is the internet can be a technology control -- technology of control, as well as freedom. there are ways -- the old conventional wisdom was you could not stop the internet. we see around the world there are ways to control the internet. countries are taking measures. that was a little unexpected. it is one of the trends we will have to watch. we experience it firsthand at google. it is something we will all need to work on as a community to make sure that people can have continued access. . .

>> you mention briefly some of the buzzwords of neutrality. what would it take for google to have a different perspective on

what an ideal regulatory regime might look like? in a realistic way -- i imagine -- if we just swamped fios , dsl and so on -- i don't want to put words in your mouth, but i guess he might be willing to say that -- [laughter] >> not if he wants to keep his job he won't. >> i understand and biz is all hypothetical, but by what is it that would change in the world -- let me give one small

example. you mentioned reno vs. aclu. you may recall that justice stevens in the majority opinion said that users seldom encounter unwanted content by accident. i think that may have been true when he said it in 1997. i would like to know what percentage of people in this room had ever encountered material on the internet by accident in 12 -- has anybody encountered material added one to by accident? that has changed. some might say as a result of that, that combined with the availability of levels of indecency that i think people are not imagining -- maybe we should rethink the. -- rethink that. are there things that could

happen to make you think things ought to be done differently. >> i think it's an interesting question and i think there probably would be iterations of the internet where people did not have control. i don't think it's about random chance encounter with content you don't want to see, i've been it's about control that is unprecedented. if that were to disappear, we would have to rethink some of these basic issues. the other end of the extreme is i expressed concern about the ability of people to control what people have access to, for example government. one hope is that there'll be effective anti-censorship tools of there so people can circumvent -- and i use that in the get around censorship kind of way, not the copyright way -- that people can evade any kind

of censorship that could be put up to access their ability to content. we could be a lot less concerned about the effort to control people see because people have the tools and those tools have not materialized. on both ends of the spectrum, you can imagine iterations of the future internet where people either have no control themselves or infinite control and we would be less worried about these issues. >> on that neutrality, if we have a world where there are eight meaningful competitors, all of them can provide wonderful, high-speed access to the internet, and there are basic transparency rules, so if they are restricting are charging different prices, the world knows it.

do we need anything more than that? >> i will make this easy and say we've been on the record saying if there was a lot of competition in this space, a lot of these concerns about openness and needs to have basic rules would disappear. for example, in the wireless space, we have often argued it is a different space. i'm not sure we think it is a perfect one or that we have solved all the problems, but it's different because there's more competition we have seen in the wireline broadband space. so i think that would make a difference, just as it would if there were only one. >> i want to disagree a little bit. consumers have to have a place to go after broadband provider is blocking their content or inspecting their bets. there needs to be a process and that is within that neutrality debate is about. the ability for consumers, if they believe there isp is

somehow blocking or doing inspection without permission, for them to go to the fcc. consumers need to have a place to go. then you have the termination monopoly. the example i give is that i sell gigi water and if at&t decides to give preference to fiji water, if someone is a customer of of at&t, they will never see my water, so you have determination problem. you could have 10 competitors but still have determination monopoly problem. -- you still have the termination monopoly problem. the need for some of the competition policies that we at public knowledge talk about, unbundling, line sharing, not be

necessary. but it's not a technological development that will take care of it. it will be a regulatory development. until a technology is available that allows one to access the internet with a wire or licensed for spectrum, the only way we're going to have competition is it the government acts. there's no two ways about it. maybe the miracle technology is 20 years down the road, but it's not realistic. if the fcc and government moved away from an exclusive licensing system and more toward unlicensed -- that of the dish all be unlicensed, but you have the technology, the smart radio technology i talked about, that allows dynamic sharing and preventing interference when two people on the same frequency, back to allow for more internet access and competition.

that might be realistic development where you did not need some of the other competition policies we have talked about. >> what would it take for you to think that a license doesn't work? let's say there is a new nationwide flood of a certain number of megahertz and it turns out smart radio technology does not take off, for whatever reason. maybe investors are out there or the technology doesn't work as well as we thought. maybe some people are using different protocols and there's a level of interference and nobody can get through. is there an area where you would say maybe the license isn't the way to go? >> i suppose there is. if the technology sales -- but i have greater faith in applications providers than you do. when people talk about the internet and that neutrality, they say how are people going to

build these applications because there's so much congested and how was video going to go through? it is funny that applications providers are not the ones making these arguments. the network owners are. applications providers and device manufacturers seem to be a build applications and devices to suit and open internet. i don't see why device manufacturers -- they are already building them and they already work. it's only going to get better. i have greater faith we're never going to come to the scenario you have laid out. >> what are the developments that would lead you to reconsider something you have been advocating that don't involve asteroids? >> most of the ones i think of have more to do with consumers and how they operate on the

internet. things around privacy, cyber security, those kinds of things to me are in the longer term, the kinds of things if they're not dealt with successfully by a industry and policy makers and consumer groups, then they could undermine the future of the internet, much more so than some of the other issues we have been talking about. this is about the consumer. you are looking at a technology that's interactive and allows the consumer to have much more control and do things like create their own content. when you talk about getting access to things you don't have access to, things like spy aware that the consumer doesn't have control over. -- things like spyware. things like how we manage the networks, with the speed means when you listed, but i think

applications -- i think gigi is wrong. i think these device guys can do it and the network guys complain about it. they have to work together in the to work together and talk about these things. a good example is p2p technology. there was concern about ingestion and the industry got together in a groove stimulated by network providers. we all worked together to figure out how to make technology work better with the network. a lot of times the applications can have a bad of fact on the network. not intentionally, but they can. -- can have a bad effect on the network. if you can get a wide range of folks together on the industry and they're not looking at developing protocols or new standards for the industry, which is what most bodies do today, but a place for the to talk about trends, what kinds of

things we need to do to address these issues and talk about ideas and not try to think of fixes, it could be a helpful development both for the industry and for policy makers. now the policy makers have a place to go and people say it's a problem. i hope that happens as a result of that idea. >> i like to talk about the privacy point because i think it's a great one. we haven't talked much about privacy, but if you look at what is happening in the physical world outside of the internet space, with the rise of ubiquitous sensing technologies, cameras are cheaper, the ability to collect more information about all of us is growing. there needs to be a response from industry and from government. the idea of a technical advisory group, people to get together and work on things is a great one.

a lot of us want to come up with good rules to govern access for this information. we have not updated our own surveillance laws in years. as to be good rules for what industry does and also needs to be an update, and i think we'll see this debate on capitol hill, not necessarily in this congress, but in the next, about how we update the laws that govern access to this information. >> i'm assuming you are not a huge fan of that neutrality. what if your wildest dreams come true and verizon wireless becomes the dominant player in wireless service? it turns out all the other companies cannot cut it and you got 94% of the wireless market. what is the point at which you say we are so dominant that neutrality proponents have been

so scared of, we now acknowledge could happen. is there a point where you could see that what happened? >> i think there is a misperception that our company and other players in the broadband internet industry are suggesting everything be totally de-regulated. it's not that he said we should have no role for government, but a different role. the role we have traditionally -- i read an interesting book about the history of regulation, there are four regulators mentioned. the first was charles adams who set a framework that we used in 1887 for the railroad act. we used the same framework we have used for decades. what tom said was using that same kind of approach, we tend to be stopping things and making it difficult for the internet to evolve. we would like to see an approach

that does three things. one has a stronger role for the technical folks so we get ongoing advice and ideas about how these things evolve and what it means for policy potentially. second is the government is a backstop. it is there in case there are bad actors and in case people do things that harms users or competition. the third thing we said is we need to deal with these consumer issues that are really critical, transparency, not just network providers, but application providers. they should tell you what i downloads this, it will open your files. some of them do this and they need to know that. some of them are policy, it's not just industry alone dealing with it. >> so if we have that market power, we wanted to be post talk. but that makes sense to have a different regulatory regime.

>> we are saying there's a need for that different from work now, not because we think there's market power -- we think there's plenty of competition. >> i think you answered the question for me. [laughter] so let me look at this from the other end of the telescope. if we succeed in cable in providing the best customer service in high-speed internet and customers flocked to us in droves and we have substantial numbers today, but it's a very competitive marketplace. if we went out against a lot of other competitors, all we would earn the win. but what would make me rethink where ibm on all these issues is i press a lot of my assumptions on the fact that

facilities-based competition, getting people to invest in competitive wireline and or wireless. a combined satellite-terrestrial network. the best way to ensure competition is to keep barriers down and promote more competitive investment. we continue to see more of this from the likes of sprint, clear water, [unintelligible] we're not going to rest on our laurels by any stretch because they or at&t may well decide they're not going to start spending again. the bigger money may wind up going into mobile.

that is increasingly an effective alternative for people. what mobile high-definition video can be supported, that's a pretty competitive service with a number of the wireline services today. if something were to happen that would cause a significant diminution in this -- lack of support from the capital market, forms of regulatory disincentives, whether in the forms of regulatory mandates or resale requirements, equivalent to what we had on the incumbent monopoly phone that works in the '90s to promote competition, we said we're going to force you to unbundle and resell it networks to competitors. that did not work. no incentives for the phone companies to make it work and no incentives for competitors. we were a competitor on the verge in the '90s, getting into the phone business, but there

was no incentive because somebody could come along and by government-regulated low-price access from the incumbent. we lived the failure of a mandatory access regime. what has succeeded is the investment in competitive facilities. were it to go away for the reasons i mentioned, that would cause me to rethink a lot of my positions. >> you could offer 100 megabits to consumers who are able to get 20 or 30 wirelessly. but the dominant ones will argot -- the dominant ones are going to be the ones who want 100 megabits. so it's not unrealistic to think you could have that market dominant position. >> i want to see those applications come forward. the interesting thing about dynamics between and wit and

applications is improvements don't just come in on the more and what side. cisco teleconferencing -- that was extremely inefficient years ago. with every passing year, they get more efficient and reliable. when that happens, you don't need as much bandwidth. the combination of less than within more mobility might make those services attractive on wireless as much as wire lines. but if we're able to offer 100 megabits, people won't come along with the applications. -- that's not to say if we are able to offer wonder megabits people want, along with the applications. japan, korea, scandinavian countries are offering incredible speeds but we're not seeing applications developments there yet. maybe that's a cultural reflection of the fact that the bulk of innovation in this space continues to come from the u.s.,

but if just building a fast at work met more applications, we would be seeing them in other nations now. >> the department of justice said a broad that market is competitive and that knowledge their primary landline competitors, but they think wireless is being used as a competitive alternative. what they focus on a lot is all markets are different. yet a highly intensity industry. hard to imagine 1520 competitors because there's not enough competition to make that happen. in many cases, we have three planned line carriers and parts of the market. i don't think we should ignore competition is different, and

as the department justice said. they saw there was a competitive market. >> if i could just clarify what the justice department said, as it was somewhat competitive, but not as competitive as it should be. that is important. what i'm not hearing here is how do we get to more than four wireless carriers? how we get away from the regional duopoly in the absence of government regulation? i want to get into whether open access was a failure or success, but when people have a choice of 13 arab and service providers, i think that a good success. neutrality is not about competition. it sounds like we have an agreement, regardless of how much competition there is, bob -- government has to serve as a backstop. we seem to have agreement on that, but how do we get to a

world of eight competitors? how do we get there unless someone and then it's a technology that lets you route around wires and eight government access to get to that. >> how did we get for a world from eight competitors to google? it's an amazing service, it is still my on-line default browser. i'm trying the others, i think it's terrific. the same innovation that can happen in applications space will happen in the network space. i had no idea harbinger was going to come out with this thing on friday. i heard it was out there, when i read their plans, i said this is a potentially new competitor in the wireless space. when clearwater first came to the door, we said some is going to make a go of this. who knew? nobody knows what the next technology is that's going to come along and be disruptive and

change the nature of competition because nobody new cable would be that technology. >> can i clarified a harbinger thing. your company is very upset about it, at&t is very upset about it. that's an example of government intervention to ensure competition. it's not like harbinger is free and clear -- there's a government restrictions saying you cannot license -- you cannot leave the dominant provider. >> if anybody has questions, there are two microphones on the sides. i think he wants to respond why there should not be 8 googles. >> i think there are a lot of googles out there. we have some serious competition and i think it's great. >> they're going to quote you on

that. >> they should. we compete with them, amazon, we have a tremendous amount of competition. what is point -- what is important for our perspective is the barriers, and is switching comes from people deciding not to use google and use another service is 0. you just type in another service when you go to surge. we expect that to continue for awhile. the important thing is to say we ought to have neutrality and applications in the content space which is the message we're hearing as a distraction. which is to say what are the rules we can agree on that we ought to have? it seems like we all agreed on users ought to control their experience on the internet and ought to get to decide what services they go to, to the access, content and applications they use and people should not be able to block it. it seems like we were coming

close, and i still believe there is a hope of people in this debate saying there is a very narrow, light weight set of rules that we all seem to agree on that people should not be able to block. there ought to be rules about that. >> if anybody want to switch from verizon to comcast, i will keep those switching costs as close to zero as possible. >> i have a question about the optimism of physical spectrum not be limited and more. there's an article in the federal communications law journal, sponsored by several people. they point out while sort spectrum devices alleviate the problem, it does not eliminate it. the answer is simple because there is a signal to lace -- signal to noise ratio of debt limit steep throughput.

-- the good news is we're using the spectrum more efficiently. that is as these policy advocates suggest a scarcity problem is not going to go away. so i would be curious to hear your reaction to that might make things better but do we have a world we do not have to allocate that anymore? >> i don't know. i'm hoping for that world. i think it is realistic. may not develop that way. if it does not, unfortunately we're back to talking about how can we get more facilities-based competition. we have to look at things like line sharing and unbundling. i was trying to imagine a world where we did not have to go there, or other companies and individuals can compete by facilities-based basis without having to go to this other methods we did in the past.

i'm hoping for it. i am hope -- i have not read the article myself. >> i think there may be limits, but the fact is there's a tremendous amount of innovation going on right now. many people don't feel like we've come close to the limits yet. we all see it as either being a role for more and licensed because of that. what we have seen in the market is that people, when given the opportunity, will make use of it. i don't think it is an either- or, what we're saying is there is a compelling argument for the unlicensed variety because people could do better with it. >> you already have on the 4g side, y-max being used by its brand. at&t is doing testing -- green testing and will start next year. -- at&t is doinges