look at the voting rights movement that started in the 1930s and visit several locations around the town that were integral to the movement. and then a visit to the edmund pettus bridge looking at the role the bridge played in selma before and after the battle for civil rights. >> anyone who depose over this bridge they see this name and what is evoked is a sense of the past and the present. they come together. so you have a modern bridge stamped with the name of a key voice for white supremacy here in the south. >> watch c-span city's tour of selma, alabama, saturday at 5:30 eastern on book tv and sunday at 1:30 p.m. on american history tv on c-span 3. working with our cable affiliates as we explore americ america. >> and now a discussion on net neutrality and what's called the digital divide. the annual telecommunications policy conference here in washington was hosted by the free state foundation. it begins with a video message from fcc chair ajit pai.

this is about three hours. >> good morning, thank you for randy may and the free state foundation for your good work. for this opportunity to help kick off today's event. now, the only thing people hate more than a long video is anyone who makes them wait to hear from david receiptel. so i plan to keep this short. the primary theme of today's forum is connecting all of america. as those in this room probably know, this has also been the prevailing theme of my chairmanship. on my first day as chairman i said closing the digital divide would be my highest priority. i have tried to not just run my mouth but be on the run. i've logged over 4,000 miles on the road to visit the people and places being bypassed by the digital revolution and to highlight their stories. the most effective thing the fcc can do to connect more americans to faster better broadband is to remove regulatory barriers to

network investment. as someone memorably put it at the free state foundation's gala we need to fire up the weed whacker and remove the rules holding back investment, innovation and job creation. and that's exactly what we've done over the past 14 months. we have scrapped heavy handed utility-style tidal 2 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. we've modern niced our rules for business data services known to some of you as special access to ease unnecessary rate regulation in competitive markets and increase incentives to install infrastructure. we've launched initiatives to get rid of road blocks to the deployment of wired and wireless infrastructure and i will talk more about this later. and we've removed obstacles for companies looking to use next generation satellites to dramatically improve the speed and capacity of satellite

broadband. i'm proud of what we've accomplished to extend digital opportunity to our fellow americans and i have no intention of slowing down. looking ahead i thought i'd focus on the subtheme of today's conference, advancing the gigabit and 5g future. the beauty of our next generation wireless networks is that gig dpa bit speeds and 5g can be one and the same. 5g promises wireless fiber fast connectivity that will unleash the internet of things and unlock innovations yet to be imaged. 5 g will be infrastructure heavy, some analysts project that it will require at least a 100 fold increase in the number of small cells deployed in the united states. but there is a snag. member of the fcc's rules were designed for 200 foot cell towers. we are going to have to make it easier to deploy these new networks and we took an important step on that front just last week. we adopted an order making clear that the fcc does not need a

federal historic preservation and environmental review for every single small cell. a review by accent tour estimates the new rules will create savings of $1.56 billion, will generate up to 17,000 new jobs and speed the deployment of next generation networks. this won't be the last order to come out of the wireless infrastructure proceeding that we launched last year. special thanks to commissioner carr who is leading the push to get our infrastructure rules 5g ready. of course, spectrum will be critical to our 5g future and we are busy on this front, too. the big ticket item for 2018 listen an auction of the 20 giga hertz band followed by an auction of the 24 giga hertz band. so set the foundation for the auctions i circulated to my fellow commissioners yesterday a public notice seeking input on auction procedures. we will vote on that public notice at our april meeting.

but that's not all that we're doing. we're continuing to make progress on ave waves above 24 giga hertz in the spectrum frontiers proceeding. last month we raised our eyes to the spectrum horizons looking to open up spectrum above 95 giga hertz for commercial use. mid band spectrum also will be critical for 5g and this is why we've partnered with nti administrator receiptel to review the 3.4 giga hertz band and why i asked commissioner o'rielly to take the lead on the 3.5 giga hertz band. we are look taking a close look at the 3.7 to 4.2 giga hertz band for terrestrial use and i hope to propose next steps in the coming months. we are taking another look at unlicensed spectrum opportunities below 8 giga hertz with a particular focus on studying new opportunities for shared use in the 6 gig ba hertz band and elsewhere. if that's not enough fcc shop talk for you the good in us is

that commissioners o'rielly and carr will be joining you this afternoon. let me close by thanking free state foundation for elevating the policy 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 tear 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. >> okay. well, thanks to chairman pai for those remarks. i'm grateful to him. you know, originally he was scheduled to be here, but then a conflict arose. by the way, i think most of you know, but for those of you who

may not, i think he was the person that talked about taking a wide whacker to the regulations over at the fcc. you know, i don't know whether you want to refer to it as a weed whacker or what, but to my mind chairman pai has done a good job and gotten off to a fact start in terms of looking at regulations that may no longer serve the public interest in light of the changing circumstances. so thank you, chairman pai. so now it's my pleasure -- i know administrator rettle is here in the room and i'm going to ask him to come up. there you are. just have a seat for just --

it's really a great pleasure for me to introduce david rettle. i'm going to say this now. you know, we have the complete bios of all of 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 biob bio but just give you the very basics. 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 also has the dual role of administrator of the national

telecommunications information administration, which is the executive branch's principle advisor on telecom policy. prior to assuming this job, david, as many of you know, if not most, was the chief counsel at the house committee on energy and commerce. you know, what i will say 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 years -- how many years was it, david? >> almost seven. >> okay. i was right. almost seven years. there was probably 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 rettle, please.

>> well, thanks, randy. i am proud to be here speaking today, and i would also like to thank you for single-handedly keeping the hashtag alive. it has been some time since we used that on capitol hill, so i'm glad to see it is still kicking. i have appreciated free state's work for many years on the issues. certainly the value you have in bringing a robust and intelligent debate to some of these issues, so thank you for having me. today's theme is timely and fits well with our goals at ntia, which is to expand spectrum, support developmentment of 5g and help connect all-americans to the internet. this 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 broadband internet

service. at mtia we are working on this problem by helping communities gain access to technology that can improve health and education, promote economic development and unleash american innovation. our broadband usa program supports community leaders seeking to expand broadband connectivity. we work together to identify resources and provide technical assistance and have helped more than 250 communities develop public/private partnerships to meet their connectivity needs and digital inclusion goals. our state broadband leaders network helps facilitate information sharing among representatives from more than 20 states. we just concluded a highly-successful summit in tennessee where we worked together with the tennessee economic development authority and brought more than 200 state and local officials to share best ideas for improving the state's connectivity. we're also expanding connectivity by ensuring there is enough spectrum to meet our nation's 5g needs. one of mtia's core missions is striking a balance between

demand for spectrum by various commercial users and the needs of federal agencies in their important mission. thanks to the hard work of our interdepartmental radio advisory committee and our policy and plan steering group, two principle advisory bodies we have on the government side, we were able to announce the selection as a candidate for reallocation to commercial services. we still have a lot of work to do to determine if this will be viable for us to have go to auction, but we have to work now to figure out whether or not we can support our government encome bans, which includes the defense department's vital radar national security. this could be an important band for us because it is immediately adjacent to the 3.5, and could help fuel our nation's 5g leadership. dod plans to submit a proposal under the spectrum pipeline act to carry out a study to determine the potential free allocation for wireless services in this band without harming

operations. we hope the result of this hard work will be a win/win that enables the continuing growth of the u.s. industry while also maintaining the defense department's mission critical systems. the pipeline act and the spectrum relocation fund are two of the strongest tools we have to look for freeing up spectrum for commercial users but we want every tool possible to make sure we make the most of our nation's scarce spectrum resources. clearing out bands is our priority. let's be clear. the law says that's our priority, and we'll continue to look to find bands to clear. but we know that there are other bands where clearing out government users is not an option. to that end ntia continues to work to develop and implement novel spectrum management approaches. for example, the president's budget for fiscal year' 19 includes a proposal to authorize ntia to administer leases of federal spectrum. this could be a valuable tool in areas where clearing is not an option but there are potential

extra uses that could be made in an efficient use of the band. this is a high-level proposal at this point, and many details need to be sorted out, but i believe it has great potential as an additional tool for the federal government to use in meeting our country's needs. we would be looking to find ways to incentivize agencies to use spectrum -- excuse me, to use spectrum to help us identify bands. whether upgraded technology or capabilities could serve as an incentive or whether agencies could become beneficiaries of the services provided by commercial users in the band. we'd also have to sort out how to fund the resources needed to negotiate leases and administer the program, but the idea is to add as many tools always we can and to put underutilized spectrum to work while maximizing the economic value of spectrum and protecting federal encumbance. we are happy to see congress interested in novel approaches. the act signed into law last week as part of the budget deal includes a provision on researching services for

agencies to relinquish spectrum. as a side note, ray was a personal friend of mine. i worked with him for many years at energy and commerce, and i'm really pleased to see that spectrum that adorns his name will have a major impact on the next generation of connectivity. i also really appreciate the blog that free state published this week highlighting the accomplishments of this important legislation that bears his name. as we look to further tools we are relying heavily on the institute for telecommunication sciences, ntia's research lab in colorado. as i mentioned before, the candidate band that dod will study is directly adjacent to the band at 3.5-gigahertz. the heart of this innovative spectrum band are two systems, spectrum access system and the environmental sensing capability that will allow commercial users to coexist with navy radar systems. its is collaborating with all interested stakeholders to

certify these systems are ready because they're necessary to bring the band to market. the dod study, the 3.5 dig ah hertz and the announcement on the band that you heard alluded to in the video have the potential to make as much as 750-gigahertz of contiguous broadband available to meet the nation's needs. it is a big deal. we are also welcoming the fcc's vote last week approving the order easing regulations that impeded the deployment of wireless infrastructure. it is an important step forward in securing america's leadership in wireless connectivity and consistent with the commitment to help remove obstacles to allow 5g to flourish. ntia is looking to improve federal coordination and reduce barriers to broadband deployment, another major priority for this administration. the efforts being coordinated through the broadband interagency working group which we co-chair alongside our colleagues the department of agriculture's rural utility service. at present our efforts in the

big, as we're calling it, are focused on three work streams. these align with the key recommendations of the president's task force, expanding broadband was the number one recommendation. the first area of focus for the big as the working group is known is federal permitting. we are looking at requirements that govern the siting of broadband facilities on federal lands in the effort to streamline efforts and establish consistency across agencies. secondary is federal funding of broadband. as many of you notice, the federal government has projects to support broadband buildout, broadband support, and we have looked at identifying the efficacy of the perhaps and recommending enhancements to coordination across the u.s. government. several agencies were also tasked with broadband responsibilities in the fiscal '18 spending bill and we look forward to, working with them. that includes rus which has a broadband loan and grant program

which has been asked to prioritize unserved areas in the broadband projects. third and final area for the working group to look at is leveraging federal assets for broadband deployment. in january president trump issued a memo instructing the interior department to develop a plan to increase access to tower facilities and other infrastructure assets. this could potentially lower the cost of buildouts and encourage american infrastructure deployment in rural american. they also recommended assessing the current state of nationwide access 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 and analyzing data on broadband adoption and using that data to develop policy. we have decades of experience in analyzing broadband in the united states, and we have high-quality data-driven policy research that's essential to create the holistic view for the

current state of broadband deployment. to doe so we need accurate, reliable data analysis to properly inform private sector decisions, reduce regulatory barriers and better coordinate federal perhaps that fund broadband infrastructure. we need to be able to aggregate existing information. with multiple data outlets across the u.s. to harness deployment coverage that may not be available from the fcc's 477 data. last week congress appropriated funds to ntia to work with fcc and the states to update the broadband map with more diverse data sources, to produce a more accurate assessment of broadband and provide a tool for policymakers to better target the funds allocated to bring broadband to the parts of our country that still lag behind. the broadband usa group at ntia has spent the last few years continuing to cultivate our state broadband leaders network which includes officials in state and local and county government that spend time thinking about how to improve broadband in their communities.

