer leases of federal spectrum u. this could be a value bable too. this is a high level proposal and many details need to be

supported out. we'd be look iing to find ways incentivise agencies to use spectrum to help us identify bands. whether it could serve as an -- of the services provided by commercial users in the band. we'd have to sort out how to fund the resources needed to administer leases ab the program. but the idea is to add as many tools as we can and put it to work while maximize iing the va of spectrum and protecting federal incumbents. we're happy to see that congress is interested in novel approaches as well. the act signed into law last week includes researching and requires a study on bidirectional sharing.

i worked with department of energy and commerce and i'm pleased to see -- the name of impact. i really appreciate the blog free state published this week. we're relying heavily -- ban is adjacent to the band at 3.5 gig hertz. its is helping 1.5 to life. the heart of this innovative band are two systems. the access system and virmal sensing capability. that will allow commercial users to coexist with navy radar systems. they're working to certify these systems are ready because they're necessary to bring the ban to market. the dod study, the 3.5 gig hertz

and announcement have the potential to make as much as 750 megahertz of continuous mid band spectrum. a big deal. we're welcoming the fcc's vote last week. it's an important step in securing america's leadership. and is consistent with the commitment to help remove obstacles to allow 5g to flourish. and tia is looking to improve the coordination. the efforts which we co-chair alongside our colleagues is a utility service. at present, our efforts in the big as we're calling it are focused on three work streams.

the president's -- expanding broad band was the number one recommendati recommendation. the first area of focus is federal permits. we're looking at these requirements that govern the sighting of broad band facilities on federal lands to establish consistency across agencies. as you know, the federal government has projects to support support and we looked at dividing the efficacy. several agassis were tasked with the '18 spending bill and we look forward to working with them. that includes our u.s. which has a new broad band loan and grant program, as well as the congress department's economic development authority, excuse me, administration, which has been asked to prioritize in its brand band projects. the third and final area for the

working group to look at is leveraging federal assets. in january, pruch issued a memo insfrukting the interior department to develop a plan to increase access tower facilities. this could lower the cost of buildouts and encourage american infrastructure deployment in rural america. the task force also recommended assessing the turcurrent state including infrastructure gaps and opportunities for more efficient deployment. we know one of the best ways to solve the digital divide is to better understand it. ntia has been a leader in collecting data on broad band adoption and using that data to develop policy. we have decade of experience in analyzing broad band in the united states and we have high quality research that's essential to create a holistic view of the current state of broad band deployment. to do so, we need accurate, reliable data analysis to properly inform private sector

decisions. reduce barriers and better coordinate programs that fund infrastructure. we need to be able to aggregate existing information with multiple data outlets using idea to harness kovrcoverage that mat be available. last week, congress proep rated fupds to work the states to update the map. so produce more accurate assessment and provide a tool for policymakers to better target the funds to bring broad band to those parts of the country that still lag behind. the group at ntia has spent the last few years continuing to cultivate our network, which includes officials within state and local an county government who spend their time trying think about how to improve br d broadband in their communities.

state and community leaders get a chance to learn what works and what's failed by communities across the state and their efforts to bring broadband to their citizens. whether it's soling an issue or bringing new approaches, everyone here today has a perspective. i want everyone here to know my door is open. we really value the approach that each of you takes. we value your feedback and we can the best way for us to produce good policy is to have a strong connection to working with private sector and civil society on real concrete and value bable institution solutions, so we want to hear from you. we want to know what you think. we know it's important and please don't be shy about coming to us. i want to thank randy for 12 years of great work. ten years of this wonderful event and thank you for having

me here today. now for questions. >> thank you again for those remarks which repreeappreciate thanks for mentioning the blog that was great vote visiting fellow did on ray's act. it is very important the as administrator reddle point eed out. i think all of us are pleased that the name attached through it. i think i should point out of course that most of you know

this, that david played a big role in bringing that measure forward and developing it so he deserves a lot of credit for that. david's agreed to take a few questions. so the way we're going to do this is that you have a question, i want you to identify yourself please and try to ask a question if possible and i'll help you do that if you have trouble with it. but rather than a long statement. so we've got a mike and i wayou until you're recognized and we'll have some few questions.

okay. >> thanks. lynn stanton. do you have any thoughts yet on where you're going look r for these sources of data funded through the bill last week? >> my team is is in the process of sort of digging through and figuring out what we can do to best and most efficiently use the 7.5 million. as you have probably seen in the press, the office of budget had asked for $50 million. congress provided 7.5, so we're going through and figuring out how to use the $7.5 million in a way that produces the best tool for policymakers to make good decisions. you know. the bill passed very recently, so don't have an answer for you yet. but we're working on it.

>> the gentleman. >> my name is peter. i'm working for the unit delegation here in washington. david had spelled out what your plans for your work are. i wonder if you didn't find a time to look at what industry may be doing and what your expectations for the industry side are. >> with respects the issues we talked about today, we are in close contact with our colleagues and the private spectrum. to make sure we are in constant dialogue with both industry and our government users as we develop good policy. on 5g, it's a term that's everything to everyone. we're trying to figure out how best to meet america's needs and mike shaur wildfire e we go

forward in this next generation, that we are maximizing the value to the american citizens. particularly in rural america, ebb ensuring we have secure communications. the president made clear that secure communications is part of a national security strategy. with respect to 5g and making sure america continues to be b a leader in wireless. we've been a world leader. we want to maintain that. so we continue to talk with our colleagues in the private sector about these things. >> okay, do we have time for maybe one more question if we have one. looks like all the way over on the side. >> thank you. switching gears a little bit. but still in your wheel house. the chairman of the fcc announced yesterday a proposal to deny funds for carriers thafd cthafd chinese equipment and i had not yet seen that order, but

traditionally, national security a an executive branch if you think. what will be the role of ntia in a coordinating national security insight into the fcc if it does pass? >> so the fcc's proposal is a white copy now. we're looking forward to working with our colleagues to see what they produce. the role will be to work across the government both within the department of commerce, where we have significant expertise, but also across the entire u.s. government to figure out a whole of government response. so stay tuned, tricia. >> okay. >> i want to present him with small token of appreciation. i guess the emphasis is on small this time. david in the past sometimes and you may have seen this, we

presented speakers with major larger tokens and you know, i found out a concern you know u, often does do they exceed some government limit. in terms of the ethical requirements or what not. and of course, i want to be sensitive to that. but i'm going to present wryou with this beautiful ballpoint pen with free state foundation on it. you know, i'm almost embarrassed to say it, but you know, i guarantee that this pen, we secured it largely through the you know, sharp eye of my wife. lori. but its value is under a dollar, so i hope you can keep it and use it in good health. and most of all, thanks for being here. >> giving a bureaucrat a pen seems appropriate, randy, so i

proeshuaappreciate it. >> r for those standing, it's great to see such a large crowd. we have seats, there are seats up front. so i hope you'll find a seat. we're going to move into the next panel now. right after this panel, we are going to move right into the second all-star panel. right no later than 10:45. okay.

good morning. i'd like to waek everyone to the tenth free state conference at. our panel, the first all-star panel for today is solutions for connecting america and closing digital divides.

so again, i'd like to welcome the audience here. welcome the audience on cspan 2 this morning who decided the forgo morning cartoons to tune into the latest and future issues of digital communications policy. so we have four as i mentioned, all-star panelists with us today. i will introduce them briefly. john jones is the senior vice president of public policy and government registrations with century link. he's responsible for representing the policy and advocacy positions to federal, state and local policymakers. that includes the fcc, congress, state regulatory bodies an other agencies and industry groups. he has a 24-year tenure with company that's now century link reach iing back through century tell. prior to that, he was a director and communications faculty member for a dozen years. he's also a member of the board

of drirectors for u.s. telecom o we're glad to have john here today. we also have with with us tom power. who is senior vice president and general counsel of ctia. he has held that position since 2015. prior to which he was u.s. deputy chief technology officer for telecommunications in the white house office of science and technology. from 2011 to 2014 and he was chief of staff at ntia from april 250i009 to august 2011. he's worked in industry and law practice and was a senior legal adviser to fcc chairman, william canard. we're glad to have him because he's a recent addition. we also received late sunday night word that michael powe would be unable to attend because of an unavoidable last

minute schedule conflict so we're delighted to have james asy here with us today. he's the second most senior president involved in all aspects of their work. prior to that, he was a lolong member of the member on commerce science and transportation he has worged in law at georgetown university law school. so welcome back james and nicole turner lee, at the center at brookings. a contributor to brookings tech tank. previously vice president and chief research at policy officer at the multiculture telecom and counsel and mtc and in that

role, she led the design of their research policy and advocacy agendas. prior to that, she was vice president and first drekirector media technology at the joint center for political and economic studies. we're certainly delighted to have you back as well. just a little bit about the format. each panelist is going to kick things off with a opening remark going about five minutes. and we ask you to keep that to five minutes or the free state buzzer will go off. following that, we'll have some question time here on the panel. i'll direct some questioning and following that, we'll open it up to the audience.

if you have a question, please hang on to it and we'll hopefully get to you. for our folks in tv land, we don't have operators standing by the take your questions, but for those following ining on twitt have a twitter -- i'll start with james assey. >> ah, the curse of the a. >> sit over there next time. thank you, seth, randy. it's a pleasure to be back here with everyone. i extend michael's apologies. i know he would have loved to have been b here today to talk to you. i think the topic that we at least were going to start on was focusing on connecting america and closing the digital divide

and let me briefly kind of start where i always like the start when we discuss how we fill in the gaps and the holes that we have. and that is to to really take tremendous stock of what we've seen over the last decade, decade and a half, two decades. with respect to the cable industry. we through and certainly we're not alone, but through a lot of private capital invested and a lot of industry, we've built out networks that can provide access the 94% of america's households. that's not an insubstantial compliment. particularly when you consider the demands continues to grow by leaps and bounds year after year after year. that's not to diminish the importance of closing that last gap, that 6% who can't get

access to brond band ad band of people who can't get it and who haven't joined the society of using the internet as full y as they shall. when we look at what we need to do to close that 6%, i think you know, you've already heard this morning from the assistant secretary, some new developments in congress. i think one of the overlays we put on any type of strategy is to recognize neutrality and to design policies ta reflect on and respect the fact we have a multiplicity of different broad band platforms available to us. who would have thought that

cable technology has evolved to where it has today. and there is no really one sized fits all in a country that is as diverse as the united states with the dimpblt types of geographic cal challenges we have in a country this large. so i think we have to recognize as we develop policies, we need the come up with ones that are focused on the multiplicity of pathways to the consumer to provide them with internet service. i think another thing that we have hopefully learned from past mistakes is to really when we focus on the public subsidy portion of connecting america, to really focus attention on the unserved parts of america, those places that don't have broad band to make sure the skarss resources we have available are not going to layer over places

we have built broad band through private capital and i'm encouraged by recent language that was in the omnibus appripriations bill with respect to the newly created rus pilot program that's really aimed at i think at ensuring the dollars go to where we're need sod we can assess whether these programs are actually working or not and hopefully make that whole smallsmall er and smaller. when it comes to regulatory reform. again, i think we all acknowledge the fact that the more friction we can take out of the system, the better. because it will enable private capital to go further and building and extending networks. i think we need to be cognizant of the fact we have different technology platforms and policy needs to be built so it deals even handedly with the multiple infrastructures we have out there. so, that's the writ large

approach that i think we need to continue to focus on and i think recent signs are encouraging. >> the it's a timely and good topic for us to cover and also what seems to be b somewhat of a renewed focus on speeds an availability. many know the history of century link. include iing a small rural telephone company and broadband provider in some of the more rural markets in the country. now with the acquisition of level three, a major internet backbone provider globally. i thought it would be good to first just talk a little bit about acknowledge about what's going on in the industry is that networks are combining now to

become a hybrid of fiber and spectrum. that means where focus needs to be put is on spectrum and fiber. both are expensive and have their own challenges for deployment. but when combined, they do a great job of building and van advanced net works and services for others. the real issue is spectrum a substitute or is 5ga substitute for fiber. when you combine the two, they need each other to be successful. so those two will begin the enablement process and by the nature of the technology of 5g, if we have to build fiber closer, especially in rural markets to get to 5g out there. the fiber is going to be a major enable of 5g going forward in most of the markets out there.

we had missed a threshold of enablement and that was our strong suit. a few u acquisitions later, it developed with the acquisition of embark and quest, but we have been a leading provider of broadband in those markets. so i guess our view is that at least from our network perspective is that the most of any market that had a reasonable hint of profitability, we've pretty much have done those. what is left though, my point is that, the most challenging markets. we're looking for ways to get

there. what congress and the fcc has done is a very positive and we appreciate the focus and renewed interest there. i think we know it's not going to be enough money to do the total job b that people are looking to take place. so that's one issue. the other is how to have the pleasure of serving on john than's subcommittee. that did a great job of coming together and identifying and come tog agreement on what the barriers were and a lot dealt with federal lands and permitting and anything that is done there will speed to market is really the emphasis there, but it does little to address the cost issues, but it's a great movement forward is getting that moving forward. one thing our company's looking for is really hybrid solutions for the last mile.

it's difficult for us to even reach. providing a voice due to old networks. so hybrid solutions are k looing more and more appealing to our committee. if you look at what satellite is doing, their speeds are much better. the latency is less so when you lock at that and the partners ships there that are possible, i think that's really a solution is for providers to come together in meaningful partnerships to see what those solutions is. then fix wireless is another opportunity and that is where 5g comes in again. we're also looking at ways we cannot only handle that for 5g, but provide fixed wireless solutions in those markets. last thing i want to touch on is i think consumer demand. we were talking about providers and network, but consumers are a big factor for us.

we've been chasing speed for a long time, but we're facing fairly sophisticated consumer element that maybe wasn't here a few years ago. and what they're looking for regardless of the platform they use, i don't think they care if ss wi-fi or small sell cell, they're looking for a positive internet experience at the end of the day. that goes to the heart of privacy and other issues. we see from an intersurprise standpoint and consumer standpoint that some of the more volatile and emotional terms out there are dealing with net

neutrality will become more of a customer demand issue. as they evolve and keep telling us what they need out of the network. our job is to respond to that demand. that's one thing that the chairman's order does do is it provides us to respond without fear of enforcement action or anything else that's out there that was in the 2015 order. >> thank you, john. tom power. >> thank you for having me here today. i don't think it will shock anyone in the room that the wireless industry is focused on 5g these days. we see it as transformtive for the wireless experience across industries and across society and that's because of what 5g

can deliver. it's capable of 100 times the bandwidth of existing technologies. we're going to connect millions more devices. and one of the most significant factors about 5g is the really low latency, which is the speed at which bits can hop from one point@next. need to be realtime in order to be useful. we're going see a huge change and we can just go across the board when it comes to different industries. and this ripple effect will have a huge effect on the economy. we expect to see 5$500 billion n kopt bu contributions. the wireless carriers alone are expected to contribute $275 billion in capital expenditures and that's just the carrier, but

the point is, it's much broader than the carriers or the wi wireless industry narrowly. it is throughout the economy. the cell phone was invented here. american companies dominated the market for operating systems. the engine inside your smart phones. you go to smart phones. those are dominated by american innovations. we built out 4g across this country. racing past almost other county are tr -- and we've now reached about 98% of the country with 4g and the vast majority of those people have access to at least three carriers, so we have to keep that momentum going. other countries see what we're doing. they want the to rival us or eclipse us when it comes to 5g.

we're seeing trials all over the world just as we're seeing 5g trials in cities all over the country. so it's important we keep this success story alive in the u.s. and for the wireless industry, there's sort of two pillars. one is spectrum, the air waves over which the data travels and the infrastructure. in some case, literally pillars. we've heard chairman pie and the administrator talk about that. for us on spectrum, we've seen some good momentum. congress reconfirmed the authority to move forward with spectrum auctions. you heard the chairman talk about two of the higher spectrum bapds that he wants to see starting this year. which is great. we need to keep that going with other bands that they have identified for auction.

we need to get those scheduled and it's at the high band, mid band. you heard a discussion in the gig hertz range, that's really important internationally, those bands are getting a lot of attention. it's important we harmonize as much we can around the world. that helps with scale. we're looking for more activity there on a sighting front. we heard earlier from the chirm and administrator on action the fcc took last week on sighting. and streaming, streamlining the citie ining process. every time you want to install an antenna, there's the overlay of regulation at the federal level, the state level, the local level in terms of getting the sighting and approval you need for that. the challenge has been that as chairman said, a lot of those

rules were written this the w e wireless context when we thought of big tower, 200 foot towers and antennas and associated equipment that went along with that. they weren't wherein ritten to f small cells and the smaller associateded equipment that comes with that. so last week, the fcc took a big step forward in streamlining the review process at the federal level, we've been working t attt the state and local level to accelerate the process there because obviously, local governments will always have a role to play here when it comes to sighting. and it's important that we respect that role. they have costs they incur in terms of reimbursing those, that's a fair ask of the industry, but we need more uniformity and we need to make sure the delays we have seen in the sighting process can be eliminated. we need to make sure that the costs of municipalities do impose of overseeing this wiare

not disportion nat with the costs that the municipalities actually incur. so we have estimates we're quoing the need about 800,000 but 2026 so by 2026. the importance of getting infrastructure right can't be overstated. >> so i would say siting and spectrum are the two things you're going to hear from the wireless industry for the foreseeable future. >> thank you, tom. now dr. nicole turner-lee. >> all right. last but certainly not least. so i want to thank randy for having me here. i want to thank my distinguished panelists for involving me in this conversation. glad to be up here as a friend and person who has spoken at free state. i'm going to talk a little bit about people. and what the conversation is about in terms of connecting american and closing the digital divide. my perspective on that.

what we know today is that internet use has rapidly increased. that's a fact. many of us in this room who were in the debate ten years ago remember the time when we were in single digit broad band adoption and penetration, and as james said, we're seeing more and more people getting online because the infrastructure is becoming more readily available. out of that positive trajectory, however, when we look at the digital divide, there's about 11% of americans that don't have access. they tend to be older americans, pew reports that people over the age of 65 don't have internet access, they tend to have less than a high school diploma at 35%. rural pew reported in march about 22% of people who are not internet adopter are rural residents and they're poor. that's 19%. yet, despite all of these on tra

stockls, they americans and deserve to be connected in a way that is meaning of or they risk the chance of becoming digitally invisible. those of us in this debate, that has consequences over the long run if we do not get this right. many of you know i'm a social kolg ologist. i'm a fan of the book "the other american". it states we in america understate the amount of people disconnected from economic mainstream institutions. i argue today and that we still have that same problems when we look at digital disconnectedness. in response to what this panel is about, what i like to keep pressing upon people as we move toward a more ubiquitous access and infrastructure is that the costs of not being online is even greater today than it's been before. there's a cost to digital exclusion. if you imagine yourself without your device in your pocket or your ability to actually engage

in various functions, you would feel disadvantaged just like the 11% of noninternet users that feel that way today. what does that mean? i'll sort of leave us with a couple of points because the panelists i think sufficiently picked up on infrastructure. i like to say this and also couch my remarks in this context for those of you listening to me lately. the digital divide is no longer binary. it's not an issue of the have and have notes. my last point, andly keep -- i will keep to time. it will suggest that. i think it's important to accelerate access to the underserved whether it's through 5g technologies which with bolster the capacity of people to get things done in a meaningful way. that's going to require much more work in small cell deployment, spectrum management, but i think we can't count out the ability of fixed wire live to do the same job. we have to get internet access

into communities in any way possible. i don't see us picking winners and losers. i see us trying to figure out ways to bolster and accelerate access where people live, unban, suburban, and rural. most of the people suggested it's not a one-size fit all solution. i also think that it's important that we call attention to the fact that the lifeline program cannot be gutted. the commission right now is working under the guise of where there is some sort of time stop when it comes to lifeline. you go back to the 11% of people who are not online, what it means to be low income in the country is not something we should assume to understand for should we assume that we should place barriers on people's ability to get access to opportunity. streamlining cutting the lifeline program and imposing unnecessary caps will have a detrimental effect on the digital divide especially if it

starts with the assumption that people are trying to outsmart the benefit. i share that in my support at brookings of looking at this issue, and what that means for low income americans who are become digitally marginized. finally, i'll say this. i think it's important. i think one of the panelists said that, to close the digital divide, we have to remember today's technology is not tomorrow's solution, and we have to come up with regulatory certainty that adopts itself to decisions around investment, en expansion, spectrum allocation while at the same time recognizing the internet of today is not going to be what we regulate tomorrow. artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other technologies will become the next driver toward why america is not fully connected in f we don't get this right. i say that because i think that regulatory certainty plays a lot into the current debates that we're having over picking

winners and losers on the internet. i say we probably need to move away from frameworks that restrict us around 1934 regulations and move toward conversations and debates that allow for the full utilization and effective utilization of the internet. my final remark? what would precision medicine look like in ten years if we had regulatory policy that did not adapt to what someone already said consumer demand. how would artificial intelligence help young people become educated if we regulated the internet the same way as the telegraph and the telephone. i put it out in terms of connecting americans and closing the digital divide. it's not a one size fit all. it's a comprehensive approach to how rewant to ensure that more people get access to the benefits of being online. >> thank you. tom, if i could turn back to you on the issue of infrastructure again.

