after that, the federal health care law. later, a memorial service honoring the life and career of david broder. >> president obama made the short trip to the lincoln memorial today to show that the country's national parks and monuments are open >> the president creek did surprise torres -- greeted surprised tourists. >> because congress was able to settle their differences, that is why this place is open today. that is the kind of future cooperation i hope we have going

forward. everybody is enjoying those things that bind us together. it is wonderful to spend time with -- spend time with you guys. [cheers and applause] >> coming up, "the communicators," with fcc commissioner robert mcdowell. later, a memorial service

honoring the live and grill of "the washington post " will -- honoring the life and career of "the washington post." " political columnist davoid broder. >> get started at twitter.com/cspan. >> this week on "the communicators," our guest is robert mcdowell, republican commissioner on the federal communications commission. >> we are pleased to welcome back on "the communicators," fcc commissioner robert mcdowell, .

we talked with your colleagues last week. i will start by asking you the same question i asked him. it is regarding the t-mobile and horizon -- horizon -- verizon partnership. >> i do not comment on prospective mergers. i will look at some big mergers that have happened in the past few years. we have been told by the parties that we should expect an application to be filed at the fcc in the next week or two. then the clock starts ticking. congress is going to take a look at this. the congress and the judiciary committees will have hearings on this. it will be heavily scrutinized. >> have you talked with at&t our

t-mobile representatives? >> they came into my office the wednesday after the announcement. >> what's about sprint or verizon? >> not yet, but i imagine after it has been filed, i will meet with the interested parties. >> i would like to get your response on this. >> i hope there will be a majority at the commission that will approve of this. we will be looking at market by market and what market share might be called for. that is important. an open internet and net neutrality is important. looking at the level of concentration across the board is important.

all the considerations that go into deciding it this serves the public issue -- the public interest. that is our charge and did the statute. i hope we will fulfil it. >> commissioner? >> i have worked with michael for five years and have a high in regard for him. he is right when he says our standards are the public interest standards. that is what congress has told us we should do. we have a standard that is different from what the antitrust agency has. i have not figured out how it works as to who gets these mergers. when we look at the antitrust perspective of mergers and when you look at the wireless market, you have to look at it market by market. the geographic market and the product markets.

i hope we can give it a full hearing. >> joining us is lynn stanton with telecommunication reports. she is a senior editor there. >> what do you look for? is it a balancing act -- what it does that is positive and what it does that is negative? >> we really have to look at if there is any harm coming about as a result of the merger. what are the specific harm to consumers? if there are harms, merger conditions should be narrowly tailored to address those. the merger process should not be an excuse to implement rule- makings, issues that do not arise because of that particular merger. commissioner baker paid a tremendous speech in february.

-- gave a tremendous speech in february. >> typically, those in the fcc will have one time remedies. the sec will impose on going business practice prohibitions or mandates. what is your view of that? is that the only path the fcc has in terms of trying to get at the issues that are public interest issues as opposed to a competitive issues? >> the antitrust agencies can actually suit to stop the merger. that is what their ultimate remedy is. they try to get the parties to agree ahead of time. there are conditions like that. you say it is one time. the investiture can be rather permanent and long standing. >> you do it and it is kind of

done. >> there is a regulatory agency for these industries. it is ongoing. in an sec context, if they impose conditions, they -- f c c context, if they impose conditions -- fcc context, if they impose conditions, it will do it ahead of time. they will realize there will be a transaction our regulatory costs, a cost of doing business. read the that is a good public policy is a matter for debate -- whether that is good public policy is a matter of debate. >> on the house floor this week, marshall blackburn spoke about net neutrality, which the house is looking at this week. >> net neutrality is the federal

government stepping in and saying, we are going to come first. we are going to assigned value and priority to content. it is the fairness doctrine for the internet. there has been the markets failure and there is no need for this government over reach. many are saying, why do this? it is one of those issues of power and control. government wanting to dictate what speed you will have, how often you will be on, the type of internet service you will have, being able to control this. >> i was actually just in national last week with congresswoman marsha blackburn. we had a talk and she spoke almost the exact same words. she has been a passive leader on this issue. when she says there is -- she has been a passionate leader on

this issue. when she says there is nothing broken, there is really nothing broken in this space. not only is nothing broken, the fcc did not have elite authority to do what it is doing, they filed a court order from one year ago. in the last congress, we had a majority. those are words that we do not hear together often. there were 3 02 members of congress who wrote to the fcc -- 302 wrote to the members of congress. if this is going to be a public policy issue, it should be addressed at the congressional level. congress is trying to address it through the congressional review act. >> if you are in the majority on an fcc decision and congress decides to negate that decision, what would your view be? >> some of these things are

outcome based. just because someone like the outcome, because the outcome of a particular order by an agency, you still have to respect the process. i would love to see the federal government have a balanced budget. the sec does not have the authority to impose a balanced budget -- fcc does not have the authority to oppose a balanced budget on the congress. they can make sure there are 4g follows that can run on a network. i did not feel the fcc had the legal authority to do that. there is an explicit statutory prohibition in the communications act that prohibits the fcc from doing what it did yesterday. he may not like the outcome, but you have to respect the process. we cannot exceed our authority even if it is negative.

>> now that a rule is in place, whether it is data roman or the net neutrality rules -- data roaming or the net neutrality rules, assuming the house does not need to pass through this congressional review act and assuming a court does not get around to overturn them in time before the first complaint comes up, how do you, as someone who dissented from the net neutrality rules approached those kinds of issues of fact and disputes under rules that you yourself opposed? >> excellent question. you are saying there is a rule i opposed and there is a lot of the land until it gets overturned in court. what do we do? i think there will be a number of complaints filed at the fcc

about the net neutrality rules. you have to look at the law and the facts. when you stray from those principles, that is when things can get sticky. the most common request we gets at the fcc when you boil it all down is, please regulate my arrival. that is what is -- please regulate my riva. . l. that is what is going on with net neutrality. >> the also bring up, why aren't you apply this to google and other content providers. you will also be hearing, why aren't you prapply it to netflix? rules apply toe google and netflix? they should be applied to them.

how would you apply transparency and some of the other aspects of net neutrality if you are not really running a network? >> let me describe a company to you. it has thousands of miles of fiber. as servers and switches. it offers was video and data services. is that company at&t? is a google or verizon or microsoft? the answer is it is all of the above. if you start diagramming with these companies look like, they look similar. this actually called for a talk on the next three right and a reliance on competition law than it does -- on the next rewrite and a reliance on competition law. technology and the market

place have moved well beyond that. i do not think internet management regulations that i dissented against should be applied to those. there are laws on the books that already protect consumers. there is certainty of unintended consequences and unintended harm that have come about. i would not want to see them applied unless we can find evidence of some systemic market share. >> do you see an appetite for telecom rewrites? >> ma bell was broken up in 1994. it took about 12 years for the rewrite to come about as a result of that. over time, there will have to be

one. it is a fundamental part of our economy. telecommunications provides the rails on which the entire economy rides. we want everyone to have as much innovation and constructive innovatiand experimentation as possible. it is well over $2 trillion. it affects all aspects of the time. as technology continues to move, we have to continue to look at whether we have rules and laws on the books that might be slowing innovation and experimentation down and get rid of them and backstop them with competition law. >> any specific laws come to mind that stifle innovation in your view? >> if we are ready to start

treating the wireless industry like the wire line industry, that is going to cause problems. in the past two years, that is where we have been headed. in the 1966 -- in the 1996 act, congress at a hands off policy. we saw rates come down. we saw the functionality and innovation go up. now the penetration rate -- we have over 300 million people in the country. 290 million have wireless handsets. there is more power in the hands of consumers as a result de regulatory approach to that industry. that could start to inhibit innovation. >> this is c-span's "the

communicators" program. robert mcdowell is one of the fcc commissioners. lynn stanton is also here. >> money is transferred amongst the carriers in the industry. this has been talked about as long as i can remember. >> just to clarify for folks who are watching at home, are universal system is over $8 billion per year. it is one of the largest subsidy programs in the government. it is where one group of telecom users subsidizes another. it governs how carriers and

telecom companies compensate each other for the use of their networks. in the fall of 2008, there were four fcc commissioners out of five. we agreed in principle on many of the universal service issues. some of these are arcane and make people's eyes glaze over. it did not happen then. it provided a ray of hope that we can agree on these things. it is important to show we can agree on these things. it can be a politically charged issue. there are a lot of stakeholders. there are lots of differences of opinion in the senate. the senate represents urban and suburban constituents. whirl and dress -- rural address

-- rural interests have other interests. my hope is that we can do this before the leaves fall off of the trees this year. my concern is we have started looking only at the distribution side, who gets the subsidy. a contribution side is who is paying for the subsidy. we are making proposals on who is going to pay for this. that concerns me. >> you would rather see them both down together as one action. >> it has almost become a cliche. it is impossible to fix one part of a watch because they are all connected. you have to look at the whole

watch and fix it all at the same time. >> one of the proposals in front of the commission is using auctions where people would bid on serving a particular area. it would be based on lowest per capita cost to bring people onto the broadband network. does that seem like a reasonable way to go? should there be commitments on bidders tof these bui stay in the market a certain amount of time? >> i think it actually would provide a lot of incentive. congress would have to rewrite the law to directly empower consumers to give you a voucher

and let you decide. we cannot do that under the law from the high cost side. it does provide an opportunity to create great he efficiency. right now, the program subsidizes multiple competitors in the same market. that does not make any economic sense whatsoever. we have to make sure it is compliant with the law if we are to adopt reverse auctions. i will be chairman of the fcc is on board with this concept. it does make a lot of the incumbents nervous when we start talking about it. i think we are at a point where we have to consider ideas like this. we have got into a point where the fund is subsidizing inefficiency and old technology. we need to end that. >> auction idea is the spectrum

auction . there was a spectrum summit. the broadcasters were not there. were they treated with respect? >> there was a broad band plan last year -- broadband plan last year for television broadcasters. what can be offered to that broadcasters to give all of their spectrum to have it auctioned off to a wireless carrier company to offer wireless services? there are characteristics of the key the spectrum. it is wonderful and signals travel long distances. they can carry lots of data with them. it makes it perfect for wireless broadband.

congress would have to act to give us the power to have an incentive auction whereby broadcasters would receive some kind of compensation. we do not have the authority to cut the broadcaster a check. the broadcaster would get the money and the treasury would get the lion's share of the money. the idea is, would it be truly voluntary? for the broadcast is not participate in, they are probably going to be moved into a neighborhood frequency so that wireless carriers can have a continuous lot of spectrum. they need that to operate effectively. if a broadcaster have to reconfigure their engineering equipment, they are going to incur costs. to be fair, that would not be voluntary, by definition, to them. they would have to be compensated to be made whole.

that is the horn of the debate, how to make it and the voluntary. we have not seen a lot of action in congress so far. on april 8, and the number of days in the legislative year are quickly dwindling down. there is a lot that is occupying congress' mind right now. we are starting to run out of time. >> you talked about congress and their agenda. we are also approaching a presidential election and another congressional election. does that effect be fcc -- effect the fcc? >> sometimes it does. sometimes chairmen have been reluctant to bring up issues in

an election year. how many voters are going to the polls only to vote on an fcc issue? probably not many. our job is to make tough calls when they are delivered to us and when it is appropriate for us to act. that should be in odd and even numbered years. >> it is hard to get nominations and confirmations through no one will be placed if there is no nomination coming through. there are issues on which you and commissioner baker disagree with democrats at times. are there issues on the plate coming up that would be affected? >> about 1/3 of the time -- we

did an analysis on this point. 1/3 of the time the commission is not at its five member complement and it still manages to vote on some controversial issues. should the commissioner be rolling off, i am, then that the senate can confirm a replacement this year. >> what do you think about the new chief technology officer position? how is that interaction with the fcc? >> under chairman kevin martin, we had a chief technology officer the way we had chief economist come on for years to advise us. most of the commission tends to deal with the chairman's office. >> i met c whitehouse -- i

meant the white house cto. under governor jim kane. he is a nice guy. i do not have any -- governor jim kane. -- tim kaine. i do not have any interactionth. >> they send signals to 15% of homes that rely on over the air broadcasting. the at&t and t-mobile proposal argues that they can do more by combining the two companies's spectrums than either can do alone. is there spectrum being held by other commercial wireless

companies that have larger bands and are more concentrated? should they be invited to take part in these auctions? >> we are having these discussions. when the iphone debut in 2007, the applications started to gobble up much of the airwaves. anyone who is going to use and i fall in new york, they have a problem. the-iphone -- iphone in new york, they have a problem. the carriers said they need more spectrum. your question is a great question. themselves at put thei a competitive disadvantage. there is a market incentive for carriers not to wear out in spectrum, but to use it. spectrum, but to use it.