the situation yielded real results for us with states willing to take on the difficult challenge of maintaining the maps and getting good data. through ongoing meetings, including a recent summit in tennessee, state and community leaders get a hans to learn what works and what's failed by communities across their state and the country in their efforts to bring broadband to citizens. whether it is solving a local connectivity issue or developing new approaches to spectrum development, ntia hopes to contribute to advances in 5g future. everyone here has a perspective that can enrich ntia's view on this. 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 think that 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 valuable solutions. so we want to hear from you. we want to know what you think. we know it is important. please, don't be shy about coming to us. i want to thank randy for 12 years of great work at free

state foundation, 10 years of this wonderful event. thank you for having me here today. i look forward to questions. >> david, thank you again for those remarks which we appreciate. thanks for mentioning the blog that was a great vote, visiting fellow at the free foundation did on ray baum's act. it is very important as administrator ren o administrator ren reynold pointed out. we are all pleased that the bill

had ray baum's name attached to it, remember him. but i think i should point out, of course, and most of you know this, that david, of course, played a big role in bringing that measure forward and developing it. so he deserves a lot of credit for that. david agreed to take a few questions, so the way we're going to do this is if you have a question, i want you to identify yourself, please, and try and asked a question if possible. i will help you do that if you have trouble with it, but rather than a long statement. so we've got a mic and i want you to wait until you are recognized. then we will have a few

questions. so if you -- rick, were you raising your hand? oh, lynn. okay. >> thanks. do you have any thoughts yet on where you're going to look for these sources of data that are funded through the bill last week? >> so my team 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, it was widely reported the office of management and budget had generally asked for $50 million to achieve the goals of the map. congress provided $7.5 million. we are going through and figuring out how to use the $7.5 million in a way that produces the best tool for policymakers to make the decisions. you know, the bill passed very recently, so don't have an answer for you yet, lynn, but we're working on it.

>> okay. the gentleman -- >> my name is peter and i am working for the european union delegation here in washington. david, you have well-spelled out what plans for your work are. i wonder if you didn't find time to look at what industry maybe should be doing or what you have useful expectations for the industry side are? >> well, with respect to the issues we've talked about today on spectrum, you know, we are in close contact with our colleagues in the private sector on spectrum and in the government at all times. we have three different advisory committees, one on the commercial side that is mac, two on the government side, to make sure we are in constant dialogue with both industry and our government users as we develop good policy. on 5g, i think we're all going through the same thing a lot are going through right now. 5g is the same thing to everyone and we're trying to figure out

how best to meet america's needs and make sure as we go forward in the next generation of wireless infrastructure that we are maximizing the value to the american citizens, particularly in rural america, ensuring that we have secure communications. you know, the president made very clear that secure communications is part of a national security strategy, particularly with respect to 5g, and making sure that america continues to be a leader in wireless. we have been a world leader in 4g lte. we want to maintain that leadership going forth into a 5g world. we continue to talk with our colleagues in the private sector constantly about these things. >> okay. do we have -- we have time for maybe one more question if we have one. looks like all the way over on the side. >> thank you, mr. administrator. patricia pod. switching gears but still in your wheelhouse. the chairman of the fcc announced a proposal to deny funds to carriers -- usf funds

for carriers with chinese equipment in their network, and i have not yet seen that proposed order but traditionally national security is an executive branch function. if that proposal does pass, what will be the role of ntia kind of coordinating national security insight into the fcc, if it does pass? >> so the fcc's proposal is in white copyright now. certainly we're looking forward to working with our fcc colleagues to see what they produce, and then, you know, ntia's role will be to work across the u.s. government, both within the department of commerce where we have significant expertise on these issues, but also across the entire u.s. government to figure out a whole of government response in coordination with our colleagues. so stay tuned, trisha. >> okay. i think we'll now thank administrator rettle. i want to present him with a small token of appreciation. i guess the emphasis is on small

this time. david, you know, in the past sometimes -- and you may have seen this -- we've presented speakers with maybe larger tokens. you know, i found out there's a concern, you know, often does -- do they exceed some government limit, you know, in terms of the ethical requirements or what not. of course, i want to be sensitive to that. so i'm going to present you with this beautiful ballpoint pen, emblazoned 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, laurie, but its value is under $1. so i hope -- i hope you can keep it and use it in good health. most of all, thanks for being

here. >> i mean giving a bureaucrat a pen seems somehow appropriate, randy, so i appreciate it. >> okay. now, for those of you who are standing, and it is great to see such a large crowd, we do have seats. there are seats up front, so i hope you will find a seat. i'm now going to call on my colleague, senior fellow seth cooper, to come up along with his panel, and we're going to move right 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.

i would like to welcome everyone to the tenth free state conference, annual telecommunications conference. our panel, the first all-star

panel for today is solutions for connecting america and closing digital divides. so, again, i with like to welcome the audience here, welcome the audience on c-span 2 this morning who decided to forego 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 relations with century link. he's responsible for representing century link's policy and advocacy positions to federal, state and local policymakers. that includes the fcc, congress, state regulatory bodies and other agencies, and industry groups. he has a 24-year tenure with the company that is now century link, reaching back through century tel. prior to that he was a director

and adjunct communications faculty member at the university of monroe for a dozen years. he is also a member of the board of directors for u.s. telecom. we are glad to have john here today. we also have 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 technology officer for telecommunications in the white house office of science and technology from 2011 to 2014. he was chief of staff at ntia from april 2009 to august 2011. he's worked in industry and law practice as well, and was a senior legal advisor to fcc chairman william kenard. we're glad to have him because he is a recent addition to the panel. it won't be reflected in the bios we have there but we're glad to have tom power here. we received late sunday night

word that michael powell would be unable to attend because of an unavoidable last-minute schedule conflict. so we're delighted to have james assi here with us today who is executive vice president at ncta, the internet and television association. he is a second-most senior executive at ncta involved in all aspects of their work. prior to that he was a long-time member of the u.s. senate finance committee on commerce, science and transportation. most recently including serving as senior democratic counsel to the committee. he has worked in law practice as well and taught communications law as an adjunct faculty member of georgetown university law school. so welcome back, james. i would also like to welcome back nicole turner lee, a fellow in governance studies at the center for technology innovation at brookings. is a contributor to brookings tech tank. she was previously vice

president and chief research at the multicultural media telecom and internet council. in that role she led their research and advocacy agendas. prior to that she was vice president and first director of media and technology institute at the center -- joint center for political and economic studies, and so we are certainly delighted to have you back as well, nicole. so just a little bit about the format for this all-star panel. each panelist is going to kick things off with an opening remark, going about five minutes. we ask you to keep it to five minutes, or the free state foundation panel buzzer will go off. after that time we'll give the panelists if they wish a moment or two to briefly respond to anything they hear. following that, we'll have some question time here on the panel. i will direct some questions to our all-star panelists, and

following that we will open it up to the audience who have questions. as we go along, if you have any kind of question that comes to mind, 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 to take your question, but for those following on twitter we have a at which time handle that is #fcsconf10 and that is active as we speak. for opening remarks, i will first start with james assi. why don't you go ahead, james. >> the curse of the "a." >> i actually did it because you're closest to me. >> oh, okay. i'll sit over there neck time. thank you, seth. thank you, randy. it is a pleasure to be back here with everyone. i extend michael's apologies. i know he would have love to have been 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. let me briefly kind of start where i always like to start when we, you know, discuss how we fill in the gaps and the holes that we have. that is to really take tremendous stock of what we've seen over the last decade, decade and a nahalf, two decade. 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 to 94% of america's households. that's not an insubstantial accomplishment, particularly when you consider the demands that consumers put on internet networks continues to grow by leaps and bounds year after year after year. that's also not to diminish the

importance of closing that last gap, that 6% who can't yet get access to broadband or even closing the adoption gap of those people who could get it but haven't yet joined the rest of society in using the internet as fully as they should. so when we look at kind of what we need to do to kind of close that 6%, i think, you know, you have already heard i think this morning from assistant secretary rettle, some new developments in congress. certainly a lot of focus on what we can do to close the gap. i think one of the things or one of the overlays that we put on any type of strategy is to really recognize technology neutrality and the need to design policies that reflect on and respect the fact that we have a multiplicity of different

broadband platforms available to us. you know, who would have thought that cable technology has evolved to where it is today, that wireless technology has evolved to where it is today, that satellite technology continues to evolve. there is no really one-size-fits-all in a country that is as diverse as the united states with the different types of geographical challenges we have, in a country this large. so i think we have to recognize that we -- as we develop policies, we need to 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 broadband, to make sure that the

scarce resources we have available are not going to basically layer over places we already have built broadband through private capital. i am encouraged by recent language that was in the omni bus appropriations bill with respect to the newly-created r.u.s. pilot program that is aimed i think at ensuring that the dollars go to where they're needed so that we can assess whether these perhaps are actually working or not, and hopefully make that hole smaller and smaller. similarly, i think i go back 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 in building and extending networks. i think we just need to be cognizant of the fact that we do have different technology platforms, and policy really needs to be built so it deals

even-handedly with all of the different multiplicity of infrastructures we have out there. so that's the writ large approach i think we need to continue to focus on and, you know, i think recent signs are encouraging. >> thank you, james. we will go on to john jones of century link. >> thank you very much. i appreciate the opportunity to be here today and it is a timely and good topic for us to cover in light of all of the industry convergence out there. also, what seems to be somewhat of a renewed focus on broadband speeds and availability out in the marketplace. many of you know the history of century link, and so i can talk from a lot of different perspectives as we've gone through several iterations as a company, including a small, rural telephone company and a broadband provider in some of the more rural markets in the country, and now with the acquisition of level three, a major internet backbone provider, globally. i will try to weave all of that together. i probably have more topics than i have time, but i thought it would be good to first talk a little bit about, acknowledge

what is going on in the industry, is that networks are actually combining now to become a hybrid of both fiber and spectrum. most networks are. so what that means is that where focus needs to be put in terms of enablement is on spectrum and fiber, and both are expensive and both have their own challenges for deployment. but when combined, they do a great job of building advanced networks and providing advanced services for others. the real issue, you know, the question is spectrum a substitute or is 5g a substitute for fiber. really, if you look at it from the standpoint when you combine the two they need each other to be successful. those two combined 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 the 5g out there, the fiber will be a major enabler of 5g going forward in most of the markets out there.