what can the 150th congress do going forward? you mentioned reauthorization of the fcc. but what can they do on the issue of infrastructure in making 5g infrastructure less costly? what can speed up and accelerate the process? what legislation might be the most promising vehicles? >> there are a number of efforts pending on the hill and bipartisan efforts, i should say. this is one area where folks on both sides of the aisle kind of get the big picture. so there are a number of bills i could choose from and though i think i might have to pick among my children, the -- and i'm at the risk of offending different sponsors of different bills who hopefully are not watching c-span2 this morning. i think the efforts that senators thune and shots have undertaken on infrastructure siting is probably the most effective vehicle that i've seen right now. it would do a couple things. in terms of making more uniform

the siting rules across the country so when you apply to site an antenna or tower, public right-of-way r you know the rules. it would put deadlines on local governments to act on those siting requests with the length of time depending on the nature of the installation. and it would also ensure that the localities are paid their costs that they incur in overseeing this process and the costs would have to be disclosed publicly and would have to be neutral so you don't have a different players paying different costs for essentially getting the same rights of access. i would say the thune shots effort is one we're strongly behind. >> okay. nicole, if i could turn to you, i believe that earlier this month you spoke to a group regarding 5g cell deployment and engaging local stake holders. if you could give a bigger picture or fill us in on sort of round out that aspect of 5g

deployment. could you do so? >> yeah. i spoke to -- i've spoken on several panels about 5g. i believe in the power of 5g. i think 5g is going to accelerate the type of erveffece yutlation we want to see from low income and underserved communities. the ability to do as i mentioned before, more remote medicine, better and improved educational opportunities among young people. it's immeasurable. i think i have told state legislators and i'll continue to say this, the train has left the station when it comes to rolling out 5g within communities. you don't want to be this city that's not really working to get it in your community. i tell people i live in alexandria. i'd hate to go to arlington and not be able to access 5g by crossing a city line. i think as we go forward, what we've urged people, or what i've urged in my conversations with various groups is let's embrace the process and collaborate. i built and i have to admit this

because i've been saying it across town, the first small cell network, tom, when i was in chicago working for one economy. we used duct tape and delink routers. it was a very hard issue to solve when you try to propagate against concrete building on the west side of chicago. i get it when it comes to architecture. it will take a team to people working together to make sure we can roll it out as a pace that's equal, seamless and allows people that opportunity. we can't wait. low income people, do we want them at a rate where they're -- kids are trying to get homework via 3g speeds? i don't think so. i think we need to figure out how to make the process friendly enough where there's cooperation and collaboration. i think we're starting to see it. the recent panel with commissioner car in talking about the compensatory damages of environmental remediation reviews as well as historic

landmarks. there were legislators or city representatives in that convening. i can tell you the thing that got them the most excited about it was work force. and the ability to engage and put their people to work as well. >> okay. james, do you see anything that congress can do going forward in terms of wire line or cable infrastructure that's going to be necessary for fiber and necessary for the back hall for 5g? do you see any promising vehicles on that front? >> well, i take some encouragement for what they've just recently done. you know, i know a lot of this discussion focuses on 5g, but i don't want us to forget about other technologies. i think the point that john made offici initially is right which is all the networks are going to start looking a lot like everybody else, and we're all going to be using a mix of technology no

matter what it is. people -- consumers will make the choices based on the services they want, and infrastructure providers will provide the flavors of technology that people want and consumers candidly are pretty indifferent to the type of technology. they just want the thing they want to get to work. one of the things i think that was set up in the legislation recently passed is really recognition that we need a balanced approach when it comes to spectrum both with respect to license spectrum we make available to meet the needs of 5g but also to meet the needs of wi-fi. when we consider all of these devices that we have that are connecting wirelessly, the fact that 80% of that traffic is going over wi-fi, that's a pretty strong amount of work, and that workload is only going to increase over time as it will

for license wireless as well. so i say that not to really try and argue that this is an either/or, because it's not. t a both type of approach. i think the problem as i think we all know with spectrum is you can't turn on a dime. you have to go through a process of planning. you have to deal with incumbent users as you find them and try to plan out a long-range strategy over time. so i think it's critically important that ntia and other parts of the federal government take that long-term view and put out what is our national plan with respect to both license wireless and unlicensed wireless? as far as legislatively, things that they can do, i think obviously with the amount of money that's now been put out, that is really a down payment as john suggests, it's going -- the places where it is currently

uneconomic to serve, it's going to take significant resources to get broad band to them. i think congress will continue to play an important role in oversight to making sure the funds it provides is used for the intended purpose. and i do think if we want to look at places for us to relook at broad band policy, i would say one place that might be fertile territory would be the rules with respect to pole attachments both to speed up the process by which there's an orderly effort to add new lines to poles, and also maybe to deal with something that congress didn't deal with back in 1996 when it exempted municipal and co-op poles from the federal scheme that we have for poles. so i think those would be two places to start. >> sticking with the issue of spectrum and license versus

unlicensed, what kind of principles do you take? how do we decide what kind of spectrum bands get allocated to one kind of use or the other in terms of licensed or unlicensed? >> it depends on the characteristics of the bands, who's in it? what other uses are we contending with. the fact of the matter is i think we all recognize the consumer demand for connecting versus via the wide variety of devices that we increasingly have in our homes and on our person just continues to increase, so in some sense there's always going to be a desire for more spectrum, but there's no one fits all. we need lower ban, higher band

spectrum. we've seen the fcc do some very important things with respect to the millimeter wave bands for particular types of uses, but it is going to be a constant challenge for us and for the regulatory agency to figure that out, but ultimately consumers will drive the demand for the services and hopefully that will give us some sense of where we need to find space to allow things like gig bit wi-fi to -- giga bit wi-fi to grow. >> does anyone have anything to add or respond? >> i agree with a lot of that. i think we need more both wi-fi and or unlicensed and licensed. they both add considerable value across the board. you know, looking around this room, i can tell you the wi-fi is pretty good or people are

praying a lot. maybe some of both. i think over the years fcc has take an number of steps to try to section it out. it's a challenge for the regulat regulator. they're trying to make predictions based on where they think technology and product development and consumer need is going to go. you want to be in the hands of the consumers and the innovators on the private side. on the other hand, you want to government thinking ahead. you know, there's that quote that's always true to the wayne gretzky that you want to skate toward where the puck is going to be, not where it is, but the fcc isn't playing hockey. they're the referee. so it's always a challenge, i think. but we certainly learned a lot of things about where at least the sweet spot for some of these services are. unlicensed clearly when you're at home, you're in the hotel, you're at the office, an

environment like this, where you can sort of more control a lot of the use that's going on. the one of the characteristics of unlicensed spectrum is you're not protected from interference of other users of the spectrum. you risk challenges as you put more and more demand. on the other hand, for licensed spectrum, from ability that's a big plus. and the more sort of uncontrolled environment, when you're out in the public and where demand can spike up and down, a little bit better suited for license. the carrier can exclude others from the band. they have exclusive use and can control the quality of service being offered. that can be very important, especially as we move into 5g. i think the fcc gets great credit for the way they've managed it. as james said, it'll just keep growing on both sides of them and we'll just both hopefully be continuing to develop in a way

that meets the consumer's demand. >> right. i think on the license side, at least for the topic of this panel that's also important to leverage the unlicensed spectrum for pilots. we've had conversations with the fcc on where are the appropriate contexts to play around with unlicensed spectrum to do experiments that may lend itself to closing the divide in creative ways that may not identify in large scale rollouts. >> let's move to universal service quickly. jo john, maybe i'll turn to you first. we've got mobility phase 2 auction. we've got the connect america fund phase two auctions. i mean, we have some of the things coming up for this year. are we all set going forward on -- are the rule changes that need to be made? are you confident in things going forward, it can reach the rural areas through how that's

set up? i mean. >> i'll say i think the fcc does a good job with the auction process. the way we're look agent the auctions is from a provider standpoint. we have limited opportunity from a centurylink standpoint. we declined, i think, two states basically during the calf 2 process, and my understanding is that same funding will track in the auction, so it's still the same amount of funding. i'm not sure how much relief it's actually going to give a bidder, and one is wyoming. the other is mississippi. i'm not sure how much that's going to help. but i think they're both good, i guess gap fillers from the standpoint of seeing an incremental need and addressing it. there's more to do, and we're interested to see if there's a cap three and other mechanisms out there for us. >> quickly, james, going -- you

mentioned the curl utility service and having encouraging language in the omnibus legislation about avoiding overlays, networks to be built on top of places where consumers are already served. is that continuing to be an issue on universal service going forward? do you find the same kind of encouragement on that front? >> i think we're encouraged by the direction that has been taken in kaf which is, obviously, there are people things around the edges we would quibble with, but it seems like we are finally focussed on really judging the effectiveness of the funds that we are providing based upon how many new homes are we signing up? and that type of accountability is really -- i think it's -- i

won't say it's being a sea change, but an encouraging development. we see it replicated in states that are following a more focussed approach to funding that they may provide to allow existing carriers to extend lines to communities that don't have access to broad band. you're really giving us a new measuring stick for how we are actually accomplishing the tasks we set out to do. i mean, there's obviously lots of historical evidence where we've seen that funds have really not been used for their intended purpose and really gone to places where broad band already exists. so i view the changes that have been made at the fcc to be really encouraging. i view the models that states are following to focus line extensions and really get funding targeted to unserved areas to be a follow onto that, and a further followon being

congress's insistence that when we're spending the money through the pilot program that we ensure that at least 90% of the funding for any grant go to supply broad band to the households unserved. >> okay. with the universal service moving to lifeline. nicole in your remarks you talked about the proposal the fcc has of having a hard cap or self-imposed budget. that same proposal would limit lifeline subsidy support to facility-based providers. what's your position regarding this aspect of the proposal to limit lifeline support to facilities based eligible carriers? >> i'm summarize it as my mama would say. if it wasn't broken, won't fix it or try to fix it. it's challenging. i think some of the assumptions in the lifeline proposal, particularly the facility based

providers regresses on some of the work done over the l.a. couple of years to ensure more competition in the marketplace. you'll have constrained competition and a hard cap that presupposes some hypotheticals around use where in the beginning of this debate on lifeline reform a couple years ago, the conversation was the low use of lifeline in terms of capture rate versus the high use. i think it's important to sit back and look at what are the implications? i would argue that some of the lifeline reforms are still driven by a partisanship approach to this waste, fraud and abuse which is not true. prior to the report, there was conversation about the waste, fraud and abuse being reduced. it was based off old data. i think it's important we reduce some of the redundancies. until you do that, it's hard to go back on a program that is the only potential lever for people

to get online. and we don't want to find ourself in a situation, particularly when we talk about closing the divide. the digital divide is about employment and infrastructure, but it's about people. people stand at the heart of what we're trying to solve. and it's just critically important at the program and congress re-evaluate how we're approaching this program. the fcc is not a social service agency. the fcc is an enablering to get people access. the prior proposal had areas in there that were going to facilitate the ability of people to have social mobility by leveraging the benefit. we shouldn't make assumptions, again, as i said earlier, about how the poor live in this world when we're not poor. and so i would say on the hard cap and others, i'm just a big, big proponent of people i think it's important we look at the subliminal messages within the order that will potentially restrict, and i want to point this over to james, but the up

tick in affordability to people in urban communities. i will have an affect on people who live in rural communities, but more so urban who happen to also be predominantly people of color, poor, disabled, and isolated. so i just think it's something we have to continue to discuss, but i would really caution us to put in hypothetical numbers that may not be the measure of success for that program. >> nicole, i'll stick with you. >> okay. >> if we were to install a brookings to commissioner pie or chairman pie's office and you were to address the issues of digital exclusion and disconnectedness, i would imagine you would have touched on this. we touched on the spectrum and the lifeline. is there anything else you would recommend here to address digital exclusion now that we're a year into his chairmanship? >> i participated in v-deck. i think the chairman is moving

the right direction in terms of putting the gap stop in place where we actually inhibit, destop the barriers -- we stop the barriers that have kept people offline. people have more choices. people can get online how they want to in more meaningful ways than before. i tell my case, i can't get bate you at an interactive game, but i can get you at pac-man and atari. technology has changed. the regulatory conditions and criteria we talk about today when you look at machine learning and algorithmic bias and those areas, the cost of digital exclusion is going to come through big data analytics and other things. we have to be careful as we balance the conversation, the digital economy and the sharing economy are making up large proportions of our gdp. the future of work is dependent on the ability of people to be

involved. the digital divide amplifies barriers when you live in communities where you don't have access to interface with new tools of technology. you want to talk about a cost to america? to actually not build 5g, not have ubiquitous wire line access, not get it to rural communities. the cost to all of us will certainly be that they will be left behind. again, i kind of left you all. i'm like a marathon runner that's actually up above in the fast forward thinking piece that i think randy started to go to. all of us are starting to go to. regulation has to catch up with where the disruption is taking us versus us trying to figure it out. the pipe has to be bigger. the needs are bigger. >> dealing with the subject of moving on in terms of regulation, john, centurylink and through earlier incarnations of quest and all the companies, they have a long history in

dealing with section 10 forbearance to try to get rid of legacy telephone regulations still on the books. also this year we'll have a biannual review, i presume. do you see any candidates in terms of old legacy rules that could still be taken off the books or at least modified or reduced in the next year? is there anything that's a real contender that's left? >> yeah. i'll state a high level. i think it's fairly simple from our standpoint. if you look at the rules, most, have lost 70% of their market share across the share from a voice and broad bandstand point and there are rules that are far back in time. so any forbearance from rules that keep kind of the james's point about how the industry is converging in so many ways and something i touched on earlier. any rules that keep our segment

of the industry basically still ham strung in a wide open field of running of competition would be at the highest level what we would ask for. >> okay. terrific. i want to touch on the issue of net neutrality, an issue of legislation. could you describe, john, what would be the essential elements of a legislative compromise on this issue? i mean, what would be a bear minimum of what would need to be in there? >> i'll go back to the question you asked james. i think the piece of legislation setting the net neutrality rules in motion with a lot of clarity would be a good use of legislation to remove some of the barriers and uncertainty that are out there today. that's just one piece of legislation. in terms of i think everybody understands that blocking is just something that that needs to not happen. and so those legislation that

would deal with blocking, i do still think that the congress will not be able to keep up with the evolving consumer issues and demand. so there's got to be a certain degree of latitude and flexibility for providers to meet evolving needs. the blocking is one thing. i don't really know how much more could be done around that, but i think the main thing is there would be clarity among the rules that will likely have to be revisiting of interconnection issues because we're working under the telecom act interconnection rules and now we're in a world of peering. you get back to compensation for use of the network. there will have to be clarity around that. the last thing would be a form of regulatory backstop that the commission did not really deal with issues that could not be negotiated fully between carriers, and there's probably going to be some of that out there as we continue to move

into that environment and so i think a limited regulatory backstop where at least you could resolve some issues at the federal level would be something that would -- everyone would benefit from. >> okay. tom, do you have anything to add on that in terms of a net neutrality compromise? >> just the need for uniformity is a challenge to try to do this on a state by state basis. the problem is we have a hard time agreeing on the details of what a uniform net neutrality would look like. i don't think we're going to see it this year. >> okay. well, there's some high caliber legal fire power on this panel, including yourself, tom and james. we've seen the state level some net neutrality executive actions. we've seen executive orders and legislation. i mean, will those succeed? what should be the response in what should be the next step for

the next segment in addressing these at the state level? james, i'd like to hear your thoughts? >> i think it all fundamentally goes back to this is really not a question of ability. this is a question of will. and when we look at the ongoing eco system at large of which isps are a part of but not the only part of, i think we have the ability to set consistent standards and norms of behavior that consumers want. short of shouting from the top of our lungs from the isp industry is interested in resolving this issue in a context that will promote continued investment in areas that we agree need to continue to grow and thrive, you know, it becomes a vexing problem.

it's like you're searching for a dance partner here. but the fact of the matter is, you know, to your question as far as it makes no sense to have one state have one interpretation of a particular rule and another state have a different interpretation of a particular rule, because no isp builds its network that way. so to the extent we want to have this conversation yrs we want to engage on it. we want to welcome rules of the road that will discipline not just isps but other online participants that might engage in practices that we would worry about as consumers, we ought to have that conversation and we ought to have that conversation at the federal level, and you know, it's always darkest before the dawn, but i remain hopeful that at some point we'll get around to realizing that this is a problem that is fixable and

that we can fix it. >> can i jump in? i'm not the lawyer, but i have watched this debate. i think, and i want to echo and without taking a position on where it stands, but i think that congress needs to pass legislation. i think congress needs to come to the table and have a straightforward conversation of where do we go from here at this point? picking up on, again, some of the comments i said earlier, what has sort of affected my thinking about this is some of the caveats we need to think of in the legislation. if we're talking about autonomous vehicles and other realtime applications, we may want to go through and talk about what does that means in terms of balancing public interest with innovation. and a regulatory state. james is also right that the internet has sort of transformed without a start and stop button anymore. and all of these industries are sort of converging in a way that we have to be sensitive to the fact that a conversation that started nearly a decade ago is not going to be relevant in the

future if we do not figure out the enti intricacies of how the net works. consumers are telling us how it works, but we're not paying attention. it's important for us to move onto other issues. >> all right. terrific. we're going to open it up to the audience. we have about five minutes for questions. is there anyone who has questions? we have a microphone coming around, and i see tom right there. >> good morning. great panel. i wanted to -- well, when congress established first naught and provided spectrum and allocated funds, the expectation was that there would be some buildout. this would spur buildout in rural areas of wireless networks. now several years later is there any evidence that this is happening, or do you see this as part of the solution to closing the gap in rural america?

>> that's you. >> we need the at&t representative up here. stacey, you want to give that one a go? no? i'm not clear of the details. that was obviously part of the goal was to get the sharing of spectrum between the public safety community and the private sector. at&t is in the middle of that building the network. but the folks in nti and commerce, i think it's still a wait and see. hopefully it can bring a lot of benefits, because particularly in rural areas where the spectrum is probably going to be less needed on a day today basis, there should be access capacity made available for consumers and businesses in those areas. >> all right. do we have another question in the audience? i see rick zimmerman over there.

thank you. >> thanks, seth. hopefully we're allowed to ask the moderator a question. you asked about state preempt n preemption, and you've written about state preemption. i'd be curious if you could tell the audience your view of whether these state net neutrality efforts will survive legal challenge. >> right. well, they're all over the place. all right. tough panel. they're all over the place, of course. you have some states, governors have signed executive orders staying their state won't do business with internet service providers unless they agree to run their networks the same way that they would have under the fcc title 2 rules that were repealed. that's -- that narrow issue is one that i have written on in particular. it's our conclusion or at least

my conclusion is these are highly problematic under the supreme court's market participant doctrine because broad band internet access services are available to every customer. i can go to one provider that serves my neighborhood, choose to sign up for their service, whatever speed tier or not or go to the competitor and choose it or not. that's not something i get to do is to tell my provider how to reengineer their networks in order to serve me. and supreme court has a doctrine that's sensitive in the fact that yes, state governments local governments can act like a participant in the market and buy or sell from whom they want to, but they have to act in a manner consistent with other participants in the market. and so i think it's certainly runs in a difficulty that way. and there are a lot of more wrinkles on the issue.

we may be writing on them more in particular. my colleague randy may has written in one of his series on maintaining the line. some matters there. the fcc has a provision in the restoring internet freedom order that says that if any state or local government that seeks to reinstitute the rules being repealed will be preempted. i think there's a dormant commerce clause as well. that's yucky. i don't think about those things since law school days. i would consider that a potent argument as well that would recognize that these services are inherently interstate. they don't respect state borders. data flows around where it goes. they're not engineered in state lines. that's the moderator's answer, and slam the microphone. nobody is going to be able to challenge me on that. partly because my boss is here to transition to what's next. i want to thank everyone here today on the panel.

>> okay. well, the first thing i want to say is you only get one question to the moderator per conference. okay? we just had it. i want to ask our next all-star panel to come up right now, and we're going to transition right into that panel. there are a few muffins over on the side. some -- a little bit of breakfast left if you're hungry, grab that now.

>> we're going to actually start in two minutes. i'm going to make sure my stopwatch is working. so within two minutes i'll ask everyone to sit down again,

please. we're going to get started. if the people to my right over there will grab your food and take a seat, please, it's really helpful when everyone will take a seat. i want to remind you all to tweet away. we appreciate that. and i'll just mention one more time, maybe it won't even be the last time, but we've got a few of our books out ther there #comactupdate. i appreciated the reminder this morning that that was the hash tag for the beginning of the effort to re-examine the communications act which one day

i bet will happen, i'm sure. okay. well, i'm delighted that we've got another round of all-stars here. and they are truly all stars. in line with my convention and what i announced this morning, i'm going to give you just the brief introductions. you've got their bios in front of you. and then i'm going to ask them to speak for five minutes. we're going to go down the line alphabetically. i'm going to hold them to the five minutes, and after those initial presentations, then we'll -- i've got some questions. i want them to react to each other. i know they won't be bashful about that, and then we're going to save a little time for your questions as well. so our first panelist today is

jeffrey r. campbell. jeff is vice president of the americas of global government affairs for cisco. i hope i got that right. where we leads government affair activities for cisco in the western hemisphere. i'm just going to say this about jeff. i'll probably say one other thing about each one of these panelists, but jeff and i have known each other for a long time, going back several decades, and, you know, i can say without any fear of contradiction that jeff is one of the most knowledgeable people here in washington and probably in the country about communications matters. he's been at it a long time, and always has done it well. next we're going to hear from david cohen. david is senior executive vice

president of comcast and a company of chief diversity officer. he has a broad portfolio of responsibilities including corporate communications, government regulatory affairs, public affairs, legal affairs, corporate administration, and community investment. he also serve as a senior counselor to the ceo. whenever i go over david's portfolio, it makes me wonder whether there are several thousand employees of comcast they might be able to eliminate because of everything david's doing there. some of you remember when he was here last year. i had discovered that back in law school he was called the chief judge. i think i have that right. so for any of those tough legal questions that i've asked you

not to direct to the moderator this time, i may send them over to david. okay. and then next and pleased that we have with us, kathleen rillo. she's senior vice president and deputy general counsel, public policy and government affairs at verizon. she has responsibility for verizon's public policy, federal, state, and legislative and regulatory affairs, and anti-trust and privacy and strategic alliances. she actually -- it makes me think that maybe she's verizon's david cohen, with that broad portfolio that she has. welcome to kathy. and then last but not least as nicole reminded us on the last panel. she did her own last but not least, but i'm doing it for

chris. christopher lewis is vice president of public knowledge, and he leads the organization's advocacy on capitol hill and with other government entities. prior to joining public knowledge in 2012, chris served at the fcc as deputy director of the office of lgtive affairs, and he advised the fcc chairman on legislative and political strategy. chris and i were doing a program together a couple months ago. happened to be on c-span. and we discovered sitting there in the green room that chris's father was actually an assistant basketball coach at duke university -- some of you know that i have a particular fondness for duke university. that was back in when bucky

waters was the coach. even though there are times when chris and i don't always agree on things like net neutrality or other issues like that, we have that duke connection. and by god, can any of you believe that shot of grayson allen's that was in and out of the basket twice and then rolled off? i mean, i still haven't fully recovered from that, but we're going to go on. okay. we're going to start with jeff. now, please try and limit your remarks to five minutes. jeff, you take off. >> great. thank you, randy. so it's 2018. here we are. talking about net neutrality. again. i-been talking about this issue since about 2002. as i recall back then, randy, i didn't have any gray hair. don't know about you.

but -- >> of course not. >> but we've gone a long time on this issue, and we've gone around in circles an awful lot, and i would like to think that we've learned a few things along the way. but i'm not really sure about that. i think there are a couple things we have learned along the way. one is that television comedians probably shouldn't run telecommunications policy. another is that -- but to go back, i want to go back to 2002 for a second. i think it helps set the table for discussing where we are today and where do we go from here? and that is in an era when almost nobody was talking about this issue of a few people sat down and thought about it far little while. i'm not sure we were the smartest people in the world, but we did think about it, and think about what the real

problem is about what can and cannot happen on this interesting new medium of the internet. and we thought there were just some sort of fundamental principles that ought to be out there that people ought to operate by. and they weren't that complicated. we thought that people shouldn't block traffic. that's lawful traffic. we thought people shouldn't throttle traffic because that's the moral equivalent of blocking in a world where we're all going for more and more speed all the time. thank you, david. one of my two comcast accounts was really speeded up. i'm really happy about that. and also that people ought to be able to choose what they want to run on their internet, what anally kags they want to run and what they want to do. and lastly, as consumers people ought to know what it is they're buying. they ought to be told how their service operates, what happens with it, what are the parameters that might affect what they want to do with their internet

connections. and we sort of wrote this all down and typed it up, and all this, sent it off to the fcc. michael powell thought it was a good idea. we thought it was wrapped up with a bow and done. isn't that nice? we're all done here. let's go away. well, we've had a lot of things happen in the meantime. but i would suggest that if you think about where we are today in the grand universe of this debate, some of the fundamentals, the ones i just talked about are indisputable. what we're really arguing about increasingly in this debate is two things. one is questions of law. you know? who should regulate and how should they regulate? i would say they're not the most interesting parts of the debate because as long as there's someone doing it somewhere correctly, we're going to be okay. and secondly, we're debating on the cutting edges of technology. issues of prioritizing traffic.

news services. whether people can pay for that. whether they can't pay for that. whether some services should get that but not other services. and what that can do to competition in the marketplace. i would argue in those cases we need to look at two important things. one is we do want to make sure that competition is preserved in the marketplace, and we have a lot of laws on the books. if we need more, we should discuss that. secondly, we don't want to get into a world of restricting technology. and banning types of usage is essentially the same thing as banning technologies. and i think that's something else we've learned over time in this debate. and so just so sort of wrap up to meet the five minutes randy has us on here, i think that we might be at a good inflection point where we can attempt to sort of bank the agreements whether that's legislatively or

regulatorily, but really get down to all the things that 99% of the people that does this issue on all agree on, try to compromise on the remaining issues. recognizing that we don't want to fore close the future. because there will always be future opportunities to regulate and legislate in the future if necessary. but we don't want to do things that impinge on technology choices and opportunities for both business models and for consumers to access things that they want to choose. i would pause it that congress is the best place to do this. but, you know, that sometimes is a very slow process. we'll see. but if we go back to the basics here, i think we'll all find that there's an awful lot of commonality on this debate. and maybe one day we won't have to have a panel on this at this conference. >> i guess i would welcome that day. although, it is fun. i should have said earlier that the title of this panel is in

your brochure. it is solutions for getting past net neutrality and advancing the giga bit future and 5g future. i want to talk about that on this panel as opposed to the earlier panel when we didn't do that as much. david. you're next. >> thanks, randy. and congratulations on your 10th conference. that's pretty impressive, and, again, i think you've picked the right topic to draw a full room and to draw panels of people to talk about it. so i've got three basic points i'll make this five minutes. they're all premised on the fact that state of the art networks are truly the foundation of our digital economy, and i believe of america's future and how we make sure we preserve, grow, and -- preserve and grow our state of the art networks in the

united states. and maximize innovation. i think that's ultimately the answer to the title that you've established for this panel. so my first of three points is that let's make no mistake about it. we have world class broad band networks in the united states, and we got them through the leadership of isps. we've invested $1.6 trillion in building out these networks, and without the private sector investment, without the private broadbrand providers, we would not have state of the art networks, and without continuing investment, we're not going to maintain our leadership position in the world of having state of the art and best in class broadbrand networks. thanks to the networks, we deliver fastest broadband

speeds. at comcast, we're offering giga bit speeds in 80% of our footprint and by the end of this year, we'll be offering them in 100% of our footprint. and coming soon to a comcast network near you, we're already working on the next generation which is full duplex access, symmetrical multigig speeds going up and down, probably up to 10 gig. that is all through a privately supported risk capital network that we're building. and for us, it's more than speed. we launched our x-fi service. it's the fastest and most advanced wireless in the home. it gives you unprecedented control over your wi-fi service. the commercials are not just jokes. it works. you can turn your wi-fi off and make your kids talk to you during dinner.

that's how we're enhancing family values and the integrity of the family unit. so that's point one. point two is the importance of finding public policy that supports private sector investment in the network. i think having a climate that encourages private sector investment is essential. the temporary misguided classification of isps as public utilities threaten that cycle of investment and creation. i would note that those who d disagree with that statement have never run a business, never made private sector or business decisions or investment decisions. there is yub anymorety on the corporate sector whether it's not broad band space or otherwise. that having a light regulatory touch is essential to encouraging private sector investment. and if you compare the

regulatory environment for broad band in the u.s. versus the regulatory environment, for example, in europe, there is a reason why the level of private sector investment per person is literally double the size in the u.s. as it is in europe. so the restoration of this light touch regulatory framework, which has worked in the past and will work in the future, is one of the major accomplishments of 2017. but as jeffrey said and i want to make clear again, and kathy, unfortunately, we can't say this enough times because no one is listening, but the solution here is bipartisan legislation that installs once and for all durable, enforceable net neutrality rules that will take this issue off the table. the game of regulatory

ping-pong, going back and forth, as to who is in control of the fcc, is arguably worse than having title 2 classification. because the uncertainty that that presents is the absolute worst environment to be able to make investment decisions. and then my third point, and i know randy i apologize it's slightly off point, belongs more in the first panel, but for me and for comcast, and i this i for most isps, this is just a fundamental article of faith, which is that we have to do more than just have faster and faster internet. we have to make sure that every american has access to that internet. and that has a deployment dimension to it and adoption dimension to it, and i raise it because i think getting all americans connected is a fundamental tenet of digital

democracy in the united states. and we are not going to win this argument if we are leaving 25 or 30% of americans behind. and i've just got one point which we can expand or not since it's not really this panel, but it's something that i'm passionate about. i say it in front of every audience. i won't ask for a show of hands. but if you go by the dialogue in washington around universal broadband adoption, you would think we are dealing with a problem that is predominantly, if not almost exclusively, a matter of getting broad babd built out to rural america and indian reservations and places that don't have broadband. so we have a deployment problem in the united states. but it covers 8% of our population. 8%. we also have an adoption problem. and that adoption problem is impacting 27% of america. so we have more than three times

as many americans not subscribing to broadband at home, even though it is built out in front of their homes, as we have americans not subscribing to broadband in home because the broadband has not been built out in front of their homes. and i'm not saying we should ignore rural america. >> we should absolutely purview private policy, private sector incentives and partnerships with the public, technology, because we may never get wire broadband to every corner of america. but, please, please, please, let's not forget three times as many people not subscribing to broadband even though running in front of their home. the broadband plant running in front of their homes. nicole talked about this a little bit on ts first panel. but we have to have a public privacy and private sector equally focused on broadband

adoption as well as deployment issues. >> okay. on that note, thank you, david. and really it is your last point, actually, is part of what we want to discuss. and, you know, the title and theme of this conference is connecting all of america. so in my view it all relates together. kathy, you are next. >> thanks randy for inviting me. this is actually my first panel at a free state conference, not my first pan tell on net neutrality, i'll say, but maybe the laz, as we talked about before. but i'll keep my remarks brief because i think our discussion will be very interesting and interesting issues we'll get to. but i was going to start in a similar way the way jeff said. when i was thinking about what i was going to say today i was thinking back to roughly 2003 which is when this debate

started which started with my career at verizon. and what struck me is how much has changed since then. so we had a little discussion in our office about what kind of mobile wireless service you had in 2003. you basically would have -- if had you a flip phone, if you were that advanced you had 170 kilobytes of speed on your phone. and that's when we started talking about principles that changed somewhat over the years, but as jeff pointed out there is commonality what is important and what should be permanent in terms of protections for consumers. but think of the internet as we know it now and how different it is from 2003. then you didn't have a google. you didn't have a facebook. you didn't have an amazon and companies not just become central to the u.s. or even the gle ball economy, but central to what a consumer's experience is on the internet. and all of that happened while we were having these discussions

about openness and net neutrality and what was important for consumers. so in some ways it doesn't make sense to go back and use some of the older terms. and we have this economy we are existing in now where we all have very complex relationships with each other. where regulators are looking at these issues from different perspectives. but it's important to see how much change has occurred. and david went through it in terms of broadband, in terms of sort of wire line network. but on mobile side what we are poised to see right now when we talk about 5 g and transformation really to the economy that's going to come and innovation that's going to come from 5 g. so how do we get there? we need to get past net neutrality. no question about that. there are many critical important issues that chairman pai are working on right now bring us there. but we have to get past the issue. and as david said the only real way to do that is to have legislation that puts in place

permanent protections for consumers that are legally durable, that make sense across the industry that is correct allow for that kind of innovation and investment that got us from 2003 to where we are today. i think the path there is probably a little unclear right now. but it's critical, i don't think we can lose sight of that. and there is a lot of will and motivation on all sides in this debate no matter what private company you talk to, there is a sense of imperative to get to a solution for some of these problems. so i'm hopeful we can get there. but that's really where we need to land. >> thank you, kathy. and now we are going to turn to chris. i just want to emphasize, i'm very pleased that chris is here. he has an obviously, he and his organization, public knowledge, they have a different view on some of these things. that's why it's important for him to it be here. if many of you have been to many of our conferences, we always

value having a divergence, diversity of views expressed. and in my view that's the way you get educated and the way you learn. so, chris, take it away. >> thank you, randy. and thank you for having me. i feel like a tar he'll inside the stadium. so i'll do the best i can. no, i do appreciate you having me here. because the only way we resolve this issue, which is really what the title of the panel is about, getting past net neutrality is to i believe ensure that we have net neutrality. and the only way we do that from a policy standpoint is to get all stakeholders together to agree that we've achieved that. unfortunately, over the years, if you look at the history and, jeff, started to give us some of the history of net neutrality, going back to chairman powell

and his four freedoms and effort and then subsequent fcc chairman's efforts to enforce net neutrality at the fcc. every time we try to do so we see an ispel chaening the ability or power of the fcc to protect an open internet. so i think when we think about what it takes to get past this issue on policy basis, we have to have folks agree to what net neutrality is. and outside the beltway there is broad consensus about what that is. only inside the beltway is that a debate. and then we need to, when we have net neutrality like we had, when we have strong rules and protections like we had like under the 2015 order, that can be upheld in court like the rules in 2015 order, that are popular and allow for investment in the network by irks sps and folks on the edge like the 2015

rules did. when we have that, and you can tell i like the 2015 rules, when we have that, then we can move on to taking care of these other issues that i think are extremely important thaer neutr s green rules that protect pro-actively against isps blocking content. that protect against paid screams that allow for isps that are now getting bigger and bigger and merging with kwon tenth companies to prefer the content they own over competitive content. rules against those things are the core of net neutrality. and it's why when protecting net neutrality at the fcc was challenged by irks sps in the past the powell freedoms, the rules from 2010, it's why we ended up with title 2 framework

in 2015, because that's what the court pointed to as what could be upheld under the current law. now, folks on the panel here are asking for legislation, now that they've successfully eliminated the only rules that were able to be upheld under current law, it can be done. there are different ways to get there. i would suggest that easiest way is the current resolution that's been introduced to restore the 2015 rules since we found they were strong, worked for the industry, worked for consumers, were popular, and were upheld in court. that's one way, and probably the simplest hand fastest way to restore net neutrality protections and move past it. if folks wanted to put forward other types of legislation, it would need to protect the same things that the 2015 protected that's what consumers expect. that's why you see so many folks writing into the fcc over this and set can records. that's why you see state legislatures responding to their

constituents doing all sorts of things at the state level that should have been handled by the fcc at a federal level. so we need to remember that what the lines are and what the clear protections are. legislation would have to do that. but also have to preserve the ability for the fcc to it be a cop on the beat. technology changes too quickly for congress to keep up with every innovation. and so to allow for innovation on all parts of the internet, both at the network level with the isps, and with edge providers, it's important that we have an empowered regulatory agency that works in the public interest to protect consumers and protection. that's always been the federal communications commission. i think it was a radical decision by fcc to decide they were in the practice of protecting consumers overbroad band and wanted to kick it over to the federal trade commission.

needs to be restored. that could also be done through legislation. but what we don't want to see is legislation that gives us narrow net neutrality protections in exchange for losing all the other protections that are important at the federal communications commission. things like privacy that have been a long tradition there. things like protecting against costs and price gouging and protecting against red lining which we have seen from some internet providers. protecting competition that independent voices can be heard and can seek out other competitive tools and competitive platforms online. and then making sure that the network is reliable. that we don't dial back or take a downgrade to the protections expectations that networks are reliable. and that when services go down or services are changed or even when upgraded, that we don't lose some of the things that those networks can do. we can do this if we work

together and agree that these are fundamental principles of communications networks. >> okay. thank you, chris. well, i was right about there being a diversity of opinion, right, and that's what we want. now, you know, we are going to stay with the net neutrality issue a little while, and then move on to some other things. and i did hear that kathy said that the path, i think this is a direct quote, the path is a little unclear at this point in terms of, you know, how to move forward on the hill. but that she favored legislation. and then i did hear chris say, you no he, first you made a pitch for the congressional review actress lugs. you know, but just assuming for the sake of argument that that's a nonstarter among our other

panelists here, if we are trying to resolve this issue right here today, while we are together, you know, i want to try this in steps. you know, the isps do say that they are in favor or don't object to certain elements, you know, that fall under the rubric of net neutrality, blocking, degrading, you know, most of the major isps, i think including the ones represented here, will say that. and then we are going to talk about paid pry tieizatiivatizat. but, chris, my question, see the rules reinstated. but just explain, i'm going to have maybe one of oyou or maybe

two of you explain why you are amenable to many or some of the facets of net neutrality that chris favors, what was, in your mind, so wrong with 2015 rules? just explain that so we get that on the table. and then we'll move forward. do you want to try that? >> i'm happy to take a shot at that. so we, speaking for comcast and actually i think speaking for the industry, we didn't have objections to most of the substance in the 2015 order. we did have objections to certain things that were added into the substance that had never in the history of the debate of net neutrality been a part of net neutrality until tom wheeler and president obama came along and decided to make them part of net neutrality. so the general conduct standard being the most obvious thing made up out of whole cloth that

really has nothing to do with net neutrality in its history. and interconnection is another possibility. more complicated question may not be as fundamentally philosophically central to the debate. but the big issue was the source of authority relied upon by tom mueller to impose those rules. and that was classifying broadband under title 2 of the telecommunications act which the industry and i believe almost every serious economist looking at this would uniformally raise your hand and say that classifying broadband as a public utility, classifying isps as a public utility, and using title 2 as your source of authority to impose these rules is disincentive to investment and something hanging over your head because of the hundreds of other things that can be done to

isps because they are then classified under title 2. and by the way we are not new to this discussion. i mean, when tom mueller was considering the rules, we were on capitol hill saying let's legislate. after tom wheeler did his rules, we were on capitol hill saying let's legislate. the authority issue that's been exposed in court proceedings, this is not constitutional authority, it's not biblical authority, it's not written in the ten commandments, it's statutory authority. which means congress has the ability to fix it. and henry waxman came close in 2010 s fall of 2010, and all we've been consistently saying is let's let congress do its job. they are elected to legislate. they should create a new title for broadband. they can impose -- and by the way, chris, we are fine with

specific rules, defined rules, with fcc jurisdiction. we have no problem with that. and i think there is a consensus among most reasonable legislators among the industry that it's time to put these rules in place and move on. and, jeff, when you were talking, you said this was beyond the point where it's about the rules itself. it's about -- and you said some people are saying it's about law. i don't think it's about law. i think you said there were two things, i'm not sure you got to the second thing. i would say what this has become it it's all about polit particulic. this is all a political game of football and that's what's happening right now. >> chris, i'll give achance to come back in a moment. but i want to stick with david, and then after david, kathleen

can add to this if she would like. so, david, i read, i'm going to quote from communications daily. i know one of their esteemed reporters is here. if i get it wrong, he'll like it up. but i know i have this right. you just recently, i think within the past week, and i forget where it was, maybe it was the media institute, quoted, cohen also south net neutrality legislation to end the regulatory game of ping-pong. indicated his company might be open to no paid pry toreization as long as it could do specialized services. a spokeswoman noted he wasn't making any formal proposals, close quote. so here's my question. i think it's clear that the prong of net neutrality that is

more of a sticking point, right, than any other is, you know, this question of paid privatization, at least that's what i believe. so maybe you can clarify for us, and maybe your spoerkeswoman is not even here to add to this. what does comcast, you know, because ultimately, you know, people have to put their cards on the table here. what is your sort of bottom line and what do you mean -- explain to the audience what your position is on paid p privatization and whether specialized services might help you resolve that? and if so how? >> so happy to do that. and it isn't a proposal because

it's not up to me or kathy to make a proposal. and quite frankly in the world of politics, i'm worried that any proposal i make is dead on arrival because i'm making the a prosal. b -- proposal. but it's part of my point if rational people can sit down and talk about this, they can even resolve what has become a third rail around bipartisan net neutrality legislation which is called paid pry toreization. and so what i said we've had a lot of discussions within the industry and with tech companies and discussions with ciscos of the world is how about if we agree to a prohibition on paid pry toreization and we have a limited exception created in some way for this concept of specialized services which i think was first defined in jules

2010 order and a form of which was in tom wheeler 2015 order. there is a recognition that something might come along that is not any competitive, that is pro consumer, that is a specialized service available not to every user of the internet that would be in consumer interests and in the public interest. and so what i said, it was actually at the aca conference, was as an example of how i truly believe that if people would sit down and talk about this and stop playing politics and stop engaging in political rhetoric and saying what are the issues where we agree and where are the issues that we don't agree, that you can get to agreement even on something as contentious as paid priorityization.

and i bloo eelieve that is the . and it just requires legislators sitting around a table and having a conversation about it. i would note for the record that greg walden's draft net neutrality legislation, which he has floated and has yet to have any democratic willi sit down w and discuss it, has an out and out prohibition on paid pry toreization. not with any services exception. that language prohibits paid priority tieization. so that's my evidence there is a willingness to talk about this if reasonable legislators would sit down at the table and say what do we need to be able to reach a consensus on legislation. >> okay. that actually sounds like news, at least some of us. thanks for that. so what i'm going to do is ask kathy if she would like to respond to this point, and then jeff your name was invoked, this

enwe'll come back to chris. and as we go along, we'll speed it up, speed up the answers a little bit to make sure we get in to a couple other areas. kathy. >> so we've been clear in our discussions with stakeholders, but more importantly with our customers what we will do an and not do and support and not support when it comes to this. so if you go on the virginia.com website you'll see your brond band commitments commitment to openness and what we said we will and won't do when it comes to this. we don't use that term in our commitments because that's not a term shockingly outside d.c. anyone knows what it means. they know what they are concerned about. they know they are worried about the fast and slow lanes. we've been clear from the beginning what's important to our consumers and committed to them what we will do and not do. and i think that could carry over when we have discussions about legislation. as david points out, kopg comes up with language, not companies.

we are willing to be part of any debate over that kind of language that clearly will be probably part of whatever kind of legislative package eventually takes shape. but again that's something that we've been open about for years and we will be part of that debate. >> okay. i'm going to go jeff quickly then back to chris for his response. >> yeah. paid pry toreization in general is one of the most understood issues that's out there. i wish the press would stop writing fast lane, slow lanes. the internet has no lanes. does not exist. traffic either goes or doesn't go. it moves at the speed of electrons or the speed of light. and when there is congestion, you either drop packets randomly or you drop them intelligently by using some sort of pry toreization scheme. noup i would posz it there are a lot of benefits to intelligently deciding what traffic has better

quality of service than other things. so i'm going to give you two examples. one of which is crucial and one of which is mundane, but very important, too. the first is i guarantee you that all the people who are against paid pry toreization is hugely in favor of paid pry toreization the minute we have remote surgery occurring across networks. you want those packets to be prioritized. you want them to get through and everything to work right. there is a benefit to doing that. it's not inherently bad thing. it's good technology. the second example i'll give is one we live with all the time. you know, my boss loves video now, and always wants video whether i'm sitting in the office or not, or facetiming. well, you know, sometimes it comes through beautifully, sometimes it doesn't come through beautifully, and sometimes it's like turn the video before before we lose the connection. that's the time of experience where you have realtime live communication with audio and video going on where a quality

of service can make the difference in whether the service is good or not. and it is valuable to have incentive for the people who own the infrastructure to create the capability to make a better experience for consumers. now, the people who benefit from that should pay for it. they cause the cost, and they will pay for it and innocent i ha have -- in the network. so rather than banning the technology, because that's what a ban on paid pry toreization is, you are essentially banning the use of this technology, we should talk about whether the technology is being used for good or for bad. and if it's being used in any competitively, we can write rules or we can use the existing law, or both, to address those situations. but there are a lot of benefits that can come from the use of pry toreization and this technology, and i think it would

be a real mistake from our country to walk away from that, because the rest of the world isn't walking away from it. >> okay. chris just take a couple of minutes and respond if you'd like. then we'll move on it. >> sure. this is the right topic to be discussing. because it's the thing i hear the most push back on on the hill when i see legislation that we quite frankly can't get behind. the walden was mentioned which had, you know, bans on this, blocking, bans on thought link, but took away any latitude for the fcc to actually do anything outside of those nar toe rules. and so when you do that, there are all sorts of other protections that, mentioned on the previous panel, someone mentioned on this panel, that fcc would be out of the business of protecting consumers on brond band. that's one concern. the current bill from miss black burn does not have bill on that. that has gotten attention this year in this congress.

on the specifics of what priorization is and specialized services, it's important to remember in restoring the 2015 rules through cra or in trying them into law in legislation which i think this group would prefer, do it other wie, but if you do it it, let's remember the 2015 rules had an allowance for reasonable network management which is just what jeff was describing, ability for a network to say that things that are in realtime need to be managed properly by the irks sp. that was allowed under the rules. so if you are using facetime or system ort of individual toe, realtime chat, the network can allow for that. what the rules didn't allow for is to say that a specific service, perhaps one that's not owned by the isp, would get degraded or would get slowed down or, and i think the distinction that jeff made is right, not all priorization is

fast or slow lanes. it's just one. and i use lanes metaphorically. i understand how you are talking about the architecture of the internet. but we use the term lanes so average people understand what we are talking about when talking about priorization and putting it in a lane is simple way of doing it. but there are other ways you can priorize. other uses of things that we led from comcast and we criticized and led to come cast change their policy which had a threat from fcc that had bright line rules. so the situation we are in where we don't have rules is sticky predictment and we need to restore the rules that we have the allowance that jeff is describing where isps can make these decisions. but with when it comes to discrimination by isps that you

have a cap on the beat to make specific rules as business practices develop and change. >> okay. thanks. chris, i'm going to stick with you to start this next discussion. i want to talk about privacy regulation. and you know that's what we might call add jay end area to this or really part of it. and again we'll try to focus these answers fairly tightly. you know, some have maintained that the commission's december 2017 order leaves isps subscribers unprotected with regard to privacy protections because the ftc cannot adequately do the job. and the fcc is not protecting privacy. i think that you and your colleagues have been of that persuasion a bit.

you know, and now just in the past week we have all of this controversy about facebook. learning more about their practices no how they protect data. so i want you fairly briefly tell us what your thinking is now in terms of protecting data of either isps or also facebook user and google users and how that job should be done? >> sure. >> then we'll go down the line. >> i'll try to be brief. because we were in favor when the 2015 rules were created fcc acknowledged they needed to develop rules that were appropriate for irks sp to protect privacy. those rules had been repealed by congress. what that left us with, and the rhetoric that we saw during that

fight to repeal those rules was that folks want today have an even playing field between irks sp, same rules for them. now we have that now and lord knows when you look at what's happening with facebook, that is dangerous. because when you have a self regulatory scheme which is how the federal trade regulation works, they have really no power to create rules on privacy, but after the fact when something that's been violated against specific privacy principles that a company lays out, that leads us to where a company like facebook or isp, because they are so focused on innovation, which is what we want to see, but think about the unintended consequences that come with technology creating. so take a social network for example, i like senator warner describing what we see with facebook with dark under belly

of social networks, because what comes with the responsibility of creating a social network is understanding how you manage that data, how you collect that data, if you collect that data, and whose data you are collecting and who has access to it. and by running a social network, you have responsibility to protect that and we have seen that not protect nd this case with facebook. same goes with isps. they run a different business. they are not in social networks. they are in the business of communications networks. so this is dmun cages networks, one of the expectations for privacy under communication networks that should be enshrined into pro-active rules, that's what we saw fcc that got repealed, and i think we want to see that in both instances of all layers of the internet whether you are on the edge or network. >> i'm going to give kathy and then david a chance to touch on this issue, then i'm going to ask jeff an entirely different question. >> yeah. i think it's important that we thought for a while it's important to have federal framework for privacy regulation

that applies cry across the board and all companies that compete against each other equally. so having specific regulation, if there is anything that has shown us in the past year that doesn't make sense. we also need federal regulation across the country. even localities, and states, putting in regulations in place that aren't the same across the country that just confuse consumers and end up being focusing on one sector rather than the other. so we would support that. i'm thinking now with the revelations that have come to light, we'll probably see more likely to see some sort of legislative effort at least. and i think for consumers that would be a good thing. >> david. >> i'm going to be uncharacteristically short and just say that i agree with kathy. >> let me write that down. >> that is it the right direction. by the way, if i can, chris, not being sarcastic, but sort of

welcome to the crowd, we've been here for two or three years in saying we should have a uniform privacy regime that applies to the entire internet. >> that's not what i said though. >> and you can't do that through the fcc or ftc. you have to do it through legislation. and there may be an opportunity here, and that's how i look at the facebook situation, to create some momentum around legislation that protects consumers interest in the internet. in net neutrality, and data security, and there may be an opportunity, because i do think the primary problem is political, to bring democrats and republicans together, each of whom may have their own interests in this broader space to create a significant piece tv legislation to protect consumer rights on the internet. >> just to be clear. >> speak flew your mic. >> just to be clear. i think when we talk about, dave

was talking about uniform proep texs, i think we want comprehensive protections. and in some instances certain types of information perhaps or certain sectors are more sensitive than others. that's why we have sector specific regulations for privacy and health care and banking and traditionally in networks. so i think we want to respect the uniform need to protect privacy, but there is nothing wrong with doing it through different agencies. and you are right, congress can make this happen. congress has done it before. they did it in setting up this hub and spoke model of sector specific some level. then an ftc that has broad jurisdiction, but weak or narrow authority or power. >> okay. thank you. i'm really glad chris is here. sometimes when i'm listening to him, it remiepds nds of that basketball shot going in, rolls in again, and might pop out.

>> i get to the point eventually. >> i want to switch gears for a minute and maybe throw jeff a curveball, but i think it's important. you know, there is a lot of discussion now that's going on about the administration's trade policies and tariff policies. as you know from the introduction of jeff earlier, he has global responsibilities. cisco is one of our nation's technology leaders. so if you have just a minute or two or take just a minute or two, if you have a reaction to any of this, i'm sure we'd like to hear it. >> well, yeah, this is a tougher question than the privacy question, randy. >> that's why i ask it. >> no, i think, you know, we are very committed to free trade and committed to open markets. and it's a two-way street, right. you have to have all countries

and everybody working together in a global trading system that creates a level playing field, both for competitors, but also across the countries and that. and there are often challenges, and many of the challenges have been identified by the administration in some of the issues in their section 301 report. i think the area that i have the greatest concern is the use of, you know, blunt force weapons to try to deal with this problem. tariffs are very, very crude ways of dealing with problems in the international trading system that need to be addressed. and will often tend to penalize people who aren't at fault for the problems that are there, harm consumers, because essentially at the end of the day tariffs are taxes, and those costs do get passed onto consumers, and are very crude tools that don't actually solve the specific problems they are

trying to address going forward here. and so i think, you know, i would suggest that a stronger way of dealing with these issues is trying to work directly with the areas that are relevant to concern. whether we are having intellectual property loss. whether companies are being pressured or forced into doing things that they don't want to do in order to gain market access in places they should have market access. and i think we need a more nuanced approach that is headed towards a goal of creating open markets and a level playing field rather than managing markets via tariffs or by market access agreements. we've tried those many times in the past, you know, famously with auto didn't work particularly well, and i don't think it's going to work particularly well in this instance. so those would be my thoughts. we have yet to see what the full implications of these decisions

are going to be. >> okay. thank you. i just want to end up with this question to the panel. because as i said earlier, after david's remarks, you know, it's not all about net neutrality. the theme of the conference is connecting all of america. and so i'm going to just ask you about the fcc's lifeline proposals. you know, some of you in this room know, maybe many of you, i said this earlier, we are proud free markets advocates at the free state foundation. and we think we are consistent. and on that score, i've always been a long time advocate myself of a lifeline program that's effective and works. we have course don't want to have fraud and abuse, but to me that's a safety net program that

if run properly is important in achieving the goal of connecting all americans. and in this case low income persons. so the commission has proposals. i've actually committed and questioned them. but, specifically with regard to those lifeline proposals and whether the requirement that only facility based providers can participate and receive the support, do you have comments -- maybe kathy and chris might be the most likely candidates. >> yeah, we participate in that proceeding. i think our focus has always been on the national verifier database. that is up and coming. that was an important reform for a lot of reasons that not only helped ee limp yat some of the fraud and abuse, but made it

more streamline and made it easy to participate and more fair. that's what we've been focusing on with our engagement of the commission. >> okay. chris, you are going to get the last word here. >> on lifeline, i also agree with dr. lee. it's important that we don't let the passion for eliminating waste fraud and abuse is important in government programs to lead to policy decisions that limit a program that is essential safety net. i think, like you said, randy. so where it leads to caps on pt lifeline program can be harmful to the folks who need it. where it leads to dialing back the availability of companies that may offer the service. or even where it leads to not moving to a path where you can have the choice of having stand alone broadband funded by lifeline program to match the direction that the industry is going with its convergence i think is something that we would

be concerned about. you can do that and you can look at waste, fraud and abuse at the same time. and so i with agree with what kathy said. >> okay. hold your applause, if you will, for just a moment. and i'm going to tell you what's going to happen next. and as soon as this panel is dismissed here, we have our next speaker who i'm pleased to introduce in just a moment. but after administrator rao speaks, then as many of you know, that wall over there is going to magically open up. we have a really nice buffet there. i've tried to explain to kathy and my wife and myself that this is not really a wedding, but it doesn't have to be done like that. but it is, it's a nice buffet.

if you didn't register and you showed up anyway, you know, maybe as a courtesy you can move to the end of the line there. and, you know, make sure there is enough food for everyone. okay. now, please, i want you to join me in thanking this panel. it was great. we appreciate it. [ applause ] >> so stay in your seats. and we'll have one more speaker before lunch.

>> okay. i'm going to ask everyone to take their seats again. and we are going to try to stay

on schedule. so we start our lunch. so if everyone will take their seats, we'd appreciate it. and then, as you know, of course, during the lunch session, we have the conversation with commissioners bran d brendan carr and michael o'reilly the fcc commissioners, so i know that will be an exciting and interesting educational part of the program. okay. it's now my pleasure to introduce to you neomi rao. i hope i'm pronouncing your name right. miss rao is administrative of the office of information and regulatory affairs. that's the omv office focused on regulatory review.

and i hope the administrative doesn't mind me saying that, but traditionally that position has been referred to also as the administration's regulatory czar because of the functions that it has within the administration in terms of overseeing regulation. administrative rao has a distinguished background on the faculty of george mason university law school. now the skalale law school. and really as one of the leading scholars in administrative law. so i'm going to let you get the rest of her bio from the program. but i'll just say this, as many of you know, i've been involved in the administrative law area

myself now for many decades. and so i'm familiar with the work of knee om ee rao and what she's has contributed to administrative law. so it's exciting to have you talk here today on the administration's policy. thank you. [ applause ] >> thanks so much, randy for that nice introduction and for the free state for inviting me to join you for this conference. i understand that i'm now the only thing standing between you and lunch so i'll try not to be too long wind about administrative law. so in my remarks, this conference about telecommunication but in my remarks i wanted to take a step

back from some of the more specific topics of the panels to focus more generally on regulatory reform and how some of the efforts of this administration are connected to economic growth and the rule of law and individual liberty. so in this first year of the administration, a little more than a year now, agencies have really been working hard to identify problems with existing regulatory frame works and they have eliminated or streamlined regulatory burdens that are duplicative or out dated or just simply ineffective. a little nor thmore than a year president trump did a shift regulatory landscape for calling for the reduction of two regulations for each new one and a zero regulatory cost cap for agencies. aen that executive order as well as a number of other executive orders really focused and the agencies on the drag of accumulated regulations. and in previous across previous

administrations whether democratic or republican we have seen the regulatory burden continue to increase. and we have sort of shifted that all around. just through the end of the fiscal year last year, we eliminated 22 regulatory actions for each new one. and an according to my offices, even frankly quite conservative calculations, we have saved over $8 billion in regulatory costs. and in this coming year agencies are working on even some far reaching reforms and committed to reducing regulatory costs even further. so from our perspective we consider these reforms important component of principles that i know are very important to this organization, pros expert. we believe that lifting excessive government regulation can stimulate the economy and in the past few months i think we have seen a lot of economists and come tate ors even "the new york times" point to link in the past year's economic growth and

the slow down of regulation. i think that's in part because the administration is really advancing regulatory policy that looks first to private market solutions and that wants to leave individuals, farmers, businesses, as free as possible to work hard, to innovate, and to create the technology of the future. one of the most important practical effects, i think, of our efforts has been a change in environment. i hear frequently from businesses or individuals no longer worried about arbitrary new burdens being imposed or substantial new costly regulations. so we hope individuals and companies can proceed with confidence that we are not going to spring on new regulatory requirements that are going to impede their growth. and these principles are really especially salient in the area of emerging technology, telecommunications and other sectors where the success of these ambitious ventures will

depend in part on a regulatory system that's not standing in the way of progress. so in a why we started with the basic idea that the governments shouldn't be picking winners and losers through regulation. we don't want to regulate technology development or stifles innovation through government prescription. and in this year we are focused on more deeper cross cutting reform efforts, particularly around this topic of emerging technology. it was recently down in florida at the space council where a number of people spoke about the regulatory burdens that are impeding the development of space exploration. i know similarly at this conference many people are, would go to improve connected tift and advance the future of telecommunications. now, with respect to telecommunications related regulations in particular, reviews that in a few different ways. so we review the regulatory actions of the ntia, which is within the commerce department, and the rural utility service which is within the u.s. da,

department of agriculture. we don't formally review rules from the fcc because it is an independent agency. but we do work with the fcc in a number of ways. we, for example, review the agenda regulatory and deregulatory actions. we must also review and approve their information collections. so under the paperwork reduction act, one of the things they do is review all of the to rms that agencies put out on the public. so we work with the agency to make sure that they are minimizing the reporting and disclosure requirements they are imposing on ts public. i think it's also interesting that fcc chairman pai who was actually a law school classmate of mine at chaub is working on creating this economic analysis. we anticipate that this ochs will build on the long standing principles used in regulatory review. we want to make sure that part

of this process agencies regulate only to solve an actual problem. such as substantial market failure. as part of good regulatory practices, we want agencies to identify and consider alternative regulatory approaches. and to analyze the costs and benefits of those alternatives. we also work with many agencies to make sure they have a robust and fair analysis of the costs and benefits of their rules taking into account the public comments and stake holder input. so i this i this is going to it be a really important step for the fcc to improve the economic analysis of their regulatory process. and one frt things we do with manile of the agencies independent and executive branch agencies as serve as resource for advancing their market based regulatory reforms. i also wanted to mention, as an administration we are focused on pulling back that's regulatory burdens but really trying to do

this in a responsible and beneficial way. we are not in the business of dismantling safety administrations and proceeding with deregulation carefully. we apply the same cost benefit standards to regulatory and deregulatory actions which means in essence that for deregulatory action the benefits have to out weigh the costs. so only deregulating where that results in net benefits to the public. i think it's also interesting, sometimes people have said isn't this deregulation just about helping big businesses. and i think from our spear tech tive oftentimes these frame works are put in place by big business or powerful interest groups and they in turn create barriers for entry for smaller businesses. they limit competition. and of course as a result then raise substantially the cost of goods and services for all of us. so really focused on lifting

burdens that are no longer working. let me say a little bit about why i think some of these reforms are also so important. to the rule of law. and we are very concerned that regulatory policy in general follows clear legal principles which allows the notice to have allows the public to have notice of their regulatory obligations and provides a clear and stable framework for planning. i think we do this in a few different ways. so one of the first questions we ask in agency that's looking to regulator really deregulate is to make sure that what they are doing is consistent with law. and so we work with agencies to make sure that they are interpreting statutes to mean what they say and we want to respect the law making it power of congress by not expanding the authority of the executive branch. so many of the statutes under which agencies regulate is very open-ended but we want to make sure they are nobt acting like

they have a blank check from congress to make law. and even when an agency has legal authority, one of the things we have focused on a great deal is these notions of fair notice and due process. something we have been working on with the white house counsel's office, we want to make sure agencies are not imposing new guidance through faqs. we are trying to really working to change the regulatory culture so that when an agency issues guidance, it's in fact just guidance, and not using it as a become door to imposing new regulatory requirements without the type of administrative pros stes and accountability that is necessary for legitimate regulatory system. many agencies have taken this to heart and are working on kind of elaborate project to identify and to catalog all of the documents. it's much harder than it sounds. some agency officials have said to me we don't have any idea what guidance we have or how

many guidance documents we have. we don't know where they all are. so seems like for public notice, that's a good idea, at least that the public knows what guidance documents are still being applied to their their respective businesses. i also think from my perspective, i was a professor of constitutional law. it promotes constitutional government and the centralized review purpose provides for greater accountability and promotes democratic values. we ensure that they are promoting priorities and that they are using methods and emphasis across the government. in this administration, one primary focus is reducing the regulatory burden. that's what we work with with all of the agencies on.

and the connection between regulatory reform and individual liberty. reform promotes economic growth and rule of law values and perhaps, most important lifting many of the unnecessary burdens results in greater individual liberty. in government regulation, sometimes can serve important health and saflt goalety goals. congress ensures that we live in a highly-regulated society. we don't want it to be a solution in search of a problem. so many regulations on the book that are due publictive or out dated and it keeps on piling on top of regulations. getting the government out of the way and lifting burdens restores freedom to individuals, families and businesses. and we believe a law fall and fair regulatory system allows

the economy to grow. americans making decisions that will result in greater prosperity and happiness and less reliance on the government. we are implementing regulatory policy for the american people based on freedom and free markets. thank you very much for your attention. [ applause ] >> well, thanks so much. that was terrific and in years passed, we often had someone here to talk more generally about regulatory policy in addition to the telecome focus and your predecessors in your position. so it is wonderful to have you here. we have time for one or two questions before we break for

lunch and the administrator agreed. i'm going to ask you this one which i think probably can be quick. when we were putting together your bio and i should have mentioned that she served on the supreme court for justice thomas. when we got to the senates, a structure of formal constitutional law. one of my proofreaders said that must be wrong because she never heard of structural constitutional law. i have an idea of what it might mean. in a sentence or two tell us why the course is called structural constitutional law. >> to distinguish it from some of the other courts, the structure of the constitution

relates to thinking about how the text and structure of the constitution set forth 9 powers of the three branchs of the government. we focus on article one, legislative powers and article two, the -- and three the judicial power. that's something i was interested in. i worked in all three branchs and one of the most important things is to make sure there is a balance and that they are exercising their respective powers within their boundaries. >> right. okay. i'm going to ask whether there are any questions for the administrator. we've got microphones here in the audience. do we have any questions? well, i'm going to ask one more then and then we'll break up.

i mean, you initially mentioned the two-for-one effort that the president announced early on. it wasn't too long ago, a couple of months ago there was a white house ceremony in which there was recounting on what has been accomplished. but, you know, as someone who was in government himself over at the fcc and observed for a long time, i mean, it seems like that's a very noble but incredibly difficult goal to achieve. so i mean, tell us how you're measuring that and keeping track of it and i guess, keeping on the agencies to try and meet that, if you would? >> sure. i think it is a difficult and

ambitious goal and i have to be honest. we've worked really hard to exceed even what the president set out in the executive order and it's been a lot of hard work on the part of the agencies and my office. i think that one of the things that the executive order did was that -- one of the things it did -- >> maybe i think he is asking -- let's grab it. >> is this on? all right. okay. one of the things that the executive order did is it focused agencies on the idea of slowing down and the position of regulatory burdens and thinking about what can be pulled back. and part of the reason it works is we have issued a number of guidance domes on how it is supposed to be implemented and

asking agencies to look for regulatory burdens in whatever form. guidance documents, paperwork burdens and regulations. and i think, you know, all of the information how we are doing it is on the website. so we have been transparent about the regulatory and deregulatory issues. the president cares about these and he talks about it in the cabinet meetings and the speeches. that has made it easier for us to make sure that the agencies are meeting the deregulatory burdens. there's a lot of scope, we have lots of ideas for them and through process of the regulatory agenda and our regular interaction with agencies, we kept up the pressure to make sure this is working. >> okay. well, before i thank the administrator one more time, i

want to mention when we do break, we're going to have a buffet lunch to my left. i already see commissioner's carr and o'reilly are here. so we are going to be starting the conversation with them just about around 12:40 or 12:45. and in the nature of i guess, just mundaned administrative matters, somebody passed, me a note and i will pass it on. that several of the facilities in the men's rooms are out of commission. i noticed that myself here this morning. but apparently, there are another -- there is another men's room available on the stairs on the next floor. so we can make sure we can get everybody here ready for lunch. with that said, i want to, you

know, naomi, earlier this morning your colleague was here david from mti, i wanted to present him with a small token of appreciation for being here. i emphasized it was really small. it is basically, this pin that i have here. but look, here is something to make you feel better about that. back when i was chair in 2004 and 2005 arkba section. as the token for appreciation we had cubes enclosed the apa administrative procedure act. i think this pin is worth every bit as much of that little cube with an apa and it has the

unique ability, you'll find it out, when you use it, every time you write regulatory reform it comes out automatically in all caps and red letters. that should be good. with that, join me in thanking naomi. [ applause ] >> and we're going to go to lunch. hopefully that wall will open over there. next on c-span 3, a conversation about federal marijuana policy followed by a portion of washington journal on social and legal views on marijuana. and lawmakers holding a meeting to discuss southern u.s. border security. april 20th considered a