with each other, how we work in our businesses, how we participate in our government. it is how would create jobs and contribute to economic growth. i see our communications infrastructure is our platform for innovation and opportunity for the 21st century. that is what really drives what we are trying to accomplish at the fcc. is the federal agency that has to deal with this landscape. at the highest level, our goals are to promote investment throughout the communications ecosystems, to promote innovation and thereby promote global competitiveness of the united states, to promote competition, because that is how we will get the most innovation and investment, and to protect and empower consumers. >> before we get into some specific issues, there are two things i noticed from reading

your speeches. number one, the use of the word ecosystem, and the use of the word robust. could you talk about those a little bit? >> i do not think i did that deliberately. on ecosystems, it is an important concept because there are so many different pieces of this communication landscape or infrastructure. take our networks, all work wired networks over which communications travel, or wireless networks, too. we need ongoing investment in those networks. we need those networks to get more robust and smarter. there has been billions of dollars of private investment over the last number of years. that is essential, and it is essential that it continue. that is part of the ecosystem. another part is the innovation and investment that occurs at the edge of the network.

where applications and content are being developed to travel over the wires or through the spectrum. what we need as a country is for the whole ecosystem to be growing, innovating, and creating jobs and contributing to the economic growth of our country. robust, we see every day in what we want out of our communications infrastructure. when we go to the internet, we wanted to be faster. when we go to our mobile phones, we want that to be faster, especially as we use it to connect to the internet. that is what we mean by a robust, in terms of the quality of the services. when i think about robust, i also mean in terms of competition. in this country, that is what we rely on more than anything else to generate investment and innovation. robust also as a source of information flow.

increasingly on line, on our communication networks is where we will have the marketplace of ideas for the future that is so beneficial to the country. there is an extraordinary opportunity to have that be as robust as possible and really drive of vibrant marketplace of ideas. >> if you could, given what we have already talked about, give us an update on the national broadband plan and were you see that going. >> congress in the recovery act identified broadband as an important strategic priority for the country. the goal of universal broadband having all americans have access to broadband, high-speed

internet for the future. recognized that the u.s. is lagging in many respects behind other countries. so congress and the president did to make things. they set aside some new term money in grants as a first step to move the country forward on broadband. the commerce and agriculture departments or-treating those funds -- are distributing those funds. they look at the issue and lay out a plan for long-term success is a broad band. there are some real challenges when it comes to broadband. congress asked them to look at three sets of issues. first, the deployment issue. we have seen in our work that while much of the country does have access to broadband, there are parts of the country that do not, particularly in rural

america, if you want to sign of for broadband, there are literally no options at all. that is about 10% of the country, and that is an issue that we will be trying to address as part of this plan. second, there is an adoption challenge. in the bulk of the country that does have access to broadband, the percentage of americans that do not use it is too high. generally across the country, it is about 40% of americans who do not use broadband, do not sign up for broadband, and more troubling, and in certain communities the percentage is closer to 60% or 65%. among low-income americans, among elderly, in rural america, among our seniors, and that is a real challenge. the costs of not being on our

broadband infrastructure are growing in our digital economy. the third thing they asked us to look at is making sure we have a strategy so that broadband helps us succeed on a whole series of national priorities that are important to our country. education, health care, energy, public safety, and each of these, making sure we have the right levels of connectivity is essential to meeting our goals for addressing these issues. in our broadband plan which is due in february, we will be tackling each of these issues and seeking to lay out a plan that will be pursued after that for achieving ultimately the goal of universal broadband. >> you talked about the cost of not having broadband. or their estimates -- there are

estimates up to 300 to $2 billion to get the country on universal broadband. who do you foresee paying for that? >> the private sector has invested substantial money in broadband, and that will have to be the key to the success of broadband going forward. we will be looking at a variety of ways to make sure we are incentivizing the broadest possible investment in broadband networks and leveraging that. >> where will the rest come from? >> that is something we are looking at. at this point, we are about 90 days away from our plan. we are cognizant of the difficult economic times that the country is in, and we are very focused on what we can suggest, what we can recommend to make sure that our broadband infrastructure becomes an enduring platform for job

creation and economic growth in this country. where we have seen opportunities to move forward and accelerate broadband and create jobs sooner rather than later, we are moving forward. last week that are commission meeting, the unanimous commission adopted rules to speed up tower siding for mobile broadband. a lot of applications to build out the towers that are necessary for our mobile networks get stuck. we identified some ways and are less commission meeting where we can accelerate the build out of towers while respecting state and local governments and their right to manage local zoning issues. we moved on that right away, because we see that as something that can contribute to near-term job creation. when companies can move forward and put up towers and rollout networks, that employs people, and the networks themselves will

contribute to economic growth and activity and job creation. >> german genachowski, where is the universal service fund fall in this? you have been quoted as saying it is a little flawed and outdated. do you see it being used to employ broadband? >> universal service fund has been a great achievement for the country. it is a fund that has for a long time supported the goal of universal telephone service around the country. we live in a very large country, and some areas the population is very dispersed. in areas where the population is not very dense, it costs a lot more person to bill at telephone network. over the years we have developed a fund to support the build out vision of telephone service in

those areas. the universal service fund also supports low-income people who cannot afford telephone service, and portion supports connecting every classroom in the country to the communications network. that is the good news. the bad news is, the program is struggling, given the changes in the marketplace. there are other issues creating stretches on the program, and there is a wide bipartisan group that has sought reform of the universal service fund for quite some time. the last element of the program that needs reform is that it is targeted at the kind of communication service that we had when we were growing up, ordinary telephones. what we need to do is reorient the universal service fund to support the next generation of communication services and

rabin. that is something that is widely recognized as desirable. there are a lot of hard questions in the area of how we get from here to there. it will take a while to devise a way to reform universal service and to implement it, but there is widespread agreement that we need to reorient the universal service fund to broadband for our communications infrastructure in the 21st century. >> do you foresee an increase in the usf or attacks on broadband writers? >> we have to find a way to reform universal service in a way that saves money and does not increase the burden on consumers. we need to find a way to promote universal service for all americans, so that as a country, our communication platforms serve everyone. >> one more question about

broadband deployment. i want to get your response to senator rockefeller. he warns the fcc of the direction of the broadband plan. he is worried the fcc has been lowering expectations of the plan by signalling it could be a work in progress with additional details to be filled in as more data becomes available. >> senator rockefeller and senators kno snowe pushed throue program i mentioned before. we welcome the push by senator rockefeller to make sure we have a plan that really pushes the ball forward in a significant way on meeting the goal of congress and the president. i think everyone understands that in a changing landscape,

the last thing we want is to have a plan that is written and is interesting that gets put in a drawer and then looked at a few years later. we have senator rockefeller's support on developing a living, breathing plan that makes progress, says milestones, and has mechanisms built into continually improve the plan and technology changes to promote universal broadbent in america. >> our guest is the federal communication commission chairman, julius janikowski. moving on to another topic, this is the reason coverage of information article. you were not quoted in the article, but you were featured on the front. the opening line says that you use genachowski is scared about

a spectrum shortage. >> we have a looming issue, a looming crisis when it comes to spectrum. we all increasingly use mobile phones, and the number of mobile phones in this country is very high. the race -- rate of increase in the adoption of smart phones is increasing very fast, as are the error cards, the cards that you plug into your computer that give you mobile broadband connections. that is increasing as well. it is an extraordinary technology. it is magic hell it works, that you can be carrying around a laptop or looking -- magic how it works. we all want the access to be fast. technology is allowing it to get faster and faster, increasingly to support the video -- use of

video on spectrum and mobile devices. it is very important for the country that this works. this is one of our main areas for economic growth and job creation in the u.s. for the next decade and beyond. it is essential to global competitiveness. here is the challenge. we have coming on line spectrum that represents about three times and increase of what is available now for broadband. three times as much as what is available now. the challenge is that when you look at the demand charts that predict mobile broadband usage based on smart phones and mobile internet, it is a 30 times increase in capacity we can expect in the years ahead.

that difference, that gap between three times as much spectrum coming on line and demand increasing by 30 is the gap i am worried about, and something we need to tackle. we need to do some long-range planning for the country. takes a long time to make changes when it comes to spectrum policy. we will need to look at the spectrum chart on the commercial side, on the government side, to see where we can find additional spectrum. there are no easy pickings on the spectrum chart. there are hard choices to make. we need to find ways to look at spectrum policy to encourage more efficient use of spectrum. there are policies like potentially secondary licensing of spectrum, more spectrum flexibility that will encourage private market and lead to more efficient use of spectrum. we need to see what if anything

we can do to encourage greater efficiency in devices in our smart phones and other devices, so that we can get more out of our spectrum to meet this demand that we see coming. it is essential that we needed for job creation and for the global competitiveness of our country. >> what happened to the idea that was loaded about turning some of the spectrum over to the wireless industry? >> there are a lot of ideas on what we can do to meet the spectrum challenge. we have not said anything about which ideas are the best. we are just at the beginning of the process. i am told that the average, from the time the fcc starts proceeding in this area is 13 years. this is a long-term planning issue for the country. we know the problem is coming. it is not coming next week, next

month, or next year. but we need to start our work now so that we can have smart and sensible long-term spectrum policy for the country. >> what is the status of the spectrum dedicated to product safety? >> we do not stop and think about this very much, but when our first responders and police officers and firefighters show up at a scene to do their work, there is almost nothing more important to them than the ability to communicate with each other. there are a couple of challenges that are very important. as we saw from 9/11 and as the commission report pointed out, we are not where we should be as a country when it comes to insure opera ability, the ability of a firefighter and police officer to get to a scene and communicate with each other. that is an important issue we need to tackle. when it comes to broadband, we all want our first responders to

have access to 21st century communication tools. we want him to have access to mobile broadband, to use video. when an ambulance shows up at the scene of an accident, we want them to have every communication tool imaginable to be able to communicate back to the emergency room, including mobile video. we know this will save lives. it is a real challenge, because it costs money to do. there are challenges to it. it is something we are looking at as part of the broadband plan, and something we are focused on because it is so important for the country. >> cliff stearns, the ranking republican on the internet subcommittee at the house, told us he was surprised that you brought net neutrality to the forefront of the issues facing the fcc, because you had not

talked to him about it before. what was it that got you to look at that issue? >> the fcc has been focused on open internet issues for quite some time. in 1995, the fcc announced open internet principles that are designed to preserve a free and open internet. those principles were applied as conditions to mergers. the reinforced last year. all of this was done in a way that did not rely on a typical procedures. as we are in this period for the future of the internet is unfolding so fast before us, i think it is important that we make sure we preserve a free and

open internet and that there is no confusion that this internet will remain free and open. it has been an extraordinary success in terms of being a platform for innovation, economic activity, and the free flow of information. that success is tied directly to the open architecture of the internet, and it is essential that we preserve the internet as a vibrant marketplace of ideas. it is essential we preserve the internet as a vibrant marketplace work product services, and what we are looking to do is adopt high level rules of the road that make it clear that the internet has to remain free and open, a marketplace for competition, for

businesses and for ideas as well. >> you mentioned the four freedoms that have been encoded in the fcc and you have added to that you would like to see passed as rules. what are they? >> one is what we call transparency principle. this is a principal that would make sure that network management practices adopted by internet service providers are clear to people. there is no question that companies that are managing internet networks, whether wired networks or wired networks, that those companies need to be able to manage their networks in a reasonable way. the rules that the fcc proposed recognize the necessity of having reasonable network management. part of the landscape we think will help on this issue is the landscape that includes transparency. we think that if consumers and

new businesses that want to start on the internet understand the management practices, they will be able to adjust to them. an issue that might otherwise come to the fcc will be resolved early. the other principle is the nondiscrimination principle. this has also been a core notion of the internet from the time that it started. it is implicit in what the fcc has been doing in this area, including its enforcement action last year. it makes it clear there is a nondiscrimination principle, so there is no question that the internet will remain free and open, and also that companies that are managing networks can engage in reasonable practices so that together we can create a

climate with incentives for ongoing investment in the network to make it robust and smarter, and that also generates investment and innovation on the edge of the network so that any entrepreneur can come up with an idea and put it out on the internet and have a chance to compete and to make a business. this is the real issue for small businesses who have the opportunity to either grow existing businesses or start new ones. it is also a real opportunity for content creators of all sorts. the internet is a platform or you can develop an idea and reach a very broad audience. that is the internet that everyone understands. our core goal is to make sure we preserve that for the next generation on the internet. >> what kind of comments are you

getting? your use of the phrase "reasonable network management" caught the eye of several consumer groups lately as well progres>> we will be starting se open workshops on this topic. if we can get all the interested parties participating in the process, engineers, public- interest groups, there is a lot of common ground here. there is a common national desire to preserve a free and open internet, to let consumers in the marketplace pick winners and losers, and hopefully the process will narrow the issues and create a path where we can do the right thing to make sure that we preserve a free and open

internet in the united states. >> net neutrality studies by fcc also attended by google. it is a commentary that says the net neutrality studies done at harvard had microsoft and google funded in part. >> this is an area where there are a lot of studies coming in from a lot of people. we will have a very open process that will look at all the information that comes in. we have a great staff of experienced engineers and economists who are approaching this with no bias other than doing the right thing for the american people. it is important to understand that this issue is not about google or other large companies that can take care of themselves. this is about the next generation of small businesses and i to printers. this is about making sure the internet continues to be a

place that a company we have not heard of yet can have a place to start and launch their businesses and reach the widest possible audience. >> indecency has come up recently at the fcc under your tenure. do you have any plans to pursue indecency in the media? >> the commission has an obligation to enforce the law, and we will do that. it is in litigation and the supreme court upheld the fcc a few months ago, but sent elements its index elements of it back to open court. parents have concerns about what kids are exposed to, and want to make sure they are empowered to do what they think is best for their children. i am an optimist in this area. i think that with new technologies, we will find solutions to empower parents to

protect kids that are completely consistent with the first amendment and i hope will make some of the harder elements of this issue go away. parents do not want our first amendment rights undermine. they just want to be able to exercise their responsibilities as parents to protect their kids. that is what i hope we will see coming out of the marketplace in the time ahead. >> de have a guiding philosophy when it comes to media ownership rules, and do you foresee action at the fcc on media ownership rules? >> we have an obligation given to us by congress to review media ownership rules every two years. 2010 is a review year. in the past, the fcc has missed its target date, and we are not going to do that. we have already started our ownership proceedings with a series of workshops here in

2009. it is consistent with our general goal, trying to handle difficult, complex issues in an open, participatory manner that focuses on the facts and the data and the goals and objectives we have as a country. in this area, there continues to be concerned about excessive consolidation, but there are clearly changes going on in the marketplace that we will pay attention to as well. we see newspapers not only under pressure but in some cases closing down, laying off employees. this is not healthy to see news gathering in our country under pressure. we need a by rent media business in the country if a vibrant media business in the country. we will be doing t