one of the questions we have to ask ourselves as primarily a rural provider is what is the future of rural america. and before when we were a much smaller company, we had reached about a mid 90 to low 90% threshold of enablement in some really small markets, and that was our strong suit. a few acquisitions later that percentage dropped significantly, with the acquisition of embark and quest, but we still have been a leading provider of broadband in those markets. and so i guess our view is that at least from our network perspective, is that most of the -- any market that had a reasonable hint of profitability or an economic basis to deploy, we pretty much have done those. what is left though, my point with that, what is left though to deploy to will be the most challenging markets regardless of platform. the cost will be high and the challenges will be great. so we're looking for ways to get

there, and i think what the white house has done, congress has done and the fcc has done in terms of providing additional funding for those markets, but despite the large amounts of money that have been bandied about in terms of providing for the services and the funding, i think we all know in this room that it is not going to be enough money to do the total job that people are looking to have take place. the other is i had the pleasure of serving on jonathan's subcommittee on barriers, and that committee did i think a great job of coming together and identifying and coming to agreement on what the barriers to entries were. a lot of it dealt with federal lands and permitting, and anything that is done there will actually speed to market. it is really the emphasis there, but it does little to address the cost issues. but it is a great movement forward, is getting that moving

forward. one thing that our company is looking for is really hybrid solutions for the last mile, and we're at a point in the big square safe like in the dakotas or wyoming, the ranchers and others are difficult to reach. some have trouble providing voice due to obsolete and old networks so hybrid solutions look more and more appealing to our company. if you look at what satellite has done recently, their speeds are much better, their affordability is getting better and the latency is less. so when you look at that and the partnerships there that are possible, i think that's really a solution for providers to come together in meaningful partnerships the see what those solutions are. and then fixed wireless is another opportunity, and that is where 5g comes in again, and we're looking also at ways to handle not only backhaul for 5g but provide a fixed solution in those markets. the last thing i want to touch

on really i think is consumer demand. we are talking a lot about providers and networks but consumers are a big factor for us. we're in an environment where we're chasing increased speed demand, and i think we've all been chasing speed for a long time, but we are also facing to me a technology agnostic, fairly sophisticated consumer element now that maybe wasn't here a few years ago. what they're looking for, regardless of the platform they use, i don't think they really care if it is wi-fi, small cell or large cell or wire line, what they're looking for is a positive internet experience at the end of the day and it is our job to provide that. that also goes into the heart of network security, privacy and other issues that they're wanting to provide. this is where i will touch on the open internet, is that we see from an enterprise standpoint and consumer standpoint that some of the more

volatile and emotional terms out there dealing with net neutrality such as throttling and prioritization actually will become increasingly more of a customer demand issue as they evolve and keep telling us more and more what they need out of the network. our job is to respond to that demand, and that's one thing that chairman pai's order does do, is it does allow providers like us the flexibility to respond without fear of enforcement action or anything else that's out there that was in the 2015 order. so from the standpoint of customer choice and the flexibility of providers to address that choice, we think the order goes a long way in providing some stability and predictability for that network experience. >> thank you, john. tom powers. >> thank you, seth. thank you for having me here today. i don't think it will shock anyone in the room that the wireless industry is focused primarily on 5g these days. we see it as defensively

transformative for the wireless experience across industries and across society, and that's because of what 5g can deliver. it is capable of 100 times the band width of existing wireless technologies. we are going to connect millions more devices, and one of the most significant factors about 5g is the really low latency, which is basically the speed at which bits can hop from one point to the next. that enables the applications that are real-time or near real-time and need to be real-time in order to be useful. so we're going to see a huge change in health care, in transportation, and we can just go across the board when it comes to different industries. this ripple effect will have a huge effect on the economy. we expect to see $500 billion in contribution to gdp, that's according to a report by accenture we commissioned, and that will be supported by 3 million new jobs, and the

wireless carriers alone are expected to contribute $275 billion in capital expenditures. that's just the carriers. but the point is that it is much broader than the carriers or even what we think of as the wireless industry narrowly. it is throughout the economy, which is something that we've gotten pretty good at in this country in terms of wireless. the u.s. has really been a leader going back decades. the cellphone was invented here. the smartphone was invented here. american companies dominate the market for operating systems, the engine inside your smartphones. you go to the app stores, those are dominated by american innovations. we've built out 4g across this country, racing past most other countries, and we see much greater demand and usage of 4g in this country per capita than we see in most other countries, 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. we have to keep that momentum going. other countries see what we're doing. they want to rival or eclipse us when it comes to 5g. we are seeing trials in cities all over the world as we are seeing 5g trials in cities all over the country. it is important we keep the success story alive in the u.s. for the wireless industry, there's sort of two pillars we build that on. one is spectrum, the airwaves over which the data trachvels, d one is infrastructure, in some cases literally pillars. where do we install and how do we install the small cells that will carry all of the data and how do we do it efficiently? we heard both chairman pai and administrator rettle talk a bit about that. for us on spectrum, we have seen good momentum. last week congress essentially reconfirmed the fcc's authority to move forward with spectrum auctions. you heard chairman pai this morning talk about two of the hot air band, spectrum bands he wants to see go to auction starting later this year, which is great.

we need to keep that going with other bands that the fcc has identified for auction. we need to get those auctions scheduled as well, and it is at the high band, it is mid band. you heard discussion of, you know, 3.4 to 4.2-gigahertz range. that's important spectrum. internationally those bands are getting a lot of attention and it is important we harmonize as much as we can around the world. that helps with scale. that helps with people making the devices and making the chips reduce fair cost, which means you can have faster and more efficient deployment. we're looking for more activity there on the second front. on the siting front, we heard earlier, again, from chairman pai and administrator rettle on action the fcc took last week on siting and streaming -- streamlining the siting process. every time you want to install an antenna, there is the overlay of regulation at the federal level, the state level, the local level in terms of getting

the siting and getting the approvals you need for that. the challenge has been that as chairman pai said, a lot of the rules were written in the wireless context when we thought of big towers, 200-foot towers and antennas, big antennas and the associated equipment that went along with that. they weren't written to think of small cells and the associated -- much smaller associated equipment that comes with that. last week the fcc took a big step forward in streamlining the review process at the federal level, special for small cells. we have been working at 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 siting, and it is important that we respect that role. they have costs that they incur in terms of reimbursing those costs, that's a fair ask of the industry, but we need more uniformity and we need to make sure that the delays that we have seen in the siting process can be eliminated.

we need to make sure that the cost that municipalities do impose in terms of overseeing all of this are not disproportionate in comparison to the cost that the municipalities actually incur. so accenture has admitted by the way we will need about 800 small cells by 2026. so the importance of getting infrastructure right really can't be overstated. so i would say siting and spectrum are the two things you're going the 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 all of you, my distinguished panelists, for involving me in this conversation. glad to be up here as a friend and person who has spoken in every state. i'm going to talk a little bit about people and what the

conversation is about in terms of connecting america in the individual divide. my perspective, what we look at is closing the digital divide. we know today that internet usage rapidly increased, that's a fact, as many of us in this room who were in the debate ten years ago remember the time when we were in single digit broadband adoption and penetration. as james said, we are actually 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 still about 11% of americans who do not have access. they tend to be older americans, and pugh reports 34% of people over the age of 65 do not have internet access. they tend to have less than a high school diploma, at 35%. they are rural, as we all have come to settle on that fact. pugh recently reported again in march about 22% of people who are not internet adopters are rural residents, and they're poor.

that's 19%. yet despite all of these obstacles that many of you have heard me say this, they are still americans and they still deserve to be connected in a way that is meaningful or they risk the chance of becoming digitally invisible. as those of us who have been in the debate, that invisibility has consequences over the long run if we do not get this right. many of you know i'm a sociologist, a big fan of michael harrington's book, "the other america." he stated that we in the u.s. understated the amount of people actually disconnected from economic institutions. i will argue today and argue it in a book i have coming out of brookings we still have the same problem when we look at digital disconnectedness. so in response to what this panel is about, what i would like to keep pressing upon people as we move towards a more ubiquitous access and infrastructure is that the cost of not being online is even greater today than it has ever been before. there's a cost to digital

exclusion. if you close your eyes and you imagine yourself without your device in your pocket, without your ability to actually engage in various functions, you would feel disadvantaged just like the 11% of non-internet users that feel that way today. so what does that mean? i will just sort of leave us with a couple of points because the panelists i think adequately picked up on infrastructure. i would like to say this and also couch my remarks in this context for those of you who have been listening to me lately, that the digital divide is no long binary. it is not an issue of have and have notes. let me first say i think it is important to accelerate broadband access to the underserved, whether it is through what tom just talked about, the acceleration of 5g technology, which we know will bolster the capacity of people to get things done in a meaningful way. that's obviously going to require much more work in small cell deployment, spectrum management, et cetera. but i also think we can't cut

out the ability of fixed wires to do the same job. we have to, as john said, get internet access into communities in any way possible. so i don't see us in the marketplace picking winners or losers. i honestly see us trying to figure outweighs ways to bolst access, urban and suburban and rural. i think it is important to call attention to the fact that the lifeline program cannot be gut owed. the commission right now is working under the guise of where there is some sort of time stock when it comes to lifeline. you go back to those 11% of people not online, what it means to be low income in this country is something we should all not assume to actually understand nor should we assume that we should place barriers on people's abt to get access to opportunity. streamlining cutting the lifeline program and imposing

unnecessary caps will have a detrimental effect on closing digital divide, especially if the program starts with the assumption that people are trying to outsmart the benefit. so i actually share that in my support at brookings of looking at this issue and what that means for low income americans becoming rapidly digitally marginalized. finally, i will just say this. i think it is important -- i think one of the panelists already said that -- to close the digital divide we have to remember today's technology is not tomorrow's solution. we have got to come up with regulatory certainty that adapts itself to around investment, expansion, good public policy that supports what i think tom said, spectrum allocation, while at the same time recognizing the internet of today will not be what we regulate tomorrow. artificial intelligence, machine learning, algorithms and other technologies will become the next driver towards why america is not fully connected if we don't get this right. so i say that because i think

our regulatory certainty plays a lot into the current debates that we're having over picking winners and losers on the internet. i say that publicly, that we probably need to move away from framework that restricts us around 1934 regulations and move towards conversations and debates that allow for the full utilization and effective utilization of the internet. my final remark, what would provision of medicine look like in ten years if we had regulatory policy that did not adapt to what someone already said consumers demand? how would artificial intelligence help young people become educated if we actually regulated the internet the same way we regulated the telegraph and the telephone? i put that out there in terms of this conversation of connecting america and closing the digital divide. it is more than just infrastructure. it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. it is actually a comprehensive approach to how we want to ensure more people get access to the benefits of being online. >> thank you, nicole.

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 could speed up and accelerate the process? what legislation might be the most promising vehicles right now? >> there are actually 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 tll ahere are a number of bii could choose from, but if i had to pick among my children -- and at the risk of offending different sponsors of different bills that hopefully are not watching c-span 2 this morning, i think the efforts that senators thune and shots have

undertaken on infrastructure siting is probably the most effective vehicle i have seen right now. it would do a couple of things. in terms of making more uniform the siting rules across the country, so that when you apply to site an antenna or a tower in a public right-of-way, you sort of know what the rules are. it would put timelines, deadlines on local governments to act on those siting requests, with the full length of time depending on the nature of the installation, and it would also -- that will ensure that the localities are paid their costs that they incur in overseeing this process, and those costs would have to be disclosed publicly and would have to be neutral so that you don't have different players paying different costs for essentially getting the same rights of access. so i would say the thune/shotz effort is one we are strongly behind. >> okay. nicole, if i could turn to you, i believe earlier this month you spoke to a group regarding 5g cell deployment and engaging

local stakeholders. 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 mean i spoke to -- i have spoken to several panels around 5g. i do believe in the power of 5g. i think 5g is actually going to accelerate the type of effective utilization we want to see from particularly the groups i'm interested in, low income and historically underserved communities. the ability to do, as i mentioned before, more remote medicine, better and improved educational opportunities among young people. it is immeasurable. i think i have told state legislators and i will continue to say this, the train has already left the station when it comes to actually rolling out 5g within communities. you don't want to be that city that's, you know, not really working to get it in your community. i tell people, i live in alexandria. i would hate to go to arlington and not be able to access 5g just by crossing into a different city line. i think as we go forward, what we've urged people, what i have

urged in my conversation with various groups is let's embrace the process and figure out how to work together on this and collaborate. i built -- and i have to admit this because i've been saying it all across town -- the first small cell network, tom, when i was in chicago working for one economy. we used duct tape and d-link routers and it was a very hard issue to solve when you try to prop gate against concrete buildings in the west side of chicago. so i get it with regards to technical architecture, and it will take a team of people working together to make sure that we can really roll it out at a pace that is equal, seamless, and allows people that opportunity. we can't wait. low income people in particular overindexed on the use of their smartphones. do we want them at a rate where kids are trying to get homework via 3g speeds? i don't think so. i think we have to really figure out with local legislators how do we make the process friendly enough where there's cooperation and potential collaboration? i think we're starting to see

that. a recent panel we helped with commissioner carr in talking about the exemptions of environmental remediation reviews as well as historic landmarks, there were legislator -- or city representatives in that convening. i can tell you the thing that got them the most excited about it was workforce 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, the 150th congress, in terms of wire line or cable infrastructure that will be necessary for gigabit fiber and even necessary for the backhaul for 5g? do you see any promising vehicles on that front? >> well, i take some encouragement from 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 initially is right, which is all of these networks are going to

start looking a lot like everybody else. we're all going to be using a mix of technology, whether that's epon or docsys or we fire or 5g. consumers will make the choices based upon the services they want, and infrastructure providers will provide the flavors of technology that people want. 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 congress's recognition that we do need a balanced approach when it comes to spectrum, both with respect to license spectrum that we make available to meet the needs of 5g, but also to meet the needs of wi-fi. you know, 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, you

know, amount of work, and that workload is only going to increase over time, as it will for licensed wireless as well. so i say that not to really try and argue that this is an either/or, because it is not. it is 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 essentially 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 is critically important that ntia and other parts of the federal government really take that long-term view and really put out what is our national plan with respect to both licensed 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 is going the places where it is currently uneconomic to serve, it is going to take significant resources to get broadband to them. i think congress will continue to play an important role in oversight to making sure the funds that it provides is used for its intended purpose. i do think, you know, if we want to look at places for us to relook at broadband 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 the 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.

i think those would be two places to start. >> okay. well, sticking with for a minute the issue of spectrum and licensed versus unlicensed, i mean what kind of rules of thumb or principles do you take in approaching, you know -- 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? >> i think it really depends. it depends upon the propagation characteristics of the bands, who is in that band, what other uses are we going to have to contend with. i mean the fact of the matter is i think we all recognize that the consumer demand for connecting versus, you know, 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 is always going to be a desire for more

spectrum, but, you know, there's no one-size-fits-all. we need lower band spectrum, mid band spectrum, higher band spectrum. we have seen the fcc, you know, 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 you know, where we need to find space to allow things like gigabit wi-fi to grow. >> okay. not hearing -- anyone have anything they want to add or respond to that? don. >> i agree with a lot of what was said. i think we need more of both wi-fi and -- or licensed and unlicensed. they both add considerable value

across the board. you know, looking around this room, i can tell you that wi-fi is pretty good or people are praying a lot, but -- maybe some of both.but, maybe t fcc over the years has taken a number of steps to try to work this out. it's for the regulator making decisions on where they think technology and consumer demand and product development's going to go, which you kind of want to be in the hands of the consumer and into the entrepreneurs and innovators on the private side. on the other hand, you do sort of want the government thinking ahead. there's the quote attributed to wayne gretzky of you want to skate towards 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've 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 at the hotel, at the office, an environment like this, where you can sort of more control a lot of use that's going on. one of the characteristics of unlicensed spectrum is you're not protected from interference by other users of the spectrum, so you do risk challenges there as you put more and more dema s demands. on the other hand, for licensed spectrum, certainly for mobility it's a plus, and a sort of more controlled environment when you're out in the public and where demand can spike up and down, a little bit better suited for license because the carrier can exclude others from the ban. they do have exclusive use there, and therefore, can control the quality of service that's being offered, and that's, you know, can be very important, especially if we move into 5g. but i think the fcc gets great credit for the way they've managed this over the years. and as james said, it will just

keep growing on both sides of them and they'll just both hopefully be continuing to develop in a way that meet the consumers' demand. >> i think on the unlicensed side, at least for the topic of this panel, it's important to leverage the unlicensed spectrum for pilots. we've had conversations over the years with the fcc on where are there appropriate contexts to play around with unlicensed spectrum to do experimentation that may actually lend itself to closing the digital divide in unique ways that we may not identify through large-scale rollouts. >> okay. all right, let's move on to universal service really quickly. and john, maybe i'll turn to you first. you know, we've got mobility phase two auction, we've got the connect america fund phase two auctions. we have some of those things coming up for this year. are we all set going forward on

are there rule changes that need to be made or are you confident things going forward can reach some of these rural areas, through how that's set up? i mean -- >> yeah, i'll say that i think the fcc does a very good job with auctions, the auction process, and the way we're looking at the auctions is from a provider's standpoint, is that we really have limited opportunity from a centurylink standpoint, and we declined, i think, two states, basically, during the caf-2 process, and my understanding is that that same funding will track in the auction, so it's still the same amount of funding, so i'm not sure how much relief it's actually going to give a bidder. and one of them is wyoming. the other's in mississippi. so, i'm not sure how much that is going to help, but i think they're both, i guess gap fillers, from the standpoint of seeing an incremental need and addressing it, but there's still a lot more to do, and we're also

interested to see if there will be a caf-3 and other mechanisms out there for us. >> okay. very quickly, james, you mentioned the rural utilities service and having encouraging language in the omnibus legislation about avoiding overlays. that's government funding networks to be built on top of places where consumers are already served. does that continue to be an issue on universal service in these things 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 caf, which is, you know, there are obviously things around the edges we would quibble with, but it seems like we are finally focused 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 been a sea change, but it's been an encouraging development. we've seen it replicated in many states, which are really, i think, following a more focused approach to funding that this may provide to allow existing carriers to expend lines to communities that don't have access to broadband and really giving us a new measuring stick for how we are actually accomplishing the task 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 broadband 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 targeting funded to unserved areas, to be a follow-on to that, and a further follow-on being congress' insistence that when we are going to spend the public's money through this new pilot program, that we ensure that at least 90% of the funding for any grant go to supply broadband to households that are unserved. >> okay. and sticking with the universal service but moving it over back to lifeline. nicol, in your remarks, you talked about the proposal the fcc has of having a self-enforcing budget or a hard cap, and that same proposal would limit lifeline subsidy support to facilities-based providers. what's your position regarding this aspect of the proposal, to limit lifeline support to facilities-based eligible carriers? >> i'll summarize it as my mama would say, if it wasn't broken, don't try to fix it.

you know, it's challenging, because i think some of the assumptions that are in the lifeline proposal right now, particularly the limitation for facilities-based providers, sort of regressing on some of the work that was done over the last couple years to ensure more competition in the marketplace. so you're now going to have a situation of 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. so, 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 gao report, there was actually conversation about the waste, fraud and abuse being reduced, so it's based on wrong data. i think it's important we put in the national verifier to reduce

some of the redundancies. i think until you actually do some of that stuff, it's very hard to sort of go back in a program that is the only potential lever for people to get online. and we don't want to find ourselves in a position, particularly when we talk about closing the digital divide. the digital divide, yes, it is about employment, my friends, it is about infrastructure, but it's about people. people stand at the heart of what we're trying to solve, and it's just critically important that the program and congress re-evaluate how we're approaching this program. the fcc is not a social service agency. the fcc is an enabler 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, and i think it's important that we

really look at some of the sb k subliminal messages within that order that will potentially restrict the uptick in affordability to people in urban communities. it will have an effect on people who live in rural abilities, but more so urban who happen to also to be predominantly people of color, poor, disabled and isolated. so, i think it's something we have to continue to discuss, but i would rather caution us to put in some numbers, hypothetical numbers that may not actually be the measure of success for that program. >> okay. so, think col -- nicol, i'll stick with you for one more minute. if we installed at brookings a bat phone into the commissioner's office and you were to address disillusion and disconnectedness, i guess -- we've 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 know. the chairman is, i think -- you know, i participated in bdac in a marginal way, but i participated, not on the main committee. but i think the chairman is moving the right direction in terms of, again, putting the gap stops in place where we actually inhibit, we stop those barriers that have traditionally kept people offline. people have more choices. james is right, people can get online the way that they want to, how they want to, in more meaningful ways than they could before. i tell my kids, i can't beat you at an interactive game, but i can certainly get you at pacman and atari, right? because technology has changed. however, we're in a space where disruption is going to upset the apple cart. so, the regulatory conditions and criteria that we talk about today, when you look at machine learning, when you look at algorithmic bias, when you look at those areas, the cost of digital exclusion is going to come through big-data analytics and other things. so we have to be careful as we balance this 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 wireline access, not be able to get it to rural communities. the cost to all of us will certainly be that they will be left behind. and i think, you know, again, seth, i kind of, like, left you all. i'm kind of like a marathon runner that's up above in the fast-forward thinking piece that i think randy is starting to go to, all of us are starting to go to. regulation has to catch up with where the disruption is actually taking us, versus us sitting back and trying to figure it out. the pipe has to be bigger because the needs have become bigger. >> okay. dealing with the subject of moving on in terms of

regulation, john, centurylink and through earlier incarnations of centurytel and qwest, they have a long history in dealing with forbearance to try to get rid of legacy telephone operati regulations that still apply, are still on the books, and i presume we'll have a review. do you see candidates in terms of old legacy rules that could 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 stay at a very high level, but i think it's really fairly simple from our standpoint. if you look at the rules we're dealing with forbearing from, most -- i'll just say they have lost 70% of their market share across the board from a voice and broadband standpoint, and we still have rules that are pretty far back in time. so, any forbearance from rules that keep kind of to james'

point about how the industry's converging in so many ways. and something i touched on earlier. so, any rules that could be forbear from, that keep our segment of the industry basically still hamstrung in a wide-open field running environment 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 quickly and the 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 the bare minimum of what would need to be in there? >> yeah, i'll go back into the question you asked james. i think that that piece of legislation, setting the net neutrality rules in motion with a lot of clarity would be a good piece of legislation to remove some of the barriers and uncertainty that are out there today. so, that's just one piece of legislation. but in terms of, i think everybody understands that

blocking is just something that needs to not happen. and so, any legislation would probably deal with blocking. i do still think that congress will not be able to keep up we involving consumer issues and demand, and so, there's got to be a certain degree of latitude and flexibility for providers to continue to meet evolving needs. but 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 that there will be clarity among the rules. there will likely have to be some revisiting of interconnection issues because we're still working under the telecom act interconnection rules, and now we're in a world of peering. and unfortunately, you get back to compensation for use of the network, which is an age-old debate. and so, there will have to be some clarity around that. the last thing, probably, would be some form of regulatory backstop. the commission did not really

deal with issues that cannot be negotiated fully between carriers, and there is 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 everyone would benefit from. >> okay. tom, do you have anything to add on that in terms of a net neutrality legislative compromise? >> you know, just the need for uniformity, the 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, and i don't think we're going to see it this year. >> okay. there's some high-caliber, legal firepower on this panel, including yourself, tom, and james. we've seen at the state level some net neutrality executive actions, we've seen executive orders, we've seen some

legislation. i mean, will those succeed? what's -- what should be the response? what should be the next step in addressing these at the state level? james, i'd like to hear your thoughts. >> look, i think it all fundamentally goes back to, you know, this is really not a question of ability, this is a question of will. and when we look at the online ecosystem writ large of which isps are certainly 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. and you know, short of going on the rooftops and shouting from the top of our lungs that that the isp industry is interested in resolving this issue in a context that will promote continued investment in networks

that we all, i think, agree need to continue to grow and thrive it becomes a vexing problem. it's like you're searching for a dance partner here. but the fact of the matter is 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. to the extent we want to have this conversation, 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.

it's always darkest before the dawn, but i remain hopeful that at some point, we will get around to realizing that this is a problem that is fixable and that we can fix it. >> seth, can i jump in? >> yeah. >> i'm not the lawyer, but i have watched this debate. so, i think, and i want to echo, and without taking a position on where it stands, but i definitely 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 that i said earlier, what has sort of affected my thinking about this is some of the caveats that we need to think of in that legislation. if we're talking about autonomous vehicles and other realtime applications, we may want to go through and really talk about what does that mean in terms of balancing public interests with innovation and some type of regulatory state. i think james is also quite 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, again, to the fact that a conversation that started, you know, nearly a decade ago, is not going to be relevant in the future if we do not figure out the intricacies of how the internet actually works. and consumers, as somebody said, are really telling us how it works, but we're not paying attention to that. and i think that's going to be really important for us to move on to some of these other issues. >> all right, terrific. so, we're going to open this up to the audience. we've got about five minutes for any questions. is there anyone there who has questions? we have a microphone coming around. and i see tom talky right there. >> good morning. great, great panel. i wanted to -- well, when congress established firstnet and provided spectrum and allocated funds, the expectation was that there would be some build-out -- this would spur build-out 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? >> you know, we need the at&t representative up here. stacey, you want to give that one a go? no. you know, i'm not familiar with 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 build-out, now working closely with the folks in 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-to-day basis for the public safety community, there should be excess capacity there that could be 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 preemption. and you have written about state preemption. so, 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, the state. you have some states, governors have signed executive orders saying their states won't do business with internet service providers unless they agree to run their networks the same way they would have under the fcc title two rules that were

repealed. that narrow issue is one that i have written on in particular. it's our conclusion, or at least my conclusion, is that these are highly problematic under the supreme court's market participant doctrine, because broadband internet access services are available to every customer. they're usually kind of click-wrap, kind of take it or leave it kind of deals. i can go to one provider who serves my neighborhood, i can choose to sign up for their service, whatever speed tier, or not. i can go to whatever the alternative, the competitor, and choose it or not. that's not something i get to do is to tell my provider how to re-engineer their networks in order to serve me. and the supreme court has a juris prudential doctrine that's sensitive to 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 into difficulty that way. and there are a lot of more wrinkles on this 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, because the fcc does have a provision in the restoring internet freedom order that says that if you -- any state or local government that seeks to, in essence, reinstitute the rules that are being repealed will be preempted. so, i think there's a dormant commerce clause issue as well that's more complex and kind of yucky, and i don't think about those things since law school days, but i would actually consider that a potent argument as well that would recognize that these services are inherently interstate. they don't respect state borders. the data flows around where it goes. they're not engineered to state lines. so, that's the moderator's answer, and stay on the microphone. no one's going to be able to challenge me on that, partly because my boss is here to pull the plug on this all-star panel

and transition us on to what's next. so, 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? and we just had it. i want to ask our next all-star panel to come up, and we're going to transition right into that panel. there are a few muffins over on the side and a little bit of breakfast left. if you're hungry, you can grab that now.

>> okay, 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.

>> okay, we are going to get started. so, if the people to my right over there will grab your food and then take a seat, please, it's really helpful if 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 there, "#comactupdate." i appreciated david redl this morning reminding everyone that

that was the hashtag for the beginning of the effort to re-examine the communications act, which one day i'll bet will happen, i'm sure. okay, well, i'm delight ed that we've got another round of all-stars here. and they are truly all-stars. so, 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 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 a. campbell. jeff is vice president of the americas of global government affairs for cisco. jeff, i hope i got that right. where he leads government affairs 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, 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 the company's chief diversity officer. he has a broad portfolio of responsibilities, including corporate communications, government and regulatory affairs, public affairs, legal affairs, corporate administration, and community investment. he also serves 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 that they might be able to eliminate just because of everything david's doing there. and 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 david's way. okay, and then next, i'm pleased that we have with us kathleen grillo, senior vice president and deputy general counsel public policy and government affairs at verizon. she has responsibility for verizon's public policy, federal and state, legislative, and regulatory affairs, antitrust and privacy and strategic alliances. she actually -- it makes me think that maybe she's verizon's david cohen, you know, with that broad portfolio that she has. welcome to kathy. and then, last but not least, as

nicol 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 legislative 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' father was actually an assistant basketball coach at duke

universi university. some of you know i have a particular fondness for duke university. that's back when bucky waters was the coach. so, even though there are times when chris and i don't always agree on things like net neutrality or some 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 out of the basket twice and rolled off? i still haven't fully recovered from that, but we're going to go on. okay, we're going to start with jeff now. now, please try and limit your remarks to five minutes. and jeff, you take off. >> great. thanks, randy. so, it's 2018. here we are talking about net neutrality, again.

i've been talking about this issue since about 2002. as i recall back then, randy, i didn't have any gray hair. i 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 of things we have learned along the way. one is that television comedians probably shouldn't run telecommunications policy. another is that, you know, slogans often win the way in washington. but to go back, i want to go back to 2002 for a second, because 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, a few people sat down and thought about it for a

little while. and you know, 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, you know, what can and cannot happen on this interesting, new medium of the internet. and we thought that 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 that 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 of the time. thank you, david, one of my two comcast got really speeded up lately, and 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 applications 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 of it that might affect what they want to do with their internet connections. and we sort of wrote this all down and we typed it up and all to send it off to the fcc and michael powell thought it was a good idea, and you know, we kind of thought it was like wrapped up with a bow and done. and you know, 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 very much indisputable. what we're really fighting or 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 posit that they aren't the most interesting parts of this 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 like 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 vis-a-vis 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 competition is preserved in the marketplace, and we have a lot of laws on the books to do that. if we need more, we should discuss that. but 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 in this debate. so, just to sort of wrap up to meet the five minutes that randy has us on here, i think that we might be at a good inflection point where we can attempt to

sort of, you know, bank the agreements, whether that's legislatively or regulatorialy, but get down to things that 99.9% of the people that discuss this issue on all grooagree on, to compromise on the remaining issues, recognizing that we don't want to foreclose 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's impinge on technology choices and on opportunities for both business models and for consumers that access things that they want to choose. i would posit that congress is the best place to do this, but you know, that sometimes is a very slow process. we will see. but if we go back to the basics here, i think we'll all find that there's an awful lot of debate and maybe one day we won't have to have a panel on this at this conference. >> great.

well, i guess i would welcome that day, although it is fun. i should have said earlier that the title of this panel -- it's in your brochure, of course, but it is solutions for getting past net neutrality and getting past the 5g future. so, i do 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. >> so, thanks, randy, and congratulations on your tenth conference. that 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 in 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 americans' future and how we make sure we preserve and grow our state-of-the-art networks in the united states and maximize innovation, i think is 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 broadband 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 broadband providers, we would not have state-of-the-art networks, and i will also say that without continuing investment and innovation by the isps, we're not going to maintain our leadership position in the world of having state-of-the-art and

best-in-class broadband networks. thanks to those networks, we deliver the fastest broadband speeds. for many of us, we're doing that through doxis 3.1. at comcast, we're now offering gigabyte speeds in 80% of our footprint, and by the end of this year, we will 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 docsess, symmetrical multigig speeds, going up and down, probably up to ten gig, and 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, which is the fastest and most powerful advanced wireless gateway in the home, which gives you unprecedented control over your wi-fi services. those commercials are not just

jokes. it actually 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 disagree with that statement have never run a business, never made private-sector business decisions or investment decisions. there is unanimity in the corporate sector, whether it's in the broadband space or

otherwise, that having a light regulatory touch is essential to encouraging private-sector investment. and if you compare the regulatory environment for broadband 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's listening, but the solution here is bipartisan legislation that installs once and for all durable, enforceable

net neutrality rules that will once and for all take this issue off the table. the regulatory -- the game of regulatory ping pong, going back and forth as to who's in control of the fcc, is arguably worse than having title two classification, because the uncertainty that that presents is the absolute worst environment to be able to make investment decisions. and then the third, my third point, and i know, randy, and i apologize, it's slightly off point, belongs more in the first panel. but for me and for comcast, and i think for most isps, this is just a fundamental article of faith, which is that it's -- 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 it has an

adoption dimension to it. and i raise it because i think getting all americans connected is a fundamental tenant of digital democracy in the united states, and we're not going to win this argument if we're leaving 25% or 30% of americans behind. and i've just got one point which we can expand on 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, and 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're dealing with a problem that is predominantly, if not almost exclusively, a matter of getting broadband built out to rural american and indian reservations in 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 the 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 pursue public policy, private sector incentives, private sector partnerships with the public, technology, because we may never get wireline broadband to every corner of america. but please, please, please, let's not forgot the three times as many people who are not subscribing to broadband, even though it's running in front of their home. the broadband plant is running in front of their homes. nicol talked about this little bit on the first panel, but we

have to have a public policy and a private sector commitment that is equally focused on broadband adoption issues as well as on broadband 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, the theme of this conference is connecting all of america. so in my view, it all relates together. kathy, you're next. >> so, thanks, randy. thanks for inviting me. this is actually my first panel at a free state conference, not my first panel on net neutrality, i will say, but maybe the last, as we talked about before. but you know, it's funny, i was going to start -- i'll keep my remarks brief because i think our discussion will be very interesting and there are a lot of interesting issues we're going to get to. but i was going to start similar

to the way jeff did. when i was thinking about what to say today, i was thinking back to 2003, which is roughly when this debate started, which is also what coincided with my career at verizon. and what struck me is how much has changed since then. we had a little discussion in our office about what kind of mobile wireless service you had in 2003. you basically would have -- if you had a flip phone, if you even were that advanced and you had a flip phone, you basically had like 180 kilobytes per second on your phone. and that's when we talked about the concepts of openness that have changed over the years, but as jeff pointed out, there's still a lot of commonality about what is important and what should be permanent in terms of protections for consumers. but just think about the internet as we know it now and how different it is from 2003. i mean, then you didn't have a google, you didn't have a facebook, you didn't have an amazon. you didn't have these companies that have become not just

central to just the u.s. or even the global economy, but central to what a consumer's experience is on the internet. and all that happened while we were having 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 that we're 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 the wireline network, but on the mobile side, really, what we're poised to see right now, when we talk about 5g and the transformation, really, to the economy that's going to come and to innovation that's going to come from 5g. so, how do we get there? we need to get past net neutrality. there's no question about that. there are many critical, important issues that chairman pai and administrator redl are

working on right now that will get 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 allow for that 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 i think there's 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 that we can get there. but that's really where we need to land. >> thank you, kathy. and now we're going to turn to chris. and i just want to emphasize, i'm very pleased that chris is here. he, you know, has obviously, he and his organization, public

knowledge, they have a different view on some of these things, and that's why it's important for him to be here. if many of you have been to many of our conferences, having a divergence of diversity of views expressed. 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 a bit like a tarheel in cameron indoor stadium. so, i will do the best i can. no, i do appreciate you having me here, because the only way we resolve this issue is really what the title of the panel's about, getting past net neutrality is i believe to 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 his 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 isp challenge the ability or the power of the fcc to actually protect an open internet. and so, i think we think about what it takes to get past this issue on a policy basis, we have to have folks agree to what net neutrality is. and outside the beltway, there's broad consensus about what it 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 we have strong protections like we had under the 2015 order that can be upheld in court like

the rules in the 2015 order, that are popular and that allow for investment in the network by isps and by the folks on the edge, like the 2015 rules did, when we have that -- and as 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 that were brought up. so, agreeing what net neutrality is. it's bright-line rules that protect proactively against i specifics blocking and throttling content, that protect against paid prioritization schemes that allow for isps that are now getting bigger and bigger and merging with content companies to prefer the content that they own over other 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 isps in the past,

the powell freedoms, the janikowski rules from 2010, it's why we ended up with a title two 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 the easiest way is the current resolution that's been introduced to restore the 2015 rules, since we found that 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 and fastest way to restore net neutrality protections and to move past it. if folks wanted to put forward other types of legislation, it would need to protect the same things that the 2015 rules protected. that's what consumers expect.

that's why you see so many folks writing into the fcc over this decision and setting records. that's why you see state legislators responding to their constituents, doing all sorts of things at the state level that, you know, should have been handled by the fcc at a federal level. so, we need to remember what the bright-line rules are, what clear protections are. legislation would have to do that, but would also have to preserve the ability for the fcc to be -- 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 ed providers. it's important that we have an empowered regulatory agency that works in the public interests to protect consumers and protect competition. that's always been the federal

communicatio communicatio communications' goal. they were normally in the practice of protecting consumers over broadband and wanted to kick it over to the federal trade commission. it needs to be restored. that could also be done through legislation. but we don't want to see 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, things like preserving universal service and protecting against redlining, which we've seen from some internet service providers over the last few years, protecting competition so 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 and the expectations that networks are reliable and that when services go down or when

services are changed, or even when they're upgraded, that we don't lose some of the things that people expect 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're going to stay with the net neutrality issue a little while and then move on to some other things. and you know, 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, you know, she favored legislation. and then i did hear chris say -- first he made a pitch for the congressional review act

resolution, you know. but just assuming for the sake of argument that that's not going to be a -- that that's a nonstarter among our other panelists here. if we're trying to actually resolve this issue right here today, while we're 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 rule brick of net neutrality -- blocking, degrading, you know. most of the major isps, including the ones i think represented here will say that. and then we're going to talk about paid prioritization. but i guess my question -- you know, chris said he'd like to see the rules reinstated, but

just explain. i'm just going to have maybe one or two of you explain why, if you are amenable to many or some of the facets of net neutrality that chris favors, what was in your mind so wrong with it in the 2015 rules? just explain that so that we get that on the table, and then we'll move forward. you want to try that? >> i'm happy to take a shot at that. so, we, speaking for comcast, and i actually 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 have 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 wheeler to impose those rules, and that was classifying broadband or a title two of the telecommunications act, which the industry and i believe almost every serious economist looking at this would uniformly raise their hand and say that classifying broadband as a public utility or classifying isps as a public utility and using title two as your source of authority to impose these rules is a disincentive to investment, and

it is a sort of damaclees happeninging over your head because of the hundreds of things that can be done to isps because they are then classified under title two. by the way, we're not new to this discussion. i mean, when tom wheeler 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, fall of 2010, and all we've been consistently saying is let's let congress do its job. they're 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've got 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 is 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 is it's all about politics. this is all political game of football right now, and that's why nothing's happening. >> okay. now -- and chris, i'll give you

a chance 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 just going to quote from "communications daily." i know one of their esteemed reporters is here. if i get it wrong, he'll look it up, but i know i have this right. you just recently -- i think within the past week -- and i forgot where it was. maybe it was the media institute. it was reported -- "cohen also sought net neutrality legislation to end the game of regulatory ping pong, indicating his company might be open to no paid prioritization, as long as it could do specialized services. a spokeswoman noted he wasn't

making any formal proposals." so, here's my question. you know, 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 prioritization. at least, that's what i believe. so, maybe you can clarify for us, and maybe your spokeswoman is not even here to add to this. what does comcast, you know, because if, 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? is there a difference -- explain to the audience what your position is on paid prioritization and whether

specialized services might help you resolve that, and if so, how? >> so, i'm happy to do that. 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 proposal. but it's part of my point, that if rational people will sit down and talk about this, they can even resolve what has become a third rail around bipartisan net neutrality legislation, which is so-called paid prioritization. so, what i said, and we've had a lot of discussions within the industry, we've had discussions with tech companies, we've had discussions with the ciscos of the world, is how about if we agree to a prohibition on paid prioritization, and we have a limited exception created in some way for this concept of

specialized services, which i think was first defined in julius janikowski's 2010 order and a form of which was in tom wheeler's 2015 order. there is a recognition that something might come along that is not anticompetitive, 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 prioritization. and i believe that that is the case. 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 democrat willing to sit down with him and discuss it, contains an out-and-out prohibition on paid prioritization, not with any specialized services exception. that legislative language simply prohibits paid prioritization. >> okay. >> so, that's my evidence that there's 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. well, that actually sounds like news, at least to some of us. so, thanks for that.

so, what i want to do is ask kathy if she would like to respond to this point, and then jeff, your name was invoked. then we'll come back to chris. and as we go along, we're going to speed it up, speed up these 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, exactly what we will do or not do and what we would support or not support in legislation when it comes to paid prioritization. so, if you go on the verizon.com website, you will see our broadband commitments that spell out clearly our commitment to openness, and what we've said we will or won't do when it comes to what they call paid prioritization. we don't use that term in our commitments because that's not a term that, shockingly, outside d.c. most people have any idea what it means. they know what they're concerned about. they know they're worried about the fast lanes and the slow lanes. we've been very clear from the beginning what's important to our consumers and we've 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, congress 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 that we will be part of that debate. >> okay, i'm going to go to jeff quickly and then back to chris for his response. >> yeah, paid prioritization or prioritization in general is one of the most misunderstood issues that's out there. i wish the press would stop writing fast lanes, slow lanes. the internet has no lanes. do not exist. traffic either goes or it doesn't go. it moves at the speed of electrons, or the speed of light. and when there's congestion, you either drop packets randomly or you drop them intelligently by using some type of

prioritization scheme. now, i would posit that 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 prioritization are hugely in favor of paid prioritization the minute we start having remote surgery occurring across electronic networks. you want those packets to be prioritized. you want them to get through, and you want everything to work right. there is a benefit to doing that. it's not an 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 off before we lose the connection.

that's the kind 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 an 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 cost the cost, they should pay for it, and they will incent the investment in the network. the only issue here we have to worry about is whether it is used for anticompetitive purposes. and so, rather than banning the technology, because that's what a ban on paid prioritization is, is you're 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 anticompetitively, 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 prioritization and quality of service technology, and i think that it would be a real mistake for 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 minutes and respond, if you'd like, and then we'll move on. >> sure. no, this is the right topic to be discussing, because it's the thing i hear the most pushback on, on the hill, when i see legislation that we, quite frankly, can't get behind. the walden bill was mentioned, which had, you know, bans on paid prioritization, bans on blocking, bans on throttling, but it took away any latitude for the fcc to actually do anything outside of those narrow rules. and so, when you do that, there are all sorts of other protections that we mentioned on the previous panel, someone mentioned on this panel, that the fcc would be out of the business of protecting customers on the broadband. so, that's one concern. the current bill from ms. blackburn does not have a

ban on paid prioritization. that's the one that really has gotten attention this year in this congress. on the specifics of what prioritization is, in specialized services, it's important to remember that in restoring the 2015 rules through the cra, or in trying them into law, legislation, which i think this group would prefer, do it either way, but if you do it, let's remember the 2015 rules had an allowance for reasonable network management, which is just what jeff was describing, the ability for a network to say that things that are in realtime need to be managed properly by the isp. that was allowed under the rules. and so, if you're using facetime or you're using some sort of video, 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 prioritization is about fast lanes and slow lanes. that's just one kind of prioritization. and i use lanes metaphorically. i understand how you're talking about the architecture of the internet. but we use the term lane so that average people understand what we're talking about when we're talking about prioritization and putting traffic into a lane is a simple way of doing it, but there are other ways to prioritize. you can prioritize by not having data count against a data cap or other forms of usage-based pricing. we've seen this from comcast and we've criticized that in the past, and i think that led to comcast changing their policy. because there was a threat of enforcement from the fcc, which had bright-line rules. so, the situation we're in right now where we don't have rules is a sticky predicament, and we need to restore those rules so we can have the sort of allowance that i think jeff was describing, where isps can make

these network management decisions. but when it comes to out-and-out, harmful discrimination on the network by isps, that you have a cop on the beat who has the latitude to make specific rules to deal with those 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 regulati regulation. and we're going to try to focus the answers fairly tightly. some say the commission's. the fcc is not protecting

privacy. i think that you and your colleagues have been of that persuasion a bit. and last week we have all this controversy about facebook. we're learning more about their practices, they do or don't protect data. for some that's been part of the equation all along. so i want you fairly briefly just to tell us what your thinking is now in terms of protecting data of either isp subscribers or also, you know, facebook users and google users and how that job should be done. >> sure. >> and then we will go down the line. >> i'm trying to be brief. we were in favor of when the 2015 rules were created the fact that the fcc acknowledged that they needed to create specific rules for broadband that were appropriate for isps to protect

privacy. those rules had been repealed by congress, and what that left us with and the rhetoric that we saw during that fight to repeal those rules was that folks wanted to have an even playing field between isps, same rules for them for privacy as you have for edge providers. we have right now, and lord knows when you look at what is happening with facebook that is dangerous because when you have self-regulatory scheme, which is how the federal trade commission works where they are really no power to create productive rules on privacy but they can enforce after the fact when there's been something that's been violated against a specific privacy principles that a company has laid out for itself, that leads us to where a company like facebook or you could also see it with an isp, because they're so focused on innovation, which we want to see. we want to see them focus on innovation, but they also have to think about the unintended consequences that come with the developmentment of the

technology that they're creating. i like senator warner describing what we're seeing with facebook as the dark underbelly 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're collecting and who has access to it. and by running a social network, you have a responsibility to protect that and we've seen that not protected in this case with facebook. the same goes for isps. they run a different business. they're not in the business of social networks. they're in the business of communications networks. so this is communications networks. what are the expectations for privacy under communications networks that should be enshrined into proactive rules? that's what we saw at the fcc that got repealed. i think we want to see it in both instances with with all layers of the internet, whether you're on the edge or a network. >> i'm going to give cathie and then david a chance just to touch on this issue, and then

i'm going to ask jeff an entirely different when. >> yeah, i think it is important. we thought for a while it is important to have federal framework for privacy regulation that applies across the board and applies to all companies that compete against each other equally. having sector specific regulation, if there's anything that the past month or year has shown it is that it doesn't make sense. we need federal legislation that sets a uniform policy across the country, because one of the things we're seeing is individual states, even localities taking -- putting in regulations if place that aren't the same across the country that just confuse consumers and end up focusing on one sector rather than the other. so we would support that. i think thinking now with the revelations that have come to like we are more likely to see some 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 i agree with cathie. i think that's --

>> can i write it down? >> that is 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 that 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 frc or the ftc. you've got 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, interests in the internet, in net neutrality, in privacy, in data security. there may be an opportunity since i do think the primary problem here is political to bring democrats and republicans, those whom may have their own interest in this broader space to create a significant piece of legislation to protect consumer rights on the internet.

>> randy, just to be clear. >> sure. >> really speak into your mike there. >> sorry. just to be clear, i think when we talk about -- you know, david talking about uniform protection goes, i think we want comprehensive protection. in some instances certain types of information perhaps or certain sectors are more sensitive than others. that's why we have sector specific regulations in health care and banking and traditionally communications network. we want to respect the uniform need to protect privacy, but there's nothing wrong with doing it through different agencies. you're right, congress can make this happen. congress has done it before. they did it in setting up this hub-and-spoke model at sector specific at some level, and then an ftc that has broad jurisdiction but, you know, weaker, narrower authority or power. >> thank you. you know, i'm really glad chris is here. sometimes when i'm listening to him, it reminds me of that basketball, you know, the shot

rolling in. it looks like it is going in, it rolls around again and then it might pop out. >> i get to the point eventually. >> okay. i want to switch gears for a minute and maybe throw jeff a curveball, but i think it is important. you know, there's 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. sisco is, you know, one of our nation's technology leaders. so, you know, if you have just a minute or two, or take just a minute or two, you know, if you have a reaction to any of this. i'm sure we would like to hear it. >> i think, yeah, this is a tougher question than the privacy question, randy. >> i know. that's why i asked it. >> no, i think, you know, we're very committed to free trade and

committed to open markets. it is 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 country 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 are not at fault for the problems who are there, harm consumers because essentially at the end of the day tariffs are taxes and those costs get passed

on to consumers, and are very crude tools that don't actually solve the specific problems that they're trying to address going forward here. so i think, you know, i would suggest that, you know, a stronger way of dealing with these issues is trying to work directly with the areas that are relevant to concern, whether we're 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 that they should have market access. i think we need a more nuanced approach that is -- 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 autos. it didn't work particularly well and i don't think it is going to

work particularly well in this instance. so, you know, 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 is not all about net neutrality. the theme of the conference is connecting all of america. so i'm going to just ask you about the fcc's lifeline proposals. you know, as some of you in this room know, maybe many of you -- and i said this earlier -- we're proud free market advocates at the free state foundation, and we think we're consistent and principled on that score, but i've always actually been a long-time advocate myself of a lifeline program that's effective and works.

we, of course, don't want waste, fraud and abuse, but to me that's been -- 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, you know, proposals. i've actually commented 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 cathie and chris might be the most likely candidates. >> yes, we participated in a proceeding. i think our focus has always been on the national verifier database and making sure that was up and running. that was really important reform

for a lot of reasons, that not only helped eliminate some of the waste, fraud and abuse but also just made the program more streamlined, made it easier to participate, made it more fair. that's what we've been focusing on with our engagement at the commission similar to what dr. lee said before. >> chris, you are going to get the last word here. >> i also agree with dr. lee. it is important that we don't let the passion for eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, which is important in government perhaps, to lead to policy decisions that limit a program that is an essential safety net like you said, randy. so where it leads to caps on the lifeline program, it 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

standalone broadband funded by the lifeline program to match the direction that the industry is going with its convergence i think is something we would be concerned about. you can do that and you can look out waste, fraud and abuse at the same time. so i would agree with what cathie 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. 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 rou speaks, 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 cathie 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 is 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. you know, make sure there's enough food for everyone. okay. now, please, i want you to join me in thanking this panel. it was great. we appreciate it. stay in your seats, and we'll have one more speaker before lunch.

great. good to see you. okay. i'm going to ask everyone to

take their seats again. we're going to try to stay on schedule. so we start our lunch. so if everyone will take their seats, we would appreciate it. then, as you know, of course, during the lunch session we've got the conversation with commissioners brendon carr and michael o'reilly, the fcc commissioner. so i know that will be an exciting and interesting educational part of the program. okay. it is now my pleasure to introduce to you naomi row. am i pronouncing your name right i hope. she is administrator of the office of information and

regulatory affairs. that's the omb office, focused on regulatory review. i hope the administrator doesn't mind me saying this, 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. administrator rao has a distinguished background on the faculty of george mason university law school, now the scalia law school, and really is 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 will just say

this. as many of you know, i have -- i've been involved in the administrative law area myself now for many decades and so i'm familiar with the work of naomi rao and what she's done and how she has contributed to the scholarship on administrative law. so it is exciting to have you here today to talk about the administration's regulatory policy. thank you. >> thanks so much, randy, for that nice introduction, and to the free state foundation for inviting me to joiner f you for conference. i understand actually now i'm the only thing standing between you and lunch so i will try not to be too long-winded about

administrative law. so in my remarks, it is a conference about telecommunications but in my remarks i wanted to step back from some of the more specific topics of the panels and focus 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 frameworks, and they've eliminated or streamlined regulatory burdens that are duplicative or outdated or simply ineffective. a little more than a year ago president trump issued executive order 13771, which really ushered in a shift in the regulatory landscape by calling for the reduction of two regulations for each new one and a zero regulatory cost cap for agencies. that executive order as well as a number of other executive

orders really focused the agencies on the drag of accumulated regulations, and, you know, previous -- across previous administrations, whether democratic or republican, we've seen the regulatory burden just continue to increase, and we've 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 according to my offices, quite frankly conservative calculations we saved over $8 billion in regulatory costs. in the coming year agencies are working on some even more far-reaching reforms and committed to reducing regulatory costs even further. so from our perspective, we consider these reforms to be a very important component of promoting economic growth and prosperity, principles that i know are very important to this organization. you know, we believe that lifting excessive government regulation can stimulate the economy, and in the past few months i think we've seen a lot

of economists and commentators, even "the new york times" sort of point to a link between the past year's economic growth and the slow down of regulation. i think that's in part because the administration is really advancing a 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 the environment. i hear frequently from businesses and individuals that they're no longer worried about arbitrary new burdens that are being imposed by guidance documents or by substantial new costly regulations. so we hope that individuals and companies can proceed with confidence that we're 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 in

telecommunications and other sectors where the success of some of these very ambitious ventures will depend at least in part on a regulatory system that's not standing in the way of progress. so why don't we start with the basic idea that the government shouldn't be picking winners and losers through regulation. we don't want to regulate in a way that freezes technological development or stifles innovation through government prescription. this year we're focused on more deeper cost-cutting reform efforts, you know, particularly around this topic of emerging technology. i 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. similarly at this conference many people are working to improve connectivity and advance the future of telecommunications. now, with respect to telecommunications-related regulations in particular, reviews that in a few different way. we review the regulatory actions

of the ntia which is within the commerce department and the rural utility service which is within the usda, the department of agoriculture. we don't formally review rules of the fcc because it is an independent agency, but we work with the fcc in a number of ways. for example, we review the agenda of regulatory and deregulatory actions. we must also review and approve their information collections. so under the paperwork reduction act one of the things we do is review all of the forms that agencies put out on the public. so, you know, we work with the agency to make sure they're minimizing the reporting and disclosure requirements they're imposing on the public. i think it is also interesting that fcc chairman pai, who actually was a law school classmate of mine also at chicago, is, you know, working on creating this office of economic analysis. you know, we anticipate that the office will build on some of the

long-standing economic principles that are used in regulatory review. you know, we want to make sure that part of this process, agencies regulate only to solve an actual problem, right, such as a substantial market failure. at 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 cost and benefits of the rules, you know, taking into account the public comments and stakeholder input. so i think this is going to be a really important step for the fcc to improve the economic analysis of their regulatory process and, you know, one of the things we do with many of the agencies, you know, independent and executive branch agencies, is serve as a resource for advancing their market-based regulatory reforms.

i just wanted to mention, you know, as an administration we're very focused on pulling back these regulatory burdens, but we really are trying to do this in a very responsible and beneficial way. we are not in the business of dismantling important health and safety regulations, and we're proceeding with deregulation carefully. we apply the same cost benefit standards to regulatory and deregulatory actions, which means, you know, in essence that for deregulatory action the benefits have to outweigh the costs. so we're only deregulating where -- where that results in net benefits to the public. i think it is also interesting. sometimes people have said to me, well, isn't this deregulation just about helping big businesses. i think from my perspective, oftentimes the regulatory frameworks are put in place by big business or power interest groups and, in turn, they create barriers for entry to smaller businesses. they limit competition, and as a

result then raise substantially the costs of goods and services for all of us. we are really focused on lifting burdens that are just no longer working. let me say a little bit about why i think some of these reforms are also so important, you know, to the rule of law. you know, 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 an agency that's looking to regulator really deregulate is to make sure that what they're doing is consistent with law. so we work with agencies the make sure that they're interpreting statutes to mean what they say, and we want to respect the law making power of congress by not expanding the authority of the executive branch. so many of the statutes under

which agencies regulate, of course, are very open ended, but we want to make sure that agencies are not acting as though they have a blank check from congress to make law. you know, 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've been working on with the white house counsel's office, we want to make sure that agencies not imposing new requirements through guidance documents or speech else or faqs. you know, we're trying to really working to change the regulatory culture so that when an agency issues guidance, it is, in fact, just guidance and they're not using it as a back door to imposing new regulatory requirements without the type of administrative process and accountability that's necessary for a legitimate regulatory system. many agencies have taken this to heart and are working on kind of an elaborate project to identify and to catalogue their guidance

document. it is harder than it even sounds. some agency officials said to me, we don't even have any idea what guidance we have or how many guidance document also we have. we don't know where they all are. it 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 respective businesses. i also think, you know, from my perspective, i was a professor of structural constitutional law. regulatory constitutes more government. i think the centralized review process that it imposes provides for greater accountability for regulatory policy, which in turn promotes democratic values. we ensure that agencies are promoting presidential pir priorities and that regulatory law is consistent across the government. in this particular administration one of our primary focuses has been on

reducing the overall regulatory burden, and that's an initiative that we work with all of the agencies on. just finally the connection between regulatory reform and individual liberty. i think reform promotes economic growth. i think it promotes rule of law values, but perhaps most important lifting many of these unnecessary burdens results in greater individual liberty. you know, government regulation, of course, sometimes can serve important health and safety goals, but, you know, congress has already ensured we live in a highly-regulated society. but we want to make sure when the government is now acting that it serves a purpose. we don't want regulation to be a solution in search of a problem. so many regulations on the books that are duplicative or outdated and the regulations just pile on top of regulations. so getting the government out of the way and lifting regulatory burdens restores more freedom to individuals, families and businesses. we believe that a more lawful,

fair and limb imtited regulator system allows the economy to grow and innovation to flourish. it helps all-americans by trusting them to make decisions that will result in greater prosperity and happiness and less reliance on the government. so in telecommunications and elsewhere we are implementing regulatory policy for the american people based in freedom and free markets. thanks very much for your attention. [ applause ] >> thanks so much, naomi. that was terrific. you know, in years past we've often had someone here to talk more generally about regulatory policy in addition to the telecom focus, and even some of your predecessors in your position. so it is wonderful to have you

here. so we've got time for just maybe one or two questions before we break for lunch and administrator rao graciously agreed to answer some. i'm going to ask you this one which i think probably can be quick. you know, when we were putting together your bio -- by the way, i should have mention, naomi clerk on the supreme court for justice thomas. i mean i could have gone on, but i confess when we got to the sentence that said rao is a former professor of structural constitutional law i did have one of our proof readers tell me that that must be wrong because she had never heard of structural constitutional law. >> uh-oh. >> you just mentioned that. i think i have an idea about what that might mean, but maybe in just a sentence or two tell us why that course is called structural constitutional law. >> sure. i guess, you know, as to

distinguish it from some of the other constitutional law courts, the structural constitutional -- the structure of the constitution relates to thinking about how the text and structure of the constitution set forth the powers of the three branches of the government. you know, we focus on article one, you know, legislative pours. article two, the executive pours. of course, article three, the judicial power, and how they interact with each other. that's something i have been very interested in. i have worked in all three branch else of the government, and i think one of the most important things is to make sure that there's a balance between all three branches of the government and that they're all, you know, exercising their respective pours, you know, but kind of within their boundaries. >> right. okay. i'm going to ask whether there are any questions for the administrator. i've got microphones here in the audience. do we have any questions?

well, i'm going to ask one more then, and then we will break up. i mean you initially mentioned the two-fo-or-one effort that president trump announced very early on, and i remember it wasn't too long ago, a couple of months ago i think there was a white house ceremony in which there was some recounting of what had been accomplished. but, you know, as someone who, you know, was in government himself over at the fcc and has observed for a long time, i mean it seems like that's a very noble but incredibly difficult goal to achieve. so 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, you know, we have worked really hard i think to exceed what the president set out in the executive order but it has been a lot of hard work on the part of the agencies and on the part of my office. one of the things -- i think that one of the things that the executive order -- the executive order did is really -- i think one of the things that it did -- >> maybe i think he's asked you -- let's grab -- >> okay. how's that sound? oh, yeah. okay. i think one of the things that the executive order did is that it really focused agencies on this idea, you know, of slowing down the imposition of new regulatory burdens and really thinking about what regulatory burdens can be pulled back. i think part of the reason it

has worked is we have, you know, issued a number of guidance documents on how this is supposed to be implemented, but we're asking agencies to look for regulatory burdens in whatever form they may arise so that could be guidance documents or paperwork burdens. of course, also regulations. i think, you know, we've -- all of the information about how we're doing this is on our website, so we've been pretty transparent about the regulatory and deregulatory actions. i think there's also -- you know, the president cares about this issue and he talks about it at cabinet meetings and he talks about it in his speeches, and i think that that has made it easier for us to make sure that agencies are meeting their deregulatory burdens. i mean there's a lot of scope for regulatory reform, and if agencies aren't being forward-leaning we have lots of ideas for them. and, you know, through the 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 administrator rao one more time, i just want to mention that when we do break we're going to have a buffet lunch to my left. i already see commissioners carr and o'reilly are here, so we are going to be starting the conversation with them just about around 12:40 or so, maybe 12:45. so you'll want to go to lunch. in the nature of, i guess, mundane administrative matters someone 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've 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 get everyone

here ready for lunch. now, with that said, i want to -- you know, naomi, earlier this morning when your administration colleague was here, david rettle, from ntia, i told him i wanted to present him with a small token of appreciation for being here. i emphasized it was really small because it is basically this pen that i have here. but, look, here's something to make you feel better about that. back when i was -- when i was chair in 2004-2005 of the abas section of administrative law and regulatory practice, as our tokens of appreciation that year we had these little cubes that had enclosed in them supposedly apas, the administrative procedure act, that little cube. you know, i think this pen from the free state foundation is

worth every bit as much as that little cube with an apa. it does have the unique thing, that when you use it every time you write regulatory reform it comes out automatically in all caps and in red letters, so that should be good. with that i want you to thank -- join me in thanking naomi rao. we are going to go to lunch. hopefully that wall will open over there. . earlier this week the center for american progress hosted their an wral ideas conference in washington, d.c. featuring presentations and discussions by progressive legislators, journalists and organizers. you can see it tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span3. also online at c-span.org or

listen with the free c-span radio app. in prime time tonight on the other c-span network goes, for 1968 america in turmoil series, a discussion on the cold war. our guests are elizabeth cobbs, historian, documentary filmmaker and hoover fellow. and mark kramer, of harvard university's project on cold watt studies. that's tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. on r span 2 the health oversight and government reform committee reviews a progress report on the 2020 sen chavoucensus. members talked with the acting attorney general on civil rights and you can watch it tonight starting at 8:00 on c-span 2. i approached some abandoned huts, and when i got to the site of the hut a north vietnamese soldier came out of the ground. my guys saw him but it was too late. he threw a hand grenade at me.

and the grenade hit one of the poles in the hut, you know, large oak beam or whatever the wood is there, mahogany beam, and bounced off and then it went off and it peppered my -- well, you know, my flack jacket, ripped my entrenching tool in the back, a shovel, and cut the handle off of that and threw me to the ground and my leg, a piece of shrapnel hit my leg. >> watch our five-week series with vietnam war veterans starting sunday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. . up next, options for making high efficiency fuels in vehicles more available. member also of the house energy and commerce subcommittee on the environment heard from representatives from the oil, auto and agriculture industry. this is a