commission. will talk about his efforts to prosecute insider trader and prevent fraud. that is sunday at 10:00 a.m. at 6:00 p.m. eastern here on c- span. coming up on c-span, we will show you pals as bases from three days of the recent national cable and telecommunications association annual conference. first, the keynote speaker from the president and ceo michael powell. the discussion and video content and innovation followed by a panel on video, film, and music distribution and later julia's genachowski from the fcc. [applause] >> welcome to the great city of boston and the 2012 cable show. it is great to have governor patrick welcome us to this wonderful city. when i joinedncpa a year ago, i set out to bring more

creativity and energy into this industry. our efforts are bearing fruit. you will see it reflected throughout this gorgeous convention hall. our new ad campaign which is up in washington reflects the emotional connection we hope to get across in telling our story. let's take a quick look. ♪ ♪ >> cable is thriving with new energy and new products and a very promising future. as the ad makes clear, cable is

the platform which offers instant access to infinite possibilities. , to great programs, the web, friends and family and the hottest internet applications and devices. cable is how we connect to the world and to one another. americans the door television. we watch about 147 hours of television per month. that may not be entirely healthy but there is no escaping the man's pleasure we get from the tube. television is the original social medium. watching is a communal experience, sharing what was on last night, convincing a friend to jump on the bandwagon of your favorite show and catch up quickly so you can talk about it, the joy we feel watching something inspiring, the laughs we share taking in a great comedy and the exhilaration we feel when our favorite team hits

the winning shot at the buzzer. it is available because the cable industry took a mediocre tv experience and made it better. once upon a time, americans have only three channels that signed off at midnight to the sound of the star spangled banner. there was little diversity of content and static-riddled pictures. cable delivered a technology that improves reception, expanded and diversified what we watch and gave artists a better candace for making quality shows. dramas like "homeland" and educational content and kids' programming and sports center and cooking shows and news and public affairs from cnn, c-span, cnbc and fox news. they have all made television a rich experience. the fact that so many americans stuck with cable during the recession is a testament to our

value and our stability. electronics communications does not stand still. the internet may be the most extraordinary advance in the history of information, assuring in an age of the infinite possibilities. leaders take risks. the cable industry has chosen to bet big on the promise of delivering broadband. it was an ambitious and risky play but one that is now paying off for consumers. over the doubts of many, cable got the job done. our industry has invested nearly $200 billion of private capital to build the infrastructure to get america online. the men and women who serve our industry painstakingly doug, polled, and connected homes to the internet across the country and they did it without shovel- ready stimulus funds from the government. cable broadband -- that was

worthy of applause, i think. [applause] cable broadband now reaches 93% of homes, rich, poor, urban, and rural but the industry has never stopped pushing forward. we have increased broadband speeds over 900% in a decade. we're on the verge of deploying additional technology to reach speeds so fast the internet itself may be unable to deliver content to match cable's last mile. the incredible member makes it possible for us to tweet, friend, and google which are now household words. amazon was a river in south america until national broadband made it the largest online retailer. last week, facebook launched the richest ipo in the history of tech companies. we congratulate them and i'm

sure the california department of revenue think of them. that kind of extraordinary american success is only possible because of the rich and robust platform that supports it. we celebrate these successes and our progress but there is more to do. many americans still are not on line and that needs to change. cable and is working to increase adoption by partnering with the fcc to launch a low-cost broadband service to low-income families across america. this is absolutely critical. a child without access to the internet will find life increasingly too difficult in the information age. for all cable has probably done so far, we owe the consumer more. consumers want an imaginative future that lines the power of the web with the magic of television. this industry has never been content to rest on aging business models. it has always looked to the

future to provide consumers with the next exciting thing. to many incumbent industries have failed to keep pace with consumer preferences and disruptive technology but i assure you, cable will not be one of them. we all know the challenges consumers face in today's dizzying digital marketplace. the consumer experience should be simpler, easier to find the content we want, easier interfaces to control our experience, and less reliance on clunky set top boxes. we want the ability to get the content we paid for here, there, and everywhere. we say to consumers -- we have heard your wish and we are working to make it come true by delivery cable content to ipad, xboxes and smart funds and what ever else pops out next. you should give greater value for what to pay including additional services, content and

other devices, and content that can be found elsewhere. we have embarked on an exciting period of intense innovation. cable is experimenting with more portable services, fair pricing models, and more mobile-web integration. it is a work in progress. there will be adjustments along the way. we face competition and that is healthy. wireless broadband is enjoying astronomical growth. remain in the thick of the fight and satellite companies continued to battle, convinced by their commercial that you'll end up in a ditch and sell your hair to a witch upper have a grand kid with a nose ring if you don't get rid of cable. that may be over the top but it is real. there's also a place for internet video providers to compete and complement the cable model and some consumers may even cut the cord. at the end of the day, cable benefits from the competition

and will work even harder to compete fairly and effectively on value and consumer experience. as these changes on fault, you can expect critics to weigh in. compelling change rarely escaped the doomsayers in washington. rather than dismiss these concerns out of hand, we will respect them and await him carefully guided exclusively by our commitment to ensuring a better experience for consumers. some naysayers are carping because they don't like the u.s. private enterprise model. they prefer a european-style regulation or the government effectively owns or controls the network, pumping taxpayer money into subsidizing service and managing competition. they would like the government to have the last word on the pace and scope of innovation. this would be a disastrous course to take.

confiscating private networks to put our already broken government on a hooked to keep tens of the lives of dollars annually flowing into networks, innovation and letting politics allocate resources rather than economics and entrepreneurs would kill investment and the internet like today's post office crumbling. their recent "washington post" article said our nation will need to spend $75 billion per year if you want to keep the lights on and your life on a charge. we will need to spend $9.4 billion per year to keep the toilets flushing and to do it all, the country need to spend a staggering $262 billion. in stark contrast, broadband is thriving. fuelled by the dynamic of the pre-market. broadband is an american success, a light regulatory model that favors free enterprise has led to a vibrant

digital combination that is fueling educators, business owners, and consumers the matter where they live. i hope you are as excited as i am that we are exposing our convention in boston. this is a storied city with great people and a great history. we hope to tap into that revolutionary spirit that gave birth to this great nation and continue building a great network worthy of the stars and stripes. thank you very much and thank you for joining us and have a wonderful cable show. [applause] >> next we continue our coverage of the 2012 cable show in boston with a discussion about innovation and video distribution. the panel includes the chairman of a 0 l, the time warner cable chairman, and the president of discovery communications. this is about 35 minutes. [applause]

>> alright, thank everybody for having us. we are thrilled to be here and it looks so packed. it looks like they're standing room only in the back. that is fantastic. we want to talk about the way things are now in an industry that is changing so quickly and especially with smart phones. more people have smart phones than btr's and people get -- dvrt's and people get killed walking down the street working on their smart fun. how are things really changed when it comes to video? it was reality television years ago and video games. what is the hot next thing you see in terms of people's use of video. >> in some ways, there is no question that things are changing and people are consuming content on more platforms.

we have tried to break in half at discovery. on the left side is our traditional cable business. spend more money on content, about five years ago we were spending about $550 million on content and now we spend about $1 billion to deliver great channels and grow that market share. we have been able to do that. at the core of that is quality content with great stories and great characters. the fact that there is -- and are content is on all platforms allows us to move the quality content in different forms, not too much long form, mostly short form. our core mission is still the same -- great quality content but now we have new windows, netflix was a new window mostly for 18 months in prison -- eight months and older -- youtube, being on the web and even this -- two weeks ago we bought a company that distributes short

form content but had 100 million sreams in one month. when you see the kind of behavioral change where people are consuming content on platforms that never existed before, it comes back, we think, to that basic theme of quality content, great characters, great stories and if you are in the content business, you can participate in the value of all that. >> we were joking that you know that everybody is watching even though you can't always say because of privacy constraints but you know. >> i think in some ways it is the same but in some ways it is changing. we often make fun of the cable package. it seems like an old thing and it is not cool anymore. it is important to remember

that 90% of the tv homes in america subscribed to multichannel tv, to that package either from cable or satellite or telephone. there are many products that many people subscribe to. it is a very powerful thing. i think what we see happening is the use of technology to make that an even more powerful experience. we have lots of devices that act like televisions now. we used to just have a big television but now we have many that you can count that are portable or tablets or whatever. consumers want their tv on all those devices. they want the devices outside the home, they want to access programming when they want, all all that is changing. this idea of selling a package of tv programming for subscription remains very powerful. it is using the technology to

make it better than i want to ask about the mobile and a moment. >> you are the biggest investor in digital content, right? why is that and where? >> curator content is critically important. when you look at what is happening in silicon valley today, it is not hard to see that there will be more development of platforms. one of the reasons we chose the comeback go aol to focus on content, we see similar statistics like to see online which is 70% of people use less than 15 internet brands per month and people down low 30 or 40 apps. content is really important over time. when we look to the next 50-100 years, the brand's that exist

will quarter built in the future will be built in the next five years and people rely on curated bundle of content to live their lives better and save time. this seems to be an incredible opportunity now with these emerging -- with merging these platforms together. >> as someone in the business of making content, i love the business -- that content is rising again. people -- is unclear what people want to do. phone, they want to watch television or play games or whatever desperate howl at is cable delivering bad? andthat? that could end up being the primary screen for people, right? >> i think it is one of the primary screens. people use these different devices for different things.

they certainly use a phone less often to watch a full-length movie than they might their big screen tv but they do other things on the phone like watching sure things. one of the things we are dealing is we are starting to build out wifi in places people congregate. a number -- if there was an announcement that we will approach a standard to wifi. if you are our broadbent customer, you can access wi-fi at your tablets. heavy debt usage is wi-fi, noncellular. we are very excited about that. our company is building heavily in los angeles right now. >> do you think -- tv everywhere was evangelized and there has been a lot of criticism lately.

is it going to happen? i hear it and i think that will be an obvious winner. >> i hope it happens. the great thing about tv everywhere is it gives an opportunity with a real business model for us to participate with other distributors which is unusual. we held back most of our content from the web because there was no business model. we on all of our content, the netflix model was attractive because it was 18 months or older. tv everywhere is more exciting because if you are a time warner cable subscriber and you are what tlc on sunday night, you can come back and watch the shows you want but it has the commercials. on some of these other models were there is no advertising and is some cases there is no measurement, it is a challenge. hear, the mall really works. the challenges that we as an

industry have to come together. if we do, i think we will provide a real value to consumers and also do something that will happen anyway. someone will come over the top. if consumers want to be able to see our channels of our shows in our characters when they want to see it, somebody will figure out a way to facilitate that. there is no way that has better infrastructure or a better relationship with subscribers than the cable operators. for us, it is important to put aside differences -- we always have a question of what is the right guy you but we got stuck when vod can add a few years ago and the dvr had not deployed and we thought it would be attractive. we could not figure out how to structure a deal with the best content on vod. the dvr became the platform of choice. vod became a valuable platform a

much more secondary. it is imperative for us as an industry to get behind a but it will require us to agree on value. >> in terms of delivery, how does this all work? you have a lot of broadband and tens of publications. -- intensive application. >> we want to be the arms dealer. our job is to build the best content and partner with the best advertisers and we will look to the distribution partners. aol-hd has seven or seven different partners. we will be launching the huffington posed as a live show. when we look at the future, we look at the significant companies that have direct consumer access we want to put

our content against and we keep very close eye on whether things will grow and have heavy adoption. i was in an apple store this weekend with my 10-year-old son and he was in front of a screen and he as to why we did not have this in our house. he said did this screen and apple had a significant content brands with direct access on apple tv. from my eyes of a 10 day year- old who does not know the distribution pipeline, it is the attractiveness of how easy things are used and what the content is in general. when we look at the world, we say let's make our content everywhere. let's partner with as many people as possible and you have to take a step back because there is disruption potentially happening. people glen and his company have

tremendous relationships. >> is cable adjusting? is adjusting to the needs of the digital companies the way it needs to? >> yes, in the last 12 months, there has been a fairly aggressive push in the tv and cable space for people to start partnering on more of these brands. you are starting to see people move quickly which we did doxy two years ago. the second piece is the consumer usage of the design of the box and interfaces are important. as a consumer, you have a mobile phone up to the plasma screen where you can get easy access to content. whoever serves the consumer the best will have a big advantage in the future. i think it is getting easier to walk across the disk -- different distribution pipes.

hopefully, it will get easier. >> we are talking about technology. i will keep asking this question until it happens -- you have the technological ability to get rid of the cable box. will it go the way of the dodo bird? >> yes, although people from cisco or motorola probably don't want to hear that. forgive me. for better or worse, the world is coalescing around internet protocol standards and there is a whole bunch of those. all the vices are being made to those standards. written andi software is being that is the future. our old video platform worked very well for a long time but it

is somewhat archaic and few people can write software to it. it is not easy. that drives the set top boxes and our existing interface. listening to tim talking about the apple store, a lot of what we can do is create a better interface. we should not mix up technology and content and business models. those are three different things. the technology can create a much better user interface and our goal is to get a video service that we sell on every single device in your home which increasingly are the devices you by. eventually, most people have a so-called smart tv which is capable of displaying these services without a set top and some people are buying those today. mabel you will do a true heir game machine.

it might be through blue ray players p. they are based around ip standards and we want to be everywhere -- on every one of them. that is what the technology makes available. >> you were talking about a business model and making money. i was talking about the hopper. if you don't know what it is, it is a kangaroo ron blagojevich and it automatically skips over commercials. -- it is a kangaroo logo and automatically skids over commercials. people was set at home and accidentally watch commercials even though they have the ability to jump over them. is that technology that can be stopped? is this going to happen now matter what to?

? >> the hopper, it is charlie's way of coming in and raising a flag and it will create a lot of attention and get all our attention and that is probably a good thing. the fact that we spend over $1 billion per year on content, we do that because we get advertising support. in the and, a technology like that could create real carnage for the industry. he has not done it yet with the cable channels. i think it will become something that will be part of a negotiation. charlie is a distributor. he reaches 40 million homes in order to reach them, he needs are content. -- he needs our content. if there is no advertising companies to be higher subscriber fees.

people do love consuming content on television. with all of the discussion of all these other devices, people are spending more time watching tv than ever. there is tremendous pull their and it is incumbent upon us to preserve the model so we can reach people and invest and we don't win. sometimes a market share goes down but it is up to a good job creating good brands and good stories and good characters, you can win in this business. is the fat of the moment. in the end, i don't think it is sustainable because to get our content, we will have to work together. as an industry, we have shown a great ability to work together. glen and i over the years, we now have 13 channels on his system and we can invest in those channels. four years ago we had a channel called id and we want to invest a lot of money to build a new

brand g reachlen's subscribers and we will bet on ourselves. four years later, it is the top 10 network in america and as the number four network during the day. we are only able to do that because we work together. in the end, we need subscriber fees and we need ad revenue. wind to be disciplined as an industry. if you look at apple, they came out in the apple store and it looks sexy and feels dynamic. when you go in there is w feelow. it is still just a device. it is just a device. in order to be compelling, you need content. many brands that people care about, indeed stories that people want to hear, you need characters that people can identify with. we have to remember that as an industry. the deal we did with apple for a lot cards, did not make sense for us. if you look at the economics, it

does not make sense as an industry. when we take our content that we spend a lot of money on, whether it is charlie or apple or the cell phone, we just have to be careful, or the web, there is a lot of power in that content because it is stories that people want to hear and characters people want to spend time with and we have an industry that has to remember that. we worked out a great industry model with cable distributors and if we work together, i think we can continue to grow. we need to make sure we put our content on platforms that are sustainable economic. >> if i can jump in -- if you think about what we sell intv, it is a simple idea. it is that you subscribe to a package of linear networks, subscribing means you know what it costs ahead of time and you pay for it at the beginning of the month and a matter how much you watch, you have it.

when you sit down to watch tv, you have maximize the choice. it seems quaint and old- fashioned but that is what we have been selling for the last 40 years now. it is very powerful. the new technology helps us make a better but it does not change the fundamental idea of choice and subscription. if we had a better user interface, we can allow people to watch programming when they want as opposed to when it was scheduled. whether that is in the cloud which is where think if d the orvr orvod, that is fundamentally an extension of this idea of letting people have the maximum choice. i think it is very powerful. the dual stream of advertising and subscription has been great for the content creators and we

have more tv than we ever imagined when i was growing up. it is good for both sides. i don't think we want to destroy one of those revenue streams. >> how would of -- how would it affect your business if you could automatically skip the commercials? >> i think if you reduce the revenue into the entertainment business, a their subscription prices will go up or there will be less content. it is not magic. david needs money to invest in content. it will not have the result people think it may have about. >> out as ad revenue play for you? >> let me bring up something controversial. the normal display market online are probably not going to

grow this year. the internet itself as a mini version of some of the issues that are facing the cable business korean one example is something we have done. we create this new ad form called project devil. our average pages had 7-10 pages on them. we decided to strip the ads off the pages and put on one adamite page. it was about 1/3 of the page. it was forcing advertisers to do have the design, heavy video, those things that advertising rates are increased by a 7-50 times. consumers like them. when i listened to the conversation about ad-skipping for cable, it seems like something important. there needs to be a project

double -- double for content on cable where i think things are thought about much differently. we dvr ended up on some programming and not others. you have a super-engage consumer who you know a lot about and what would you put around a program or in the program that does not look like traditional bet -- the traditional hopper? i'm not as familiar on the cable side. how could you make more engaging advertising? i think you also have to really think for my mobile-first principle. everyone in your cable customers and our customers have a smart fun with them regardless of what

they are doing. if you don't design your experience for mobile first, we are just 30 to do that, and you take advertising into account for that, over the next three or four years, the company's that think about advertising content from a mobile-first point of view will have an advantage. i don't know what will end up with the hopper but it seems clear there is a mass of opportunity for people to come up with different types of formats, better formats and makes mobile has a new format. >> in terms of mobile, the problem people have is a three tiered problem. they want video but it has to load and it staggers and you have to wait. how big of an issue is bandwidth?

>> i think that goes back to my wi-fi comments. we're not in the cellular business is like investing was bad. -- if i can distinguish to that. people say there will not be enough band with in terms of consumption and content to put through what you can do with a big wire. i think a big wire + wi-fi will need a lot of your needs. if you have your mobile network driving your car, it will be somewhat committed. video is a big user of a band with. >> it is physics. i feel is just a matter of time until these things become available but maybe it will not. notopefully, you're watching tv while you're driving your car about i have noticed

some times i have to. >> maybe we should turn that off while we are driving. in terms of planning for the future, you talked about but chunks, the shorter form and stuff you put on mobile. coup you anticipate that changing? -- do you anticipate that changes >> ? what the't know customer wants. we acquired this, re the mainv3 about two weeks ago and they had about 100,000 streams. there were of between 7-10 minutes and that is different but we do traditional. we have professional content that is highly produced in the ra much morew and the authentic story telling. 100 million views. across discovery, we had about 60% of that, 60 million.

this is a small company that had 100 million. that says that there are people out there that don't want to necessarily see just professional content. they want to see other contents a we acquire this company because we are about satisfying curiosity on all devices on anybody that wants to consume. it is important for us to stay flexible and look in the marketplace and see what is working. we have always been aggressive about not using our long form content on any platform except for a dual revenue stream platform. we did not put our long from content on the web and republic the business model was not there but we did spend a lot of time digitizing our entire library and working with short form. people want to watch a show on nifong, they would much prefer watching clips m froman vs wild

or a piece of 80's on what is coming on "uponcake boss." every device does not have a similar type of consumption. what is going on on youtube and some of these small silicon valley companies are important. we expect we will learn a lot and it may be that years from now, we will continue to have a huge market sharhopefully with glen because it will not change that people want to watch stories and a little more but we will be satisfying curiosity in a different era with different people with much shorter form and different stories than we do in our traditional business. the answer is, we don't know and we have to hear from the consumer as to how they want to consume content on the phone, on the web, on every device. >> david is raising the challenge of business models. the technology is ultimately all

it, all digits. video is made professionally by everybody. everybody wants access to everything. if you think about the traditional linear networks that comes in the broadcasting business like one tv station and one signal out to multiple people and you have a schedule, maybe tuesday night, and you put advertising in between so we arrived at the show's we have, 22 minutes for a half an hour show. this technology means you can have shows of any length from five minutes too many hours. it is creatively a different model. how you pay for all that is the question. that is what you are struggling with. >> it is interesting if you look it was going on at rev3, they

are generating these trends and their cost of content as much lower. you would not expect to see this stuff on a traditional set. it does not have the traditional story but there is an interesting consuming content and learning and satisfying their curiosity on these new platforms. our key priority is growing our channels around the world but we don't want to wake up one day and find that these video streams are a more important way of fulfilling the curiosity and we're not there. it is apples and oranges. >> you mentioned that light show. -- length of show for it will your shows the different lengths? >> yes, we are experimenting a lot with this.

we are testing a lot of this right now. we service 30,000 others in our video network. we have many high-quality clips that we send out to other publishers. the average length of time that people watch videos is short the growing. when you think about what will get attraction, brands are important because consumers recognized brands and we started to test out and the first week we got 20,000 people that watch in the next week was 150,000 people. this is what we are testing out is how you test out of you before the web and how you do it across a huge spectrum of content. over a longer period of time, when you listen to what klan and david are talking about, it may

be likely that the web and mobile had in this direction or you have a closed network and people know what bundles they will get. that is not happening yet on line but i think people will start to gravitate toward those type of programs. >> are you seeing demand yet for packages that include mobile? people have smart phones dv thanr's. >> we have not seen that. we have tested with mobile quite a bit. i'm not sure what the future will bring but at the moment, people see the purchase of mobile services and devices as quite different than what they buy in their home. i'm not sure i completely understand it but i think part of it is that individuals

choose a mobile device and households by the wire line service. this seems to make it not natural to put it into one package. we have tried different things and that is why we sell our spectrum. >> that is fascinating. that makes sense, an individual decision bursa's a family one. let me ask about appleber and. i am not a tech savvy person. how is it working with apple? we look at them becoming so dominant and everybody wants it. we always hear about the system being to have to go to work with. how is it working with apple and apple devices? >> from my viewpoint, we want to

be in every device in the home. apple is a wonderful company and they obviously have a brand that is terrific. i have lots of abel devices personally. -- apple devices personally. we want to be on every device. we work with everybody. >> can you tell where people are watching? not just whether they are watching on mobile vs. home or what type of device they are watching on? >>glen can tell. >> it tells you about democrats -- democratic and who is watching what. will people start to use ipad as regular devices or a smaller screen? >> theoretically, we know what

you're watching in your house in digital format. we don't know if you are actually watching are not. our ability to do anything with that information is very much controlled by the privacy laws. we have some ability to homogenize that data and make sure no individual can be identified and things like that. because the industry is fragmented and advertisers are involved, it is difficult to do right thing in terms of monetizing bad. theoretically, we have that information. >> anecdotally, there has never been a better time to be on the content business. people are watching more tv than ever before and despite the fact that we're not measured on the ipad, our market share grew double digits last year on our

channels. people are spending more time on our channels and over time, maybe the ipad will be measured and we will pick that up. we are platform agnostic and all content players are. if another one person wants to pay for content, we have to decide what window, long form or short form, and how much do we charge? the fact that there is the development of all these devices and opportunities presents opportunities for us but we should not get lost in the fact that the business itself is enormously healthy. the cable business is very, very healthy. we are investing $100 million more in content and we did last year. last year we invested $100 million more than the year before because we believe we invested our channels, people will spend more time can we will be able to grow market share with their brands with to a good forglen. as much as the business is

changing, the traditional business of great brands, quality content, great storytelling, that is what gets the majority of value and all of a sudden, there's a lot of other people want their content and many to be responsible to make sure we get good value. if we do, this should be the best time to be in the content business. >> i saw a statistic last week that the average household watches tv 400 hours per month. that is a whole lot of tv and it had been goingup not down. they do this on average for about $75 per month. as they think about the tv space which is mostly what we are talking about, we need to keep that in mind. most of these other things don't offer the kind of value to consumers.

that's why it remains a good business. >> thanks very much to all three of you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> more today from the national cable and tele-communications association. first, a discussion on video, film, and music distribution and then the fcc to j chairmanul;ius genachowski and van a cable news and politics discussion and later it look at the future of television. [applause] >> i want to get straight to the mayors. i understand that verizon is making an exciting announcement abetting a mobile video network. >> we have waited until today. we thought this was the right atmosphere and the right audience to announce viewdini.

it is a mobile portal -- video portal for aggregation and delivery of mobile content. there is a very unique thing going on now. it is the desire of consumers to be able to absorb any video on any device they have any time they want and that allied with v verizon high-speed network and what has occurred in terms of the tablet and smart fund industry, this came together. we have been working on this for a couple of years and this is a verizon wireless products and we're proud to announce that comcast xfinity is our first partner in this. we have it over in the comcast boats and i will go of the -- over there after we're done and i hope you come by and see it. it will be on the market of the next three or four weeks.

>> this is a a a newpp to search for content. it will come up with a list of places where they can't view specific subjects >> you can search and it will take all the partners and all of the sources into play and you can do the search. it is simple and you can do the research. after dude -- after you do the search, if you want to check on some of the other movies and co- stars and backgrounds, you would be able to do that as well and navigate through it. it is a very simple consumer experience. >> comcast as a partner on this. what does this mean for comcast? >> we have a partnership with verizon wireless. as the content becomes more mobile and people want to consume it in different places, verizon wireless would be a

great partner to help our customers discover the content. it is really all about discovery and getting the content to people where they want to consume it. >> what does this mean for a like vivo?tiv >> i think this should work really well. we don't try to get people to go somewhere to watch videos. we want to put music where the audience wanted. if justin bieber wants to work with you too, will make his videos available there. if lady gaga lost a primary video on her facebook page, we support that. we distribute video to thousands of places on the web including our own website. we would be happy to make our videos available. if you want to watch beyond say, you can watch movies or videos.

>> you distributed some of your movies directly through, a and other systems. >> i released the film directly into as an aide to itunes and it was the first on to go out on a digital platform. 75% of all the journalists said you are crazy. no one is ever going to watch a movie on their computer let alone their fallen and here we are four years later, this is being introduced. it is about the when, where, and how. the audience has changed. they are not nostalgic for the way that we consume the entertainment. they don't long for the theater and they don't long for their

prime-time programming where the family says down at 8:00 and watched "happy days." they wanted when they won it. >> we ended up for a mingn =indy film club because of the popularity of the funds you have released independently. >> it has changed across the country. a lot ofindy theaters have closed. the people are home in front of their flat screens would surround sound and they still want this content. they're just not willing to go into a car and drive to the theater. >> it is important to go and give it to them on their terms? >> that's exactly what we're focused on. what caused us to start the development on this a couple of years ago was we saw the capabilities of thelt networks

of verizon wireless is the global leader in a terms of lte. we handle about 60% of the global a traffic. we saw the possibilities. we saw a under of consumers to be able to get this information whenever they want on what ever devised they have and i am excited that we have the right tool to deliver that. >> you think about the importance of making content. ubiquitous. >> that is the way the physics of the web operates. it is no longer about how to create value through scarcity. it is about creating value giving my body is what we want -- what they want. one restartedvivo three years ago our challenge was not how you put music videos on the internet. our strategy was how do you make the audience that loves music as

valuable as the audience that loves the super bowl or as vital as the audience that loved the world cup or the olympics. there are billions of people on the planet to love music. it is the pipeline to the soul and the list of emotional response. had you make of that audience valuable? it is not about selling music to people who don't want to buy it. is about figure and how to generate value to billions of people love something. how do you give it to them in an easy way. ? we did not want to create a site for people to go there. we want high-quality video to create new events and concerts' and put that on youtube because everybody watches that. let's put on facebook because their body spends time there and let's build ap bunch ofps and let's put them on yahoo! music. a porous,ace massively distributed strategy that reflects the atomized

culture we live in. >> it seems the dynamic you are addressing between what the consumer wants and what technology can enabled. it is unclear which is directing which. is the new verizon mobile platform in response to consumers or are you leaving consumers? >> consumers are very hungry for this. we think this is one of our most important announcements of the year and that is why we held it for today. we see the honker in consumers using their devices in so many different ways. it was only nine years ago that we all started using text messaging and we were not sure that would be a business. now verizon wireless processes 70 billion text messages per month. this is an evolution in terms of the consumer experience from a mobile platform. that is where our focus is. >> do you think you are leading

the consumer to these options or are they demanding them? >> it is a little of both. the broad band capacity we're offering has more demand all the time. going all digital, we are reserving that demand. the bandwidth demands continue to increase the partnership we have with verizon wireless helps fuel that demand by being able to offer things in both the mobile in home and out of home setting. i think the cloud-based nature are enabled by putting our stuff in the clouds of it can be accessed at a faster pace. in some ways, the technology has fueled a camp -- the consumer demand. the consumers did not necessarily during those of but there they were and this demand cannot of it. i think it is a mix of

technology and consumer is saying that they want more. >> there is also the question of what this does to content. how has the opportunity to distribute directly to consumers affected the film business? >> those are two very different businesses. there is a healthy sort of theatrical business. you can't take a look what a movie like "the"avengers has done. that audience is still robust. on the other side, people are making smaller films, the idea now that we can have a more direct relationship with the consumer and reach a much wider audience at that moment when your title has reached its mass awareness.

you can't do jimmy fallon or conan and publicity and traditionally, those funds open in new york and l.a. and slowly roll out over the out over the next 10 weeks. now, when you do that show, that kid at home in ohio who does not have a theater near him can go on to video-on-demand and access that title right away. that has been a real game changer for the smallest people who do not have the advertising budget to compete. >> what is this doing for music? the traditional record business is being killed over the past decade or two. is this creating a new revenue opportunity? >> i would say absolutely. we are not in the business of selling music. we are in the business of rock -- offering access to experiences to everybody loves it. people think about the music business as the business that they know of today. i look at 1000 years ago, music

was not big business. it was a public performance. a private performance. in the last 100 years, we package it into an object. that transactional business is relatively short on the continuum of time. we're at the future of music. it is the dawn of music. it is about access. i take that is what the future of film s. that is what the future of tv is. that is what the future of books is. it is not about owning, it is about accessing everything. i have two terabytes of music on my computer. i cannot access it in boston. it is useless. the utility value has plummeted because i cannot access it whenever i want to. if i can access it whenever i want to, i appreciate it more. access creates the opportunity

to raise the value of my music collection. to raise the value of my song collection, my game collection. i do not want to own every movie. i want to access whatever i want. that is good for the consumer because it creates more choices and options and takes away barriers to discovery. when i was growing up, i wanted to light classical music. but, i cannot get into it because every cd was $27. i did not have $27 to buy hundreds of cds. i did not get into it because there are barriers to consumption. now, i can pay $9 a month and listen to the thousands and thousands of classical albums. i can discover anything i want. there is no friction between me and discovering in sampling. that leads to greater drama- music. >> access is what you're saying. it is more valuable than ownership. >> we are going through a shift

between a generation that values ownership to a generation that values access. we are living in between both worlds right now. >> it has enabled -- it is unable through the broadband. and most important things is this is massive amounts of data we are talking about. the importance of simplicity for consumers, for discovery, for navigation, for prioritization, for research, is what is really important. consumers get overwhelmed. that is one of the principles that we have. simplicity. we want customers to have a great experience. we want to make sure they come back. and they continue to use it. and their curiosity is peak and their hunger for more consumption is there.

that is the principal on top of our high speed network. >> it is interesting because both of you are content providers. we are more distributors. the conversation between content providers and distributors is much more interesting these days. it is not just pay this rate and get that content. with the digital component of all of the arrangements we make, it opens up a lot of possibilities that we did not have before. >> the other thing that is changing is the type of content. you know, you are starting to see what serious -- web series get more popular. look at the short form skits. they're the perfect thing to consume on your smartphone what you are in a cab or something like that. a lot of people in the independent film world are talking about a way to break up the independent film to offer it

up in smaller chunks. take a look at a program like madmen. that has changed the hour-long program. it is more like you are digesting a massive novel. it is interesting. i do not know who is dictating what. technology? the audience? two summers ago, i was at a friend's house and they had a big screen tv in their basement. i got the assignment to go down there to the basement and get the teenagers. i went down there and there were four kids. in the back row, they were watching two different shows on two different laptops. i saw them and i said, you know, this is a theater. this is the future. >> the other thing that i think ties into that that is important -- we are the largest provider in the u.s. of

wireless. 300 million users across all of the carriers. the now, with the interest and the desire that consumers have, if you are a content provider, i think those 300 million customers would be of interest to you in terms of the delivery mechanism and the vehicle here. i think we are at the very beginning changes of that transformation. i think it is an important profile of our wireless industry. >> earlier, you said the massive amount of data is out there. but it takes up a lot of data. the revised data capped and raised the data cab. i am curious what you all think. how does the consumption of all of this video change the way people pay for infants and data? >> we had a more rigid structure in place. we wanted to make it more flexible and give the customer more choices.

if they wanted to concern terabytes -- consume terabytes, they could do that. from our perspective, it is about flexibility and choice. you know, it has been well accepted. i do not know how you look at it from a provider perspective -- >> it is reasonable to pay more when you want to use more. right? i think that -- there is a finite amount of capacity whether you are talking about wireless or not. at the end of the day, and the worst thing that can happen is an customers -- when consumers feel like their ability to discover in share anis limited. i cannot applaud this video of my kids because i am afraid -- i

do not know where i stand with regard to my cab. there retards usage. that is not good for anybody. if i use more, i should pay more. i understand that. but taking people off because they hit their cap and that is cutting off service is not great. i like this service -- the idea of changing the way you perceive your limit and being able to offer people on limiting consumption if you're willing to pay for it. i think that is always a reasonable thing. >> you mentioned warnings. it is all relative.

on that principle, we give notice is for data consumption. then, we give them an option to continue to upgrade the data. our focus is to have a phenomenal consumer experience into never have the consumer surprise. we have gotten great feedback from those notices and we have here pricing. one of the things that consumers are going through is to understand what a gigabyte means and what -- how much that is. we work very hard to help educate consumers. i think that the wireless industry is doing a good job in responding to those needs. i do expect that the consumer interest in data and data consumption will continue to increase. i think that you will see that

the tears for consumption will continue to evolve. >> it seems inevitable that people will consume more data whether it is the wireless or broadband. are you thinking consumers need to be reeducated about how they get content? >> consumer should not ever really have to understand what a gigabyte is. it is useful in the context of what they're paying for, but i think that is hard to translate -- if i stream may show on hbo, is that a gigabyte? it is a logical leap i do not think consumers should have to make. on my train ride to boston, i was on my verizon ipad, trying to figure out what i was doing. i did not know. i was watching a movie.

i found myself where it was going to cost me more money to watch it. that is always a red light for me. if i am feeling it, then other people are feeling it. that could retard adoption. at the end of the day, i am not disputing that people should pay more for access -- i am happy to pay more. i just never want to have that cut off or feel like i should not watch a movie because they might be near my cap. >> sounds like you need a friendly reminder. [laughter] >> our new services and the fact that they will drive so much more video consumption -- will they be driving technology and pushing us towards the new 4g landscape? >> from our perspective, we

compare the roll out of our lg network, or 4g, to our 3g, and our data consumption on our lte network is much deeper than our 3g network was after 3 or four years. it is all driven by a the quality of the devices on our network and then the consumer desire. all the different options that consumers have to consume. sports. news. business. movies. entertainment. i expect we will see continued growth. that is why we are so focused on the importance of spectrum in our industry. and, we think it is the cornerstone of meeting consumer demand. >> i want to say one thing.

i am constantly in off how fast my lte network is. if you invest me 10 years ago if i could have broadband speeds faster than what i get in my residential home, i would have said that was out of a science- fiction movie. i am constantly running tests and sharing it with friends and telling people how fast it is. it is amazing that -- we take for granted that we have this ubiquitous wireless network that operates at incredible speeds. it is available -- is available today. the army, we are living in the future. >> just yesterday, comcast announced they will give your subscribers access to each other's wi-fi hot spots.

>> is a partnership amongst various cable providers to have a common standard so that one could roam from one area to another. if you are a comcast subscriber in philadelphia and go to new york, you could access the cablevision wi-fi network. we have been speaking about that. it is very complementary. the spectrum is precious. wi-fi work together be in the home and out of the home. there are symbiotic. it is a great combination for the consumer at the end of the day to read access to wi-fi and the lte. >> it makes it easier to consume more data. on the heels of the facebook ipo, there is some much talk about social media. how do you see facebook and social media impacting digital distribution, whether it is impacting the way people search

or recommend and sharyl? >> it is a complete game changer. the word of mouth it can generate and spread -- facebook and twitter have changed the conversation for us. as far as people accessing content via facebook, i would be curious to see where we go. >> for us, it has been a tremendously powerful evolution in the history of music. music has always been social. you always listen to music with friends. told your friends about music. it is the best form of marketing on the planet. it is the natural evolution of that. for us, we moved to an all- facebook registration and we

have seen 60 days ago, 1600% increase in the amount of music shared and consume. for us, it has been the right decision. we work closely with them. >> we do come as well. i look at the importance of social media being how fast it is helping change the industry. consumers all the fault leaders. -- or the thought leaders. it is not 1 or t of individuals. facebook and other social media are enabling that. it will help drive the speed of innovation. it will help drive competition. which is very, very good for our industries. we want to see extremely aggressive competition and if we have that innovation, consumers win. >> i think we see it. social is a way to share

content with friends. we launched the x1, which lets us integrate applications like facebook easily into the experience. i think it is a matter of customizing them for the viewing experience. i am not sure consumers want to put up a browser on their screen. they want to have it integrated here we integrated it. rotten tomatoes helps us ratios. we can do that in a matter of a week or two. we are able to move at a much faster pace than the consumer demand picks to the question is whether your customers will feel comfortable having everything they watch on tv be shared with everybody their friends with on facebook, automatically. will comcast television be integrated into the social graph? right now, when i read a story i

ought to news, it publishes automatically. unless i opt out of it, it is positively sharing automatically. that has been an issue of debate and there are even some legislation and laws about it, as well. it is not about sharing, it is about, will my tv survey share automatically on my behalf? >> it is a good question. i am not sure whether customers would want it or what their regulatory implications would be. at the end of the day, i kind of go with the consumer demand will pull the technology it where it wants to go. i am not sure how that will play out. what do you think? >> consumers are driving all of this.

technology certainly leads them but it always seems to be about the kids. they dictate to us a lot of the time. >> there are some very cool new technologies that address these consumer demands. we have to wrap it up here. i want to thank our panelists. thank you for joining us. very interesting conversations. thank you. c-span3 c-span2 >> -- [captioning performed by national captioning institute] ] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> and now a conversation with julius genachowski. this is about 20 minutes. >> mr. chairman, >> good morning. >> bric bucio. >> -- great to see you. >> the dynamics are always interesting. less than one week ago, you got

your full complement of commissioners. both commissioners have blessed us by coming into the cable show in their first week. what does that mean for you? is that exciting? >> it makes it harder to get conference rooms. it is great. look, i have been very lucky. we have had a very well functioning commission then has gotten a lot done. we have gotten a lot then unanimously. we have been able to disagree without being disagreeable. we have two experienced new commissioners. i cannot be more excited. >> do know that before? >> i did. one of them briefly worked for me. when i became chairman of the fcc, he was still in the general counsel's office. they're both terrific and will be positive additions. >> and jessica worked for me at

one point. [applause] you have been here for a little while. the cable industry is very focused on innovation. even though that is an overused word. we are struggling hard to be on the cusp of the next explosion in creativity. i just wonder whether that is something you have observed? >> absolutely. innovation is not an overused word. i am excited about the innovation we are seeing across the broadband economy. across the board, we are seeing tremendous innovation and investments in networks, alps. we have regained the world leadership. on the wire side, here is something i think most people do not appreciate. three years ago, cable broadband

networks were capable of providing the speeds of more than 10 or 20 megabytes, only 12% of them. today, over 80% of cable subscribers are in systems that are capable of 100 megabits or more. we set a goal for 2020 of the affordable hundred megabits to 100 million homes in the u.s.. we're well on our way to hit and that gold. >> that is terrific. we have been bragging that what a difference a day makes. the cable industry has increased speeds by 900% in 10 years. when you took over as the chairman, it was really critical to you to try to a dance the position of the u.s. to improve the pace of that broadband. are you relatively satisfied?

are you achieving what you had set out to do? >> yes. we are moving in the right direction. mobile is an example. we have regained global leadership in broadband. mobile innovation in the u.s. is the envy of the world. we are the first country to roll out 4g in scale. we are making progress in terms of speed. our apps economy is just incredible. working together, we are starting to make progress on the adoption issue. the bride in the adoption issue. -- the broadband adoption issue. i like the fact that we challenge ourselves as a country. it is good. it is what motivates us. it is true that when i go and meet my counterparts from around the world, they're increasingly envious of what they see in the u.s. and around broadband and innovation.

not the time to let our feet off the gas. we have significant challenges. some are the kind we want to head of. they come from our success. they come from increased demand. increased consumer consumption. increase consumer demand for wireless and wired. >> you have been a great spokesman about wireless. there is often this kind of, you know, as a tariff dispute about whether wireless is a real -- esoteric dispute about whether wireless is an access device to the internet. you seem to be a passionate spokesman for the view that 80 is. it has value for consumers. could you say about that? >> we do not know yet exactly what role mobile broadband will play because we do not know what

the speeds are that people will want for different services. that is fine. some of the most exciting things that will happen in the next few years are things we do not know about. one of the things exciting about wireless has been wi-fi. it is an on license spectrum that was put on the market to lead to innovations no one would respect -- expect. it is giving us wi-fi. that is playing a very important role in the lives of consumers and mobile infrastructure. cable is leading the way in innovating around wi-fi. i was pleased to see the announcement yesterday that companies have said, we are going to enable our consumers to do wi-fi rowling. -- roaming. you can go anywhere in the usa

and use it. that is great. we're just at the beginning of the innovation that we will see from wi-fi, from unlicensed, from wireless. we are working to put more on license spectrum's that have even more exciting characteristics. >> we appreciated the chance to work with you during the spectrum bill, which you. the champion of. congratulations. the district fought hard with you from the view that unlicensed would play a critical role in the ecosystem. one of the great advances is innovation. it allows companies and people like apple to design devices and know that it will be able to have access. one thing you said -- you are much more of a wireless expert than i am. we have heard a lot about the wireless market being congested. and the importance of getting

that stuff off towers and into the ground. do you see that as an important role for wi-fi, in helping bring down the traffic? >> absolutely. part of a solution, in the category of the kind of problems you want to have come is mobile congestion. it would be great in some respects if we had no mobile congestions but we would not have any demand and we would not have the exciting services. we have a spectrum crunch because incredible people in this country have indicated exciting acts. people are using them. they are hungry to use them everywhere. that is great. but, we have a limited resources in spectrum. we have -- you have a lot of experience in this. no one anticipated this increase. we have not managed spectrum policy to anticipate this kind of increase. we have to do that.

we have to do things like look harder and more carefully at government spectrum. 60% of spectrum has government users. we have to think about making much more of that available for commercial, more quickly. we need to think about ideas like the sharing of government use and commercial use, building on the technologies and ideas in wi-fi. it is the key, but i will say one thing. this is an enormous opportunity for the u.s. to lead a world in innovation in a new category that will matter for many years. >> great point. i share the optimism about our deployment story. the cable industry reaches 93% of american households today. we will talk about the remaining percentage of how important is

to reach them. we have this fantastic service. all of us who are techno files really have a one-third that are not there. let us talk about adoption because i think this is something the industry recognizes and is proud to be a part of. he challenged us in the country to solve the problem. tell us what you think about that. >> big challenge. about one-third of people in the u.s. do not have broadband access. they do not subscribe. 67%, roughly adoption rate. if you believe that this is an essential platform for people to participate in our economy and in our democracy, get access to education, health care, 67% is not near good enough. how to bring that up is a very

difficult challenge. there is no silver bullets. we have seen some very important steps forward in the last year. connect to compete, the cable industry initiative. internet essentials. the comcast initiative. several years ago, these concepts were tested. the idea of broadband providers offering low-cost broadband to low-income people, families with kids on school lunch programs -- $9.95 per month. this is a big deal. it can move the needle on broadband adoption. i am pleased this is happening. i commend the cable industry for stepping up and responding to the challenge and for now working for the many very difficult operational challenges to roll this out.

we are seeing other parts of the ecosystem to contribute. the ad council is announcing that it will make digital literacy and broadband adoption a priority campaign. , it will roll out a national multilingual campaign to help drive brought the deduction and the directory -- and digital literacy. >> one of the things that i thought was a unique in your and our companies would say they have discovered as well, even though affordability is a component of the adoption story, it is not the only one. it is not the most difficult one. you found out, as well with

respect to literacy. >> there are too many americans who lack skills. a study cannot the reported that half of american businesses are having trouble finding people to fill available jobs because they cannot find people with suitable skills. often, that is basic digital skills. that is 66% of americans do not have basic digital skills. they do not know how to upload documents, it resonates, you cannot look for a job. if we do not tackle this issue, we will fall behind as a country. i am pleased it is an important part. >> we appreciate your

leadership. this is something the cable industry has committed itself to. we think is great for industry. it is essential to the country. i think we expect to be proud of what we have done and i want to thank you for everything you have done. said wait a little bit to other dynamics in the market. there are a lot of elements to innovation. there are a lot of elements to taking -- changing marketplace is. we have experienced the breathtaking speed of change. yet to be reevaluating everything. -- you have to be revalued in everything. i want to touch on pricing. right now, it in the system, all kinds of companies are experimenting with new pricing. it is not exclusive to cable.

satellite companies are doing it. the wireless companies are certainly experimenting with different pricing tiers. u.s. spoken about this in the past -- you have spoken about this in the past. what are your thoughts today about that? it is something customers are wrestling with. companies want to allow the network to grow. they wanted to be consistent with the law, as well. >> it is very important, particularly in new areas like rugby and. there was a point -- areas like broadband. there was a point of view that said there was one permissible pricing model for broadband. i did not agree with it. the commission did not agree. we said that this model was experimentation. usage-based pricing could be healthy and beneficial.

it could help drive efficiency in networks, increased consumer choice and competition, an increase fairness because it can result in lower prices for people who consume less broadband. so, experimentation in this area is something that is completely appropriate. >> another. you cannot walk through and have somebody not ask you about is the continuing strains and the programming distribution marketplace. for all of you out there, -- i take no current position on this issue. i wanted to ask you a little bit about it. how do you see this issue? do you see anything out there

that concerns you? >> the -- there are difficult sets of issues. you know, first, creators of programming have the right to charge for carriage of their programming. the framework that covers the is rigid. there are questions about whether that free market is addressing the issues that are coming up as there are more and more agreements put in place, particularly broadcaster's moving to charge compensation for their programming, which is permissible. we have seen blackouts. we have heard from consumers' concerns that they have about the effects on them.

that is why we opened a proceeding on this several months ago. one of the things that has come up is an issue that is getting closer attention at the fcc -- something called shared services agreement. there are some broadcasters to, in addition to negotiating for two stations together in connection with a permissible duopoly, have shared services agreement with its third station. all the sudden, it is three stations. the raises real issues. it is something we are looking at closely. >> we appreciate that. as the conversation morphs into 2013 and around a new telecom lot, new basis for regulation in the industry, we hope there may be a way to find accommodations to all of these issues. one last question i want to ask you because this is something i am proud of you for. i tried it.

. chairman has tried it. they have failed. to reform the universal service system. while there were efforts to try to undermine what you do, i wanted to publicly commend you for it and think you have struck a positive balance. i wanted to give you a last word. >> it is an achievement of the entire commission because it would not have happened if all the commissioners together on a bipartisan basis did not support the goals we laid out for universal services. the people who do not follow this -- what we did was transforme a universal service system that was focused on telephone service to one that is focused on broadband. moving from the 20th-century main communications platform to the 21st century main communications platform. to do it in a way that

recognizes the fiscal constraints that we are all under in the government and that recognizes that this one had gotten a little creaky over the years and certainly not driving our national broadband's objective. we will able to put these reforms in place. eliminate things that did not make sense. for example, with cable providing broadband, we saw there were many parts of the country where this program was spending consumer money to subsidize a company where there was an on subsidized cable broadband competitor in the market. that does not make sense. it does not make any sense when you have unserved communities that are not getting any support. it is an incredible thing that the u.s. has 93% cable

penetration. the rest of the world looks at this and says, how did you accomplish that? amazing thing particularly for a country of our size. we have in the u.s. it is incredible. there is another 7% of the country. 18 million americans who live in areas without broadband infrastructure. at the fcc working together, we have moved this program to strip out inefficient spending and shift it to support broadband in parts of the country that do not. i appreciate the cable industry's support. >> terrific. i know the details are mine a mining complex. -- mine numbingly complex. the goal is to try to get all americans on an affordable platform to allow them to be part of the american dream. thank you for bringing that

dream about. julius genachowski, chairman of the sec -- fcc. [applause] >> coming up, a panel from cnn, msnbc, and univision. a look at the future of television. that is followed by the u.n. internet regulation plan. later, attorney general, eric holder, gives the keynote address at the congressional black caucus summit. ♪ >> thank you for being here. in 2008, your game change was one of the definitive books of that campaign. has there been making changing moment in 2012 and if not, what could it be? >> there has been a game changing moment, particularly for the latino community. that came before mitt romney even became officially -- before

he became the frontrunner. that was when he said that the response or the answer to the immigration issue would be the self deportation of undocumented immigrants. and when he vowed to veto a dream that if it ever came to his desk. even though most polls show that it is jobs and the economy are the issues that the most care about, the issue that drives their votes is definitely the immigration issue. right off the bat, president obama has 64% of support from latino voters. romney has 26 or 25%. for there to be a change in net, i do not know what has to happen. either he has to quit flip- floping -- either he has to change his decisions.

it will be an uphill battle. >> and john king, has this happened? >> we call that evolving. it is not flip-floping. [laughter] we have had an interesting campaign. we have not had a game changing general election. what could it be? it could be a showdown with iran. and then a domino effect, which would be energy prices biking. -- energy prices biking. if gas goes up again, it could be devastating. it is domestic, i think is not a dramatic game changing suppress, but i think when people see what the unemployment report is, the august jobs report, that is when the psychology of the electorate settles in. if that is a bad number, that

for the president. if people feel better, that could change. >> chris matthews -- >> iran. iran. obama would have to react to the attack, that would be interesting. that would change everything. >> you brought the smart board to cnn. part of the changing technology we have seen in our industry. if you look back through history with radio and roosevelt and the debates in 1960, where are we in 2012 with technology and social media? >> i remember when i had a pencil. i did not have to wear a tie and i did not wear makeup. things are changing. you can embrace technology. you can embrace it. it is scary. if you run from it, you will be obsolete. the technology is a challenge. you cannot tell people that you

must watch john king at this time or you much lo. i will watch it when i wanted, however wanted, where i wanted. it is changing how that campaign is reaching out to contact people. if you want to report on the campaign, you do not just go to defense. campaigns do not have to do that. they are in touch with people over devices, text messaging. that is how they raise money. if you are an old school guy like me -- i still love to go to events and stop by headquarters. you walk into headquarters and see some people there, but technology is changing everything. you have to learn if or you'll be covering the last campaign. >> in more important thing then technology is what it allows us to do as citizens. in the way we debate issues. the death in which we go at an issue.

i will spend the rest of my life wondering why we had the iraq war. the president was able to talk us into a war. the non critical factor of the media is gone. the media is totally different than it was in 2002. there would be questioning -- [no audio] they want this work. this group of ideologues. we would see it. we would question iraq with what happened on 9/11. it would be critical analysis of the argument put forth by the administration and -- is not

only breath, is death. critical argument on the air. no more the president said this or that. wait a minute, let us question his thinking. the u.s. has never been the aggressor. it oppressors -- how can we change the tradition overnight? changing the definition -- the meeting intellectually imbedded with the thinking. i am just reading a cronkite book. this war is not winning. people like and the rooney -- people were thinking that you had to be in the media. >> that is what is different. we would move quicker. we would not take -- cannot

death of argument and diversity is not the substance of authority. thank god for cable. >> let me take the other side of the argument. >> i think it is very dangerous. people have designer news. they watched news depending on what they want to hear. they want to listen to people that they agree with. there is a fine line between news and commentary. after the average viewer to the average voter, they cannot know the difference between a news person who is actually giving the news and a commentator.

they look the same. unless you sell yourself as a commentator -- i remember when lou dobbs was critical of the latino community. he was constantly attacking immigrants. i remember sending him an e-mail and saying this is not right. you are giving your opinion. you are supposed to be a news person. he rode back saying it says, news and opinion. it is not clear at what moment you were providing the news and at what moment you were giving the opinion. >> i think it is very clear. i disagree. people are thinking all the time. they can hear an argument. the argument for the vietnam war, i am sorry, the argument for the iraq war was commentary. the case for the war was opinion. there was not an objective reason to go to war with iraq. that was the opinion of the people around the president.

they wanted that war. that was an opinion. it needed to be looked at critically with other opinions. that was not the fact that we had to cover tokyo. it is not like that. this administration want to go to work. i do not believe ronald reagan would have gone to war in iraq. that is an analysis. you can look at history and see that. that is an argument. the idea we should not be argumentative on cable -- the idea of this embeded safety is scary because this is not someone telling us what to do in a government-owned newspaper. we're supposed to question here criticize. that is the durnell is due. -- journalists do. >> they know that he is giving his opinion. [laughter] that is very clear. there is nothing wrong with that. it is dangerous when people cannot tell the difference between fact --

>> who are these people? who are these people who are so unaware they do not know what they're listening to? when you turn on the channel, you know how to find what you are looking for. you do not accidentally find your watching msnbc. now, you know the rev. al sharpton. you are aware of his point of view. you listen to him. if you respect him, you learn things. i learned things from everybody. especially people i disagree with. >> this comes down to your brand, number one. your brand is very important in the world right now. you know if you're watching fox. for those of us who want to be in the middle and have all sides, we have a challenge to to make those conversations more provocative. >> do not just jump to the black and white. every one of these people has a different point of view. there is no -- [laughter]

[talking over each other] that is just an opinion. >> who is your audience, don king? >> your people. -- fewer people. you can laugh all you want. it is a challenge. you have to study these things. we have always been this network and are good things about that and get things. there are people who want to make this about his fault. i disagree. if you are a sports fan or in business, you study your opponent. this is a parenting challenge. this is an individual challenge when you reach the age of maturity to say that this is mike -- >> you are offering yourself -- i am discovering an opinion. >> you -- there is nothing wrong

with advocacy journalism there is nothing wrong with the objective journalism, either. >> there are three levels to what we try to do. we try to report the news. people do not know what the argument is about. we try to analyze. i try to figure out who is making smart moves. i talked about the cory booker thing last night. that is analysis. it is true. that is not advocacy. i was dismayed at what i saw at the political mishandling by political advocates. that analysis. that is not rooting against or for the guy. you have to do all three layers if you want to do modern cable. you have to do analysis. you have to know where you are coming from. that is a useful. >> i think it is very important -- >> -- >> when people are basing their political decisions and

opinions, that is when it is dangerous. you do need and the -- analysis. it just needs to be clear. it needs to be clear to the audience and not all of the viewers or voters are sophisticated enough to understand this. >> come on. you do not think the average viewer a fox knows that the irony is deep in the for is a fair and balanced. they all think it is a joke. everybody who watches fox knows is there and balanced and that is ironic. they are all in on the joke. they do not think that is fair and balanced. they love it. that is why they watch it. come on. you're underestimating your audience. they get it. >> there was an online partnership this year of a new network, english version of latino news. what will that look like? >> this is a historic moment for you to see on an abc because we

are launching a new network. -- for univision and abc because we are launching a new network. in 2013, it will be a network. there was this void for a specific audience out there. it is mostly english latinos, second generation. also, the general audience was interested in issues that affect latinos. they should be. by the year 2015, latinos will be 30% of the population in this country. univision news, but in english. with with in a prospectus -- with latino perspectives. many are bilingual. many are watching univision, not because of the language but because of the content. they can believe the information because they get information that is relevant to them.

our goal is to fill the void. >> one of the debates with newt gingrich -- newt gingrich went after you and cnn for the question about his alleged extramarital affairs. as a moderator, what were you thinking? take away the word all aged -- >> take away the word elijah. - alleged >> one of his ex-wife's said he asked for something specific, an open marriage. we had a conversation. i said yes, it is. we conversed about it.

i do not think there is any debate. it is a fair question. a legitimate debate. i said, the number one story of the day, that is the first question i would ask him. i said, i am going to ask him this. he is going to lunch at me. he is going to launch at the media. he will say nasty things about me and cnn and the news media. we would just have to stand there. i will give him his time. we will see where it goes. >> that is what happened. >> i was doing my job, as i see it. i have known him for 20 years. he was doing his job as he sees it . he came to me and said this is a great debate. i said, i thought i was despicable. he said, we have known each other for a long time. after the debate, wasn't that a great debate? [laughter] >> what does that tell you?

that is off the wall behavior. >> he is an interesting -- a lot of people said that gave him the south carolina primary. it may well have. i do not know. i do not read minds. he had momentum. he got more out of that. i give the voters the trust in common sense. all those debates serve a great purpose. people got to see who they are. >> in all fairness, what you had the guts to do was ask a provocative -- their two kinds of questions. the one everyone wants to ask. then there is the question like david carry asked about marriage equality.

it elicited something. i do not know what joe biden was thinking, but when he was asked the question was news. that is what our job is, to ask to be expected question that it is true honesty of them and the question that is bugging you. when the news media gets terrified of that kind of hostility from these characters, that is when we get in trouble. that is what we are stopping. that is the great quality of what you did. that was great. >> i want to read this -- i am going to ask a yes or no question, chris matthews. [laughter] good luck. "i have to tell you, it is part of reporting this election, the feeling most people get when they hear barack obama's speech, i felt this real going on my leg. i do not have that too often."

is itis the thrill still there? >> i said the exact same thing in 2004 after i heard his address in boston. >> i know, but is it there today? >> i want to help you with your report in first. i also said we have just heard the first african-american president. he failed to mention that. it makes me look a little sharper. you only offered up the thrill. have been working on a book on ronald reagan. i do have a physical reaction when people talk about my country. when he said, only in this country is my story possible, it gets to me. whatever you think about his

politics, which i think are left of center, his story is an amazing american story. when he talks the way he did, that is my definition of american exceptionalism. this is a great country. i am thrilled by it. i meant to say it as part of my reporting because i felt it. i am a non-traditional person but i have traditional values. i love the country. i said so. perhaps i should not have said so. i had given a lot of jackasses the chance to talk about me. [laughter] >> thank you, chris. [laughter] [applause] >> it is the most obvious question raised by every right- winger. usually they say "tingle," which

tells me about their orientation. [laughter] not that there is anything wrong with it. thank you, steve, for serving up that souffle you have been working on since last night when your brain exploded that he would ask me that. [laughter] >> maria, finished the sentence. barack obama will win because -- or mitt romney will win because -- >> that is a tough one. i think barack obama will win because -- can i say it in spanish? [speaking spanish] it is a typical thing in spanish that is better to have a bad one that you know rather than a new one that you know nothing about. mitt romney will win because the

economy was not able to get off its peak. >> if president obama wins, it will be because being unchallenged in the primaries has allowed them to vote -- focus on the primary election, the demographics of the country. if mitt romney wins it will be because to go back to ronald reagan. are you better off than you were four years ago? enough people will say no. the romney campaign, if he can make that case, he will win the election. >> i want to quote our numbers guy. it is to early to call it. i do think i is too early to call. i do think the debates we're going to have will be spectacular. i think everybody will watch it

and loved it. we will have 24/7 debate about each debate. between each debate, it is going to be fantastic. i think we are in the preseason of the most exciting political season we have ever had. it is going to be awesome. one guy, a traditional candidate for president, republican who has run two or three times. your name is familiar. the democrats are feeding the hottest hand in the democratic party. watching him yesterday dealing with the cory booker line convinced me he still has the incredible articulation. this is going to be one hell of the debate even if the economy does not pick up. i do think his job security is riding on the s&p. that is a dangerous place to ride right now. 10% of the turnout this year

will be eternal. -- 10% of the turnout issue will be latino. >> come back to c-span. thank you all for being with us. >> our coverage of the 2012 cable show concludes with a panel on the future of television. this discussion includes executives from time-one, cox communications, news corp., and netflix. they address piracy, innovation, and consumer choice in the last five years. >> welcome to the panel. the theme of the it is "whose viewer is it?" some have said it should be " whose user is it?"

let's talk about tv everywhere. i spoke to a panel last summer. you were very excited about the tv everywhere concept. how far as it moved since last summer? how much has the industry embraced the concept of tv everywhere? >> i think we have cheered up a lot in the last year. a huge success in the cable industry and other distribution industries. you just heard the sports guys saying one of the most powerful things was put in all sports on demand on every device. tv everywhere is being adopted faster than dvr, dod, high def. this is a hugely successful initiative. the success of things like netflix prove that people want things on demand.

they want their favorite shows, favorite networks easy, say news everywhere. -- same as used everywhere. we have to do it faster and faster. this industry should be proud to have done this faster than anything before. even in europe, they are now adopting this. we have hbo in the states. they have in all the overseas territories now. distributors in eastern europe and south america are starting to do the same thing. this is the conversion of internet and internet delivery with television. >> you would traditionally be vicious rivals and i would have to separate you at arm's length. there seems to be a collegial atmosphere about this, a sense of you are all -- >> do not be fooled. [laughter]

>> how do you maintain the competitive edge while acknowledging you are all heading towards the same endgame, working with more people in a collegial way to get your content to all of the platforms? >> there needs to be a recognition we do compete day in and day out. one of the real challenges is to create an experience that works for the consumer. one of the challenges of tv everywhere is to create something where it is easy to use. that means you sign up one way, you know what you are going to get. the great thing with netflix is you know whether you are getting 22 episodes or five episodes. you know what to expect. i think in some ways, we have got to find a way to make a much more -- all of these experiences easier to use, more accessible. that requires us to work together. there is a win-win, competing on

one level, but creating an experience where the consumer knows what to find. you do not find a hodgepodge and mixed bag. i think we all benefit by creating an experience the consumer can understand and knows what to expect. >> i am not sure if you are providing a lovely resting place for this content or a hannibal lecter hovvering the food. >> i imagine we are a bit of both. i do not think there is a black- and-white answer of what role we play. there is an artful way programming is repurchased on netflix. we are particularly additive to certain types of programming.

we have billions of hours of viewing. that will take away from something, not necessarily tv viewing. that can take away from other things people would be doing. >> nickelodeon has been in the news last week or so. the allegation is the ratings have suffered because of their association with netflix. is there a genuine cause for concern on both sides? it does not help you people that go with you see ratings go down. how much of their problems are at your door? what does that mean going forward? >> my programming strategy is mostly around high engagement. we get there through personalization. people's tastes are so diverse that no specific network or show has such high viewing concentration for that kind of cause and effect on ratings. there are other stories that are

much more positive. we brought a million new viewers to amc during the gap between season four and season 5. we gave them the opportunity in the model to catch up on the show. in that way, we were quite attitude. -- additive. do think there is an artl way to pick the right content, the right window that can be purely additive to cable. >> you have heard the others. what is your overview of how fast everything is moving, where it is heading, what the perils are? >> you will need to wrap this up to move on to the next topic. we heard something yesterday i thought was fascinating. one of the panelists said we are dealing in a business going from

a consumer who wants to omit to the consumer who wants to access it. we're dealing with the struggles and complexities as we move our way through that. as it relates to tv everywhere, if you look at the growth on the multiple challenges -- channels we distribute with video on demand, it is one of the fastest-growing segments of our business. we're putting product on the web through tv everywhere. we have 10,000 titles along with a number of live streams. we are expanding into something that delivers live, linear television home to your tablets. it will move faster and faster. we have made huge progress. you have to negotiate agreements. we have to figure out how the economics work, but we're making progress. i do want to comment on netflix. we get asked the question all the time. is ted my friend or enemy?

he is a frenemy, somewhere between the two. my broadband platform is extremely valuable to me. i have spent $16 billion over 15 years building it out. as of march, 40% of my broadband customers have a netflix stream in their home during the month of march. that means is an important product to them. 811,000 streams of hbo go in customers' homes during the month of march. a very important product to them. i need to enable this to happen if i want to live in this world. that is ok with me. for shows to be reassessed -- to be assessed purely by ratings to be reassessed? are there other ways to look at shows now given the multitude of places they can be watched? i watch almost all of my

television on things like hbo go a week for two after the air. >> hbo, showtime, netflix. we do not get paid or make money based on who watches the show. our incentive is to deliver a service that people want to have in their house and want to subscribe to. that is. subscription television. -- that is pure subscription television. it has led to a lot of focused and diverse content. the rest of the networks are subscription-supported and advertised. it is a connotation -- combination of the two. the fact that you can have targeted programming with the support and a big affiliate's the support -- affiliate's-p support -- a billion-fee

affiliate--fee support. a lot of the success of cnn and bloomberg comes from the subscriber support. subscribers do not want to maximize ratings of the time. they want to get a certain view or depth of analysis. it varies between wide ratings and narrow. this is a very healthy model. we should remember as we talk about internet, that is where more action and ewing is. we should not forget that. the television business, if you ask the google people what they look at, they look at the customer use. if it is going up, they do it. if you look at television, everything is up.

every indicator is good in america and around the world. ewing, a subscription fees, earnings, a diversity of programming, everything is up. the internet fusion of tv going on the internet is making it more vibrant and healthy. >> do you agree with that? what terrified everybody was the internet could kill television. >> it has made a much richer experience. the ability to find what you want to find goes back to the question of whether the ratings systems accurately reflect the business today. purely beyond mechanics that are lagging behind, i think they do not capture the fact that you get all these choices and the

opportunity to have events or programming targeted to a particular segment. in the past, you are trying to appeal to everybody. realistically, nfl and american idol appeal to everybody. increasingly, you want something that appeals to a segment. i am trying to appeal -- >> do you care how people watcher content? >> we want it to be accessible. you want them to watch in a way that works for them. most of them, if they have a choice, prefer to watch it on a 60-inch screen in their house. if they want to watch you at night because they are not home, if they are home they will watch you there. i think clearly there is a value trade off for convenience and accessibility. you want the ability to watch it when you want to watch it. you have a choice.

>> and watched the floyd mayweather fight in sylvester stallone's private viewing screen in the house that rocky built, as he put it. he said, i watch your show. really? he said, do you have any idea how big your head is? [laughter] let me bring you in here. what part of the relationship with consumers do you want to own? in terms of how you work with these guys, is there any conflict between promoting brands of companies you may want to be competitive with over customers and advertising dollars and so on? >> we all have a relationship with the user. whether it be the content, the

network, platform, an app. we all have a relationship with the customer. we have to understand this business is getting more complex. the customer has choice. he has many more choices today than five years ago. they have more choice and are more in control and have leverage. that is probably the aha for the industry as we work our way through it. >> promoting brands and companies where you may be in competition? >> in most cases, we're not in competition. we all thrive when we are all successful. i have to be sensitive not to the competition, but i need to understand the economic model that drives his business. if he is in the business of creating content and wants to monetize that, i need to work

with him to get the eyeballs counted on all of the platforms that consume it so he can monetize that. it is not the competition issue. >> how does it affect the advertising part of it is more content providers prefer the subscription model to conventional advertising? it is a better system in the and for controlling the multi platform ways people want to watch tv or movies. >> if you can count the eyeballs, i think there will always be an advertising business. advertisers want to talk to users and viewers. they want to get in places where emotions are being touched. i do not see that going away. i see as creating dangerous moments where we do not capture the information and properly share it with the folks that needed. then you put more pressure on the transactional side. the cost goes up. you start disadvantaging people

in the marketplace could have had within the circle of consumption. >> your dipping into the content producing pie. david finch is a very superstar at what he does. is a big investment for you guys. is the longer-term future of netflix going to go this way? will you be producing more content? where does that leave your relationship with the content producers? >> i think it expands it. we're buying in a new category. the things we're doing in originals are centered around one-hour serialized drama. they're very expensive to produce and high risk for networks. the best place they land is in a premium subscription space where we tend to be more directly competitive. hbo, showtime, and others have chosen not to license it.

we want to get those great shows. we want to create a better economic model for it. we're spending a a little bit producing originals. we're spending a lot more licensing from the networks. cw produces a lot of great 1- hour dramas. that is the kind of business we could do together. as we are producing, i am producing a show with fox television right now, i think our relationships expand. >> the single most important focus for you and your company right now, what would you say it is? >> creating content. that is the heart of what we do. it all starts with content. netflix is the internet. it has opened up content for increased by you. there is some fragmentation that comes with it, but the pie is

getting larger. people can access content in different ways and different places. content will get more valuable. we do not just take content here and export it. we create content in those places and regions. it will be the heart of what will drive us forward, creating content. >> sports has been the bedrock of news. will that continue? >> if you can afford it. it is a double edged sword. big sports events are second to none in terms of -- it is at the top of the list. it comes with a cost. it is a challenge you have to digest. sports has played a central role in driving our business is for

work. it is great content. the challenges are managing the economics. you need big enough businesses to be able to package. sports can be a driving force for a multidimensional business and carry a lot of stuff for. it is great event content. the nfl does not get fragmented. we just signed a deal with a leak in germany. that does not get fragmented. there is only one german soccer league. the importance of the content is second to none, but it clearly comes with the cost we have to reckon with. >> neilson recently observed something interesting in the u.s. landscape. a number of -- the number of u.s. households without a television set is rising. do you see this as the precursor to what has happened with newspapers? the conventional way of getting york daily news is moving fast from newspapers to online. could you see a situation where

the old fashion television set becomes redundant in americans' lives? >> we do not think so. remember how this started. we talked about it last year. people who would supposedly cut the cord. it did not happen. we are in the middle of a severe worldwide recession or slow growth. . -- or slow-growth period. household formation used to collect along. it has been flat. -- household formation used to click on. it has been flat. that is why you do not have as much growth in subscription. those who had cut the cord are not who you think there. mostly they were economically challenged households that did not have broadband connections and often not computers. it was not like you had computer

people not doing it. the ones you are asking about are those. i think it was answered already. we do not really care where you want -- watch your screen. they are all televisions. you cannot get the stuff unless they hook up through the distribution centers -- systems maintained by people sitting in this room. it will all work out. if the content is good and robust and showing up weather on netflix, hbo, original or serialized, one way or another, consumers are finding it useful. i think when the recession ends, you will see continued adoption of internet and devices by all age groups. you will see big screens on the

wall. if you listen to what samsung and apple are talking about, i do not know if you call those tv's or die tablets. there is no distinction really of what they are. >> it all sounds positive. revenue is going up. everyone is happy and working together. everyone is getting this great feeling of positivity. piracy remains a big problem for the industry. is there going to be more concerted effort collectively to stamp it out? in britain with the premier li eague, they are red hot. people opposed things from their tv and within seconds, it is pulled down. >> it needs to happen. we're struggling as a country on how we need to get this set up.

we have major public policy that did not make it through the pipeline that should have. the internet makes it so accessible. if we do not -- our network is very tight. we use a very tight management system to distribute products. we try to do the same with what is coming to your home. if we do not keep it tight and respect the fact that there are rights holders and they have conditions on how the content get used, the content goes away. content is not produced for free. it takes a fair amount of sharing between networks. networks, providers, not only for privacy -- excuse me, for

piracy, but for privacy and security. they are all thrown together, all three concepts. we have work to do. we have some education to do with users. i often get challenged that there's not a piece of live entertainment produced today they cannot find being distributed globally within 10 minutes. >> york company has tried things to varying degrees of success. i have three teenage boys. if they can nick something for nothing, they do it as do their friends. is the genie out of the bottle? what do you do about it? how tough can companies be to stop it from happening? >> i do not think the genie is

out of the bottle. i think the newspaper business got further down the road then it should have and is now trying to put it back in the bottle in terms of creating a better business model. putting all of the content out there was not going to lead to a place that was a business model that worked. >> i do think if you give people a good experience, people will generally pay a fair value. we should have rules to help enforce it. the legislation pat referred to fail. people on the other side acknowledged we need rules. you will not have quality content and distribution systems if you do not have rules. there seems to be a general acknowledgment that you need a set of rules. we need to navigate the process better. we need the rules.

i think people will pay if you give them a good experience. we're not directv. the price went up. what they did not like was when you did not give them what they expected. if you gave them a quality experience and what they expected, they were willing to pay a fair price. we cannot count them. we have to provide a good experience and meet expectations. i think most people will pay for a quality experience. but we start of the way. tv was free. -- >> we started that way. tv was free. i guess everybody was forced to pay for some things. then we came along and offered something better. andter transmission th diversity of programming. people chose to pay. 94% of people are choosing to pay for choice and quality and a

distribution system that can give them our stuff and you are stuck. >> high-quality at low prices. >> it is a choice. it is an improvement. they adopted it voluntarily. >> let's talk about the future. i remember sitting with jeff bezos from amazon 10 years ago and him telling me that in 10 years, he would be reading the paper on tablets. i laughed at him. it was ridiculous. he had amazing vision of what happened in that time scale. what do you think we will be seen in the next five or 10 years? how fast will it go? >> at the speed of change today, five years is an eternity to predict. when we started streaming five years ago, we did not have a move that was not 10 years old.

this year, we have the top three biggest movies at the box office on netflix. the rate of change is so quick. the technology is moving so quick. consumer adoption, the generation behind us is so much more open to change. a big chunk of our paid during is tapping through gaming devices -- are paid viewing is through gaming devices. what is a tv set? what is television? that will become less clear over the next few years. i imagine five years from now, we will all be wrong with what we predicted. >> do you have a think the unthinkable group where you imagine the unimaginable things that may happen in 10 years?

what have we not thought of yet? >> i think we're getting clear messages about the importance of search and access across all platforms. we are understanding the personalization. you want to be your own personal curator. your personal preference will dictate what order you consume content and on what device you do that on. i think it will require faster speeds, choices of tiers. i think the foundation for innovation is inside the industry. it is an enormous opportunity for us. it will be a fun run the next five years. >> i wish i have the answer -- had the answer. we do not know. we often think about it because it helps us wrestle with questions.

if you think you know what the world will look like in fiber 10 years, he would be deluding yourself. the biggest challenge we have is to not hold back the future. when you are a company that has big, entrenched businesses, one of the challenges is how not to try to protect them and hold off. you cannot be charged in. you have to have rules about how you go about it. -- you cannot just charges. you have to have rules about how you go about it. take advantage of technology. create new experiences. i do not think we have gone fast enough. one of the challenges is to be fast enough. technology is going to keep moving faster. we get too hung up on

protecting or the rules of the past. we need to figure out how we adopt and embrace the new technologies in that in a way. in a way that deliver better customer experiences. >> what is your vision of utopia? what is the ultimate in a game in a dream scenario -- ultimate endgame in a dream scenario? " you have to know what you are. you are an elephant and not a lion. ted said it well. as an industry, we have to look at the interfaces and let the consumers use the interfaces' they want. if they like an apple interface and netflix design, you have got to let them use that. do not get hung up on trying to control the interface. you will still have your subscriber relationship. you cannot develop the best

world-class interfaces at the scale and distribution company has. the silicon valley internet industry is a global industry. that is what they do. we should harness back and let the interfaces make the fundamental product and get your distribution system more powerful. do not try to hold that back. consumers will not allow it. >> thank you all very much. ladies and gentlemen, my all- star panel. [applause] >> tomorrow, the enforcement officer on what his agency is doing to oversee wall street. we will hear about efforts to prevent another wall street crisis in ways to prevent fraud schemes like bernie madoff.

"newsmakers" airs sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. here on c-span. >> on sunday -- >> i think the problem is people see walter cronkite as the friendly man. there is another side to him the wanted to be the best. he was obsessive with ratings and beating the brinkley report every night. he was probably the fiercest competitor i have written about. i have written about presidents, generals. his desire to be the best was very pronounced. >> the best-selling author on his new biography of longtime cbs news anchor walter cronkite on sunday. >> this weekend, the united kingdom celebrates the 60th anniversary of queen elizabeth's a session to the throne. tomorrow night, c-span will

show her address to parliament as part of the diamond jubilee celebration. it took place in march and included speeches by the house of lords and the house of commons. you can watch that sunday night at 9:00. robert mcdowell gives an update on the plan to give you and more control over the internet. the proposal is backed by china, russia, brazil, and india. it was held at the national press club. this is one hour and 45 minutes. >> that was very nice. i appreciate the cooperation. i am the president of the free state foundation. i want to welcome all of you to

today's event. the free state foundation is a free market oriented think tank specializing primarily in communications, internet, and high-tech policy issues. i am always pleased to see so many old friends at our events. today i am especially pleased to see so many new friends and new faces. i confess we have a large turnout. there must be quite a few of you that did not even signed up. we welcome you. we're glad that you are here. i especially want to extend a warm welcome to our c-span audience today and thank c-span for covering this event. we appreciate it. today's program is titled the

multi stakeholder privatized internet model, can it survive threats from the u.n.? i understand the potential threats to the internet that we will be discussing today are going to a rise in the international telecommunications union or itu. the itu operates under the u.n. auspices and is one of their specialized treaty organization's. that is why sometimes today we may be referring to the itu or the u.n., the parent body of the itu. the issues we will be discussing will likely rise in the context of a particular itu-sponsored

conference that will take place this december in dubai. i did not say wicked as in wicked witch. witc stands for the world conference on international communications. there have been concerns expressed. the commissioner was one of the early express service of concerns, but some countries may try to use it to amend the international telecommunications regulations in ways that fundamentally alter the current multi-stakeholder bottoms up, privatized internet governance model that many of us would say has worked really well. regimecern a neis a new would be adopted that would confirm or intra-governmental control over aspects of the

internet and the way it functions today. i will not say more about the particulars of the potential changes because i do not want to steal any thunder from the distinguished group of panelists we have today. i will only say this. apart from the economic and social benefits that we are all familiar with that the internet has given rise to, the internet has been a wonderful medium for facilitating free speech when governments have kept their hands off of the net. aside from the technical standards or whatever else might affect the internet that will be discussed at the conference, i do not think any of us want to see move towards new rules that would give the government's more control over the content of a speech. that is why many of you have

heard me say this. a lot of what we do at the free state foundation is intended to promote free speech. i requested and had to bump off someone from the first amendment lounge to be here today. i will introduce our speakers. hopefully you got bios. i will introduce them in the order that they will speak. pay attention. i will give you the short version of their bio and a couple of sentences about each. if we did the long version, it would take too much time.

i want to remind you that we have a special twitter hashtag. i think there are some pliers on the tables. sfsgovernance. we found out we were quickly trending. maybe we will be able to trend on twitter for this conference. i will introduce our speakers. we will have time for q&a after we get through with the initial presentations. as they are speaking, you can think of questions you may have. i will give the panelists an

opportunity to ask questions as well. we are going to hear from robert mcdowell. as most of you know, he is commissioner at the fcc. he was first appointed to his seat by president bush, george w. bush, in 2006. he was reappointed to the commission in 2009, becoming the first republican to be appointed to an independent agency by president barack obama. prior to becoming an fcc commissioner, he served as senior vice president for the competitive telecommunications association where he had responsibilities involving

advocacy efforts before congress, the white house, and executive agencies. i am not going to tell you where all of these guys went to school and all of that. i will make an exception for commissioner mcdowell because we're both duke graduates. i will not even mention the fact that dick beaird has a ph.d. from colorado. richard beaird is a senior coordinator for international policy at the department of state. in that position, he manages the state department activities across a broad range of international telecommunications and internet

additional -- and policy issues including those arising in the telecommunications union as well as other international organizations. one thing i want to say about dick, and it is true of all the speakers we have in government that serve the public, a lot of times we do not appreciate the sacrifices they make in the job. for someone like dick to do his job and what he does, he is on the road more days than any of us would want to think about. we appreciate that, dick. next up is jacquelynn ruff from verizon.

she leaves the group responsible for global public policy development, advocacy, and guidance. she directs verizon's activities in international forums, including venues such as the itu, apec, and the internet governance forum. next up is my friend gigi s ohn. she is the president and co- founder of public knowledge that addresses the convergence of policies and ipublic policy law. prior to that, she was with the

ford foundation. prior to the ford foundation, she served as the executive director of the media access project. last but of course not least, in this case that is certainly true, we have richard whitt. is the director and managing council of public policy at the counsel ofnagemening public policy at google with a focus on privacy, cyber security, intellectual property, internet governance, competition, free expression, international trade, and telecom and media policy. rick, why not just list the

things you are not responsible for at google? rick obviously has important responsibilities in the area we will be talking about today. i might say about rick that when i was practicing law, i hired him right out of law school for his first job as a lawyer. i think that was 1988. >> witc was first with that. >> i knew there was a connection someplace. >> as you can tell from my recitation of his responsibilities, he has far surpassed his initial hire in terms of what he has done. i think i have a sense of what might be to come when i hired

him for the first job. we have a distinguished panel knowledgeable on the subject. i have asked the commissioner dick to speak for about six or eight minutes each. we will then go down the road for others who will speak about four minutes. we will then have an opportunity to mix it up and ask questions. mr. mcdowell. >> thank you very much, randy. this room is packed. it is standing room only. this is a testament to everything the free state foundation has been able to do in the past few years in terms of building yourselves up and the good work. i noticed the c-span technician is actually in the bar over

there. i think that was good placement on his part. thank you for highlighting this very important issue. i think we could all agree that mobile internet connectivity is improving the human condition more rapidly and fundamentally than any other technology in history. in the united states, a lightly regulated and competitive wireless market has sparked a sustained cycle of investment, innovation, and job growth, not to mention lower prices and increased functionality for consumers. sophisticated devices and complex mobile applications are taxing our spectrum capacity. recognizing the need for additional spectrum to satisfy demand, in february congress passed legislation the some estimate could place up to an additional 80 mhz of spectrum

into consumers' hands. it may be less in reality. but let's aim high. the good news is america's future is bright when it comes to placing the power of new technology in the hands of consumers. america has always led the world when it comes to wireless innovation. if we choose the correct policies, we will further strengthen america's global leadership. as my colleagues and i implement the new legislation and tackle the challenges associated with what will be the most complicated spectrum auctions in history, i intend to ensure rules are minimal allowing for flexible uses in the years to come as technologies and markets change. getting it right means implementing the new spectrum military -- with

humility and regulatory restraint. humility and regulatory restraint. that holds true for internet governance. as we head towards the world conference on telecommunications in dubai this coming december, i urge regulators around the world to avoid the temptation to tamper with the internet. since its privatization in the early 1990's, the internet has flourished within a regulatory regime -- deregulatory regime in our country and around the world. some nations, such as china, russia, india, iran, saudi arabia, and many more, have been pushing to reverse this course

by giving the international union regulatory jurisdiction over internet governance and other aspects affecting the internet. some arguments in support may stem from frustrations with the internet corporation for assigned names and numbers. any concerns should not be used as a pretext to end in multi- stakeholder model that has served all nations and the developing world so well for all of these years. constructive reform of the international regulations, itr's, may be needed. if so, the scope should be limited to traditional telecommunications services. modifications of the called the -- of the current model may be

necessary, but we should all work together to ensure no governmental overlays are placed into this spirit -- sphere. not only would governments give up some of their sovereignty, they would politically paralyzed engineering and business decisions within a global regulatory body. every day, we hear about industrialized and developing nations awash in debt placing -- facing flat growth curves or shrinking gdp. governments tighten fiscal belts. they must also spur economic expansion. an unfettered mobile internet offers the greatest hope, not more regulation.

we are at a crossroads of the internet future. one path holds great promise while the other is fraught with peril. the promise lies with keeping with what works, namely maintaining a free and open internet while insulating it from legacy regulations. apparel -- the peril lies with sweeping services in two decades-old. times. if successful, these efforts with -- would increase in the future in the regulatory dungeon of the past. even more counterproductive would be the creation of a new international body to oversee internet governance. shortly after the internet was privatized in the mid-1990s, a mere 16 million people were online in 1995.

as of earlier this year, more than 2.3 billion people were using the net worldwide. internet connectivity evolved from being a novelty in industrialized countries to becoming an essential tool for commerce and sometimes even basic survival in all nations, but especially in the developing world. developing nations stand to gain the most from the rapid pace of deployment and adoption of internet technologies. the mckinsey report released in january examined the effect on the developing world or aspiring countries. in 30 countries studied, internet penetration has grown 25% per year for the last five years. compared to only 5% per year in

developed nations. broadband penetration is lower in aspiring countries, but that is quickly changing banks to mobile technologies. mobil subscriptions in developing countries have risen from 53% of the global market in to 73% in 2010. sysco estimates that the number of mobile devices will increase this year. many people use only mobile devices for internet access. the effect that is having on economies is nothing short of breathtaking. the net is an economic growth accelerator.

in some developing economies, internet connectivity has contributed up to 13% of gdp growth over the past five years. in just six countries alone, 1.9 million jobs with -- were associated with the internet. these positive trends must continue. in particular, fault lines could be drawn between countries that choose to opt out of the current highly successful stakeholder model and those member states that decide to stick with what has worked. global internet would not promote free trade. it would also render an

engineering morass. venturing into the uncertainty of a new regulatory quagmire will omi hurt developing nations the most. attempts to regulate internet governance have rallied opposition on a bipartisan basis. i am encouraged by my colleagues indication that we will get something done in june. i just a danny in the lobby for a different event. i am further buoyed by the leading role played by the private sector, not only domestically, but abroad as well.

there are many entities of all stripes, including public interest groups, think tanks, nonprofit internet governance groups, in quebec manufacturers, network operators, standing together to help educate policy matters -- policy makers across the globe. we have a solid coalition of coalitions in place which will help the soon to be named leader of our delegation to begin on a strong and positive note. finally, even if this current effort is unsuccessful in december, we must continue to be vigilant. given the high profile of the

countries involved in the us, i cannot imagine that this issue will fade away. similarly, we should avoid the minor tweak or the light touch. as we all know, every regulatory action has consequences. adam says regulation only seems to grow. put it another way, with care and patience, even a tiny mustard seed of regulation can quickly grow into jack's beanstalk to mix my metaphors and fairy tales. thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today. i look forward to your questions and the powerful insight of this panel. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you very much for this invitation. into the free state foundation, it is a great pleasure to be here today and be with this panel, which as the commissioner has indicated is a distinguished one. we all look forward to the opportunity to reflect upon their questions as we will your questions. i want to welcome commissioner mcdowell. he has been a leading voice in reminding us of the importance of internet freedom and how vital the internet is to innovation and growth. in his excellent remarks, he has done that again.

he has had a positive effect on a world conference of telecommunications. at the outset, let me make one point perfectly clear. the administration and the department of state firmly supports the position that the united nations is not the place for the day to day technical operations of the internet we have made this point repeatedly, and we will continue to make it. the united nations can do many things and they can do those things effectively and importantly in areas of development, areas of training, as a forum for discussion of international policy matters. and of course, preeminently in the area of spectrum allocation and management on an

international basis. but managing the internet is certainly not one of the united nations roles. the internet -- and this seems to have increasingly gained public support at meetings that i attend -- the internet is best left to a multi-stakeholder structure. where decisions are made on a bottom up basis and in which, of course, all stakeholders can participate in their respective roles. this is the environment that has proven the test of time and has left the internet to innovate, and before that, we have gained extraordinary benefits socially and economically. let me focus my remarks on the itr's themselves.

i have noted to friends that this seems to be a subject that has gained a tremendous amount of comment and interest, but those who have actually read decideds are still a minority. let me try to put them in some context. what are they? first of all, they are high- level principles. they are not detailed. the regulations go to four volumes. we just recently had a conference were those regulations were revised and we appreciate the commissioners present at that conference. this is not the case of the itr's. they are nine pages long. they are nine pages of treaty text. in those nine pages, they refer

to three appendices. those three appendices are an integral part of the treaty. they are about four and a half pages long. this treaty text is then followed by resolutions, decisions and opinions which run about eight pages long. those resolutions, and decisions and opinions are not treaty text. they are always firm that they do not go to the senate ford vice and consent. second, they have had a long history. their origin is found in the 1875 paris convention, which was one of the first conventions that brought about member states for the purpose of how to manage and indeed regulate a communications medium, and that was the telegraph.

from that point until 1988, they have had periodic review and revision. they were typically, however, integrated into radio treaties as a supplement. it was not until 1973 that the united states signed the international telecommunications regulation. you ask, well why was that the case? that was the case because they were only focused on europe. the opening language said that these documents or this treaty, was focused on europe. those who wish to participate in that may do so by abolition. it was not until 1973 that they

were globalized, and at that point, the united states agreed to sign them. they have had one subsequent revision. they have been, as i have indicated, reviewed periodically, and in most instances, their long integral between their review and revision. thirdly, they have been remarkably stable. from 1875-the present they have the essentially done four or five things. first, they have confirmed that the transmission in the case of telegraph or telecommunications, should be open to the public, that there should be privacy attached to those

communications. that governance should agree to provide sufficient infrastructure globally to maintain global connectivity, a pledge to do that, a commitment to do that. and they were designed, and by agreement of the member states, to agree upon a basis for sharing revenue, as communications was between parties, power revenue was to be shared. lastly, significantly, notwithstanding everything i have just said, there was always a provision that said, notwithstanding what we have agreed to, member states may enter into arrangements unique to their circumstances. from 1875 to the present, those essentially have been the elements of the international

telecommunications regulations. i have mentioned member states. it is terribly important to understand that the i.t. ours are agreements among member our agreements among member states. sovereign countries come together for purposes of agreement. as a result, nine pages of text is practically all member states could agree to in any case. why? because no member state is going to sacrifice their sovereignty. no member state goes to a conference with the intention other than to regulate itself as it deems appropriate. i think this is important to

keep in mind so that member states agree amongst themselves. as a result, as i emphasize, the subjects that can be agreed to are minimal. having said that, and understanding of course that tradition and were last revised in 1988, it is inevitable that we recognize that the world we're in today is not the world of 1988. it is a world with a distinctively different network architecture and a world in which could be agreement among member states on how revenues would be shared. it was a different world in 1988

than the world we enjoy today. if we say that the united nations should not be involved in the day-to-day operations of the internet, we also say that the world of broadband, the world of today, it would be counterproductive to try to impose upon the situation the context of the past, the practices of the past. nothing should be done at the conference in dubai to slow innovation or to impose a top- down control over the internet. those are the fundamental principles we will take with us to do by and -- dubai and use

all of our energy to support. in terms of proposals we have seen coming into the international telecommunications regulations, let me put into context those proposals and the process. the council organized a council working group. the council working group has been preparing for this conference for two years over eight meetings. that council group will send to the conference a report. the report will contain all of the possible options as to how there could be revisions of the

.tr's nine pages of text has grown to 70 pages if you include all the options that will go to the conference. governments are expected to send in their first tranche of proposals for the conferences themselves. we will begin to see, i think, in very real terms, what will be the parameters of the conference once these proposals come in from member states after august 3rd and will continue for approximately two years after the conference. we already have an indication of what we will see from the council groups at the conference itself.

we've not seen a proposal to bring the day-to-day operations of the internet under u.n. control. these reposal seem to reflect, and i need to be cautious because it is still an unfolding story, these proposals seem to reflect a distinct regulatory issues deriving from the distinct world regions. for example, fraud seems to be a preoccupation in the middle east. in our hemisphere, roaming is a preoccupation. and also, i should say, europe. networks of purity -- network security seems to be a preoccupation coming out of eastern europe. various forms of revenue sharing seems to be a preoccupation coming out of africa. but these are some of the outlines of proposals coming in. none of them today proposed

moving to the united nations the day-to-day operations for the internet. i've indicated that we have had a council working group. the council working group will come forward with proposals. a compilation of the proposals that group has developed. the member states themselves will come forward with contributions. from the united states point of view, we're very much on that track. we have been participating actively in the council working group, and we will now begin to prepare for the conference itself. we have formed a core delegation of the leading agencies of the government who are most interested in this subject and have equities. secondly, we await the white house announcement of the head of delegation, and that person will come forward shortly i understand, and of course we

await the persons leadership. once that person is on board, we will start an aggressive schedule of bilaterals internationally. we will meet with all the principal players to sell the positions. we will form a delegation in september, and that delegation will be composed of private sector representatives and i would encourage you to take that on board as something that would be of interest to you. my last point, and i see friends and colleagues in the room that i have had the pleasure of working with over many

conferences, and i hope i have not missed any of the ambassador's because then i may not be able to go back to my department. all of you have been in government or transition to the private sector and you know one fundamental truth. that is that this kind of conference relies heavily on a partnership between government and the private sector. the partnership will continue and we will look forward to forming a delegation composed of private sector and government. i look forward to your questions. again, randy, thank you very much. >> thank you very much.

it is great having two of the senior officials of the government here that are involved in this issue. now we are going to move down the line with our, enters. i'm going to ask them to speak -- our commenters. i'm going to ask them to speak for only four minutes or so. i could not cut off these distinguished gentlemen, but i'm going to ask them to make sure we have time for questions from the audience. i will turn to jackie first. jackie, four minutes. >> thank you. thank you for her organizing this. thank you to everybody for being here today. i think this very full realm is an illustration of the fact that this topic -- very full room is

an illustration of the fact that this topic is important in many ways here. i want to congratulate the commissioner in different a critical ways. why is for rise and engaged? what is at stake and how can we is verizon engaged? what is at stake and what we hope to get out of this? you just heard dick speak about the public-private collaboration. as far as the internet governance forum and the other multi stakeholder organizations, why do we do that? three main reasons. our customers everywhere, u.s. and elsewhere, are all committed to i.p. technologies. secondly, globally, we carry a

lot of this internet traffic on our global network, which includes the capacity on cables and satellites. we often speak of those as the digital trade routes of the 21st century. there are all so channels -- they are also channels for freedom of expression. third, we provide global enterprise services, enterprise solutions to large enterprise and government around the world. these are a combination of what we might think of as i.t. technology and media services. as was mentioned earlier, services like ours and other companies like us are drivers for economic growth and innovation everywhere, and they will only succeed in accomplishing that if the internet remains seem less and

communications can flow unimpeded. so, what is at stake, and i note that commissioner mcdowell started by talking about wireless. it is the key trend globally over the next era. cisco estimates that by 2016, there will be two 0.5 mobile connections per person. with the transformation to mobile broadband, this clearly means that this is the path for the developing world to participate in the benefits of the internet to leapfrog if the right investments are made. it is clear from the kinsey study and other world bank

studies that the effect on gdp growth is the greatest for developing countries. for each 10% increase in broadband, you get a 1.4% increase in gdp in developing countries. with all of this happening, we have this enormous potential to move the internet mobile. in the meantime, we're trying to figure out what to do about internet policy. that is not surprising. it is not surprising that the i.t. you is doing that. what is a concern is that some of those proposals will in fact constrain economic growth. if regulatory style regulations are imposed on the internet, that will create disincentives to the investment needed to grow mobile internet. if there are disruptions in

cross border data flows by throwing up barriers at the border, the global connectivity and data exchange simply will not happen. and if there is government control over routing of traffic and network design and management, then many of the tools for innovation just will not be there. in the proposals on the table, there are elements of these things put out there. so it may not be about functions, but it may be about many of the functions of the internet. many of my colleagues will say they will not work over the long term. it will not function. in the meantime, they will deprive our economies of the benefits of services which are mostly taken up in latin america and asia, access to the digital trade route, the benefits of

i.p. to ip connection. it will eliminate the current handshake agreements that make the network of networks that is the internet. it will eliminate that as a function. a couple things you hear that i think our -- are important are to keep the treaty to high-level principles. secondly, training, standards development and, i hope this will be part of the rest of the conversation, to in the meantime preserve the multi- stakeholder models for different organizations and ways of doing things better that are out there. we believe this is possible. we think it is challenging and it is a multi-year process, but

by working together with existing allies, and developing other allies across the stakeholder grouping and that is very possible. we need to do a lot of the dressing of real concerns, talk about how the economic and technical issues really work and by applying ourselves, and that is one of the reasons i'm so pleased to see a full room, at that it will be possible to get a positive outcome. you have to think optimistically when you have challenges ahead. thank you. >> thank you, jackie. i know people in the room have heard me say that i am an optimist too. there are at least two of us in the room. next, we're going to hear from gigi.

a lot of you probably also know that i do not always agree with she on everything. we have different perspectives on a lot of issues. she has been my friend for a long time and i'm always glad to invite her to events like this. i think this is one where our perspectives, perspectives of a free market oriented think tank, broadly share some of the same concerns. one thing i am hoping that gigi and or rick together will to -- we referred to the multi- stakeholder process. i think everyone else has done that. i think for some of us in the room and for the c-span audience, they may be wondering

what more specifically is the multi-stakeholder process. maybe in the context of your remarks you could explain that a little bet -- it while covering the points you want to make. >> good afternoon everybody. it is great to see so many people in the audience and so much interest in a topic that i agree with the others is really, really critical. i have to say some great things about commissioner mcdonough. i consider him a friend. his leadership has been enormous. people are really listening, and you have a lot to do with that. also about dick, his knowledge of the itu is encyclopedic.

he knows where the bodies are buried on the itu. your phone is going to ring more than you want because now everybody in television land those that too. this is one of those rare kumbaya moments where everybody in government, society, right, left, center, agree wholeheartedly that the jurisdiction should not expand to include internet regulation. some of the proposals, even though they're not fully developed, if they were to come to fruition would do great damage to the open and decentralized internet that we know and love and that is a great engine for economic growth, education, health care, and all the great things we love about it. among the many reasons why this jurisdiction should not expand

is that it is both highly politicized and grossly undemocratic. in the itu, as in the un, it is one country, one vote. so tiny countries have the same vote as the united states, china, india. that is not very democratic when you think about the difference in populations. the other problem and the other reason we believe it is quite undemocratic is that there is no role at all for society unless you want to pony up $34,000. my organization and most of the civil society groups we work with to not have those kind of resources to participate and still have a vote. given that there is really violent agreement on this score point that the i.t. you should not expand its jurisdiction to

include -- itu not expand its jurisdiction to include internet regulation, i want to make a couple of points. we should not see this as some plot by china, russia, and other regimes to control the internet. there are countries in latin america, africa and elsewhere that have concerns that the u.s. and u.s. corporations have too much control. we have heard that before. some civil society groups also share that concern. this is one of the things we can do to get our allies to realize and convince their society groups that no, this is really about freedom of expression. this is about an open, centralized internet. this is not some u.s. corporate plot to take over the internet. please talk your delegations and

express that to him. the second note of caution i want to put out there is that we have to be a little careful not to hold up multistate holders -- multi-stakeholders' that there is sort of a magic coronets false all internet possible -- policy. multi-stakeholders are groups that include industry, civil society, public sector, government, that come around a table or many tables to discuss sometimes technical issues, economic issues, policy issues. there are very big round tables were sometimes decisions -- many times, decisions that actually covering the standards of the internet, are made that again,

without having government at the table, there are not many roles. >> take another 30 seconds, but just a few minutes ago, you were referring to ican. could you explain briefly to our television audience what that is and what it does so that everyone is on the same page. >> you can do that better than i can. >> ican is a group that has fairly limited functionality. there is often this belief that they somehow control the internet, which is not the case. there elements used to identify resources and major traffic flows to the right places on the internet. there are a variety from

industry sectors around the world. it has been operating with the u.s. department of commerce. there have been periodic attempts by folks to say that is not the right model. we should have something represented by the united nations or some other body. >> getting back to my core point about how while multi- stakeholder groups are very important, and in fact, i am the co-chair of the broadband internet advisory group, which is a multi-stakeholder group, a technical working group which looks at issues of network management and other providers are reasonably managing their network which came out of the whole net neutrality debate, i obviously have a belief that their places were multi- stakeholder groups are important. it is not the end all, be all of everything internet and internet policy related. most times things work well when everyone is singing from the same songbook, where questions

are more technical and policy driven. i hope people really pay attention to what is going on because they're doing some important stuff. the other concern i have with throwing all internet policy questions is to resources. i am the co-chair of the btag, i'm also an adviser the center for copyright integration, hollywood and how they inform people when they are violating copyright law. i am one human being. unless you can cut me up like an amoeba, i just cannot do it. civil society is a disadvantage if every policy question is going to be decided by a multi

stakeholder groups. that said, government still has to, in some cases, serve as a backstop. questions of neutrality, questions of copyright and social property enforcement. i think those are places where you can have multi-stakeholder convenience and discussions, but at some point, somebody is going to have to make a decision on what is the policy and ultimately, who is going to enforce those norms? or principles? or is it turns out, regulation. i think we have to think harder about what multi-stakeholder groups really do, what they're best at doing, and maybe what the role of government is.

>> rick, if you could wrap up and maybe expand on multi- stakeholder groups or what ever you please. >> good afternoon. it is a pleasure to be here. thank you to our distinguished government speakers today who really have been leaders on the s. you cannot imagine the long hours they have spent talking to people around town and around the world. a lot of times these conversations lead to outcomes. a lot of times -- i will be very brief. one thing i want to focus on is guiding principles coming from the google perspective. we are an internet company. as aok at the internet'

thing that has developed over the course of 40 years through the very good work of lots of experienced engineers, through what is called rough consensus, through bodies like ican, but lots of other organizations. there is a constellation of acronyms out there. the one thing we would leave you with is that as policymakers look at the internet, they should respect the integrity of the internet, the way it has been put together over time. their fundamental design attributes of the internet that make it what it is today. the end to end principle allows data packages to flow freely between networks. the modular architecture of the net itself means applications

and content can be built on top of existing arrangements. third, there is a voluntary interconnection of networks. there are millions of networks that comprise the internet. there entities all over the world who agreed to sign on to the basic core principles of the net, and by doing so joined the larger community. there is protocol. my colleague once said ipo on everything. get that image out of your head for a moment, but the fact that i.p. has become a global, unifying protocol. it runs on all kinds of networks. these are the fundamental attributes. our concern about what is going on with itu is that many of the

proposals would attack or hinder these principles are attributes in a way that would have really negative affects us all of our speakers have commented on. i also thought it would be useful to touch briefly on, what can we all do about this? we talk about the multi- stakeholder approach. a nobel prize winner in economics has written about a similar area called polycentric governance, the idea of having decentralized power so that you have one or more seats of authority within which the rules are enforced. i think there is a lot to explore their and rich literature.

i think we could allow folks that of not typically been involved in day-to-day conversations among power brokers to have more of a seat at the table. there things we can do as well as citizens and policy makers. we can support our friends at the state department and other government bodies here in the united states. members of congress can use their contacts and influence around the world with their counterparts of an opportunity to discuss these issues. i think a key aspect of this is that it cannot be the u.s. against the world. if that is the formula, we lose, plain and simple. this has to be something where we engage with everyone around the world. all the communities of interest to have a stake, whether they know it or not, in the future of the internet, we have to find a way to engage with them. if you are a global business, make the case that you need to have some sway in the country where you operate.

several groups can be gauged. we have been doing that in the u.s.. again, find ways to do that outside the united states. academics, there are a ton of great academic studies out there but there are a ton more that can be done, analyse that can be written. the academic world particularly can be really fruitful here in the next few months as we head toward dubai. on the last note, i agree that this is just the next up in the process. this is a process that has been going on for many years now. we will get past december and hopefully be able to breathe a small sigh of relief, but only a small one, because i think the threats will be out there in other places. we just have to be ever vigilant. thank you. >> thank you, and thank you to all the panelists for those initial remarks. when i started trying to

capitalize what we were discussing today, i contrasted the existing governance model, which i called a privatized, bottoms up multi stakeholder approach with a top down intergovernmental control approach that we want to avoid, then rick comes along here at the end and he says says google is an over the top provider and verizon is an under the bottom or on the bottom -- >> i just wanted to extend the analogy. >> google is a company that pees on everything. >> remember, we have a television audience here today. ok, now also remember -- i

appreciate that everyone has been so wrapped and has not been e-mail in their wives or whatever. but if you want to tweet while you are here, remember that it is #fsfnetgovernance. i have a question or two and then we are going to have some from the audience, but i wanted to ask our panelists if there was anything they wanted to comment on or respond to initially. >> but just to clarify that indeed the many member states of the itu have offered ideas for

internet governments to be subsumed by some sort of un body, whether it is a new body or resolutions by india, china, and others. but also, if you look at the proposal from within the context of the wicket. if you look at the arab state ,, it is that came theirre just a slight change of definition to subsume processing. that would be a change within everything in the internet itself. while it might not overtly say internet governance, it does plant the seed of expanded jurisdiction, and this is the sort of small, seemingly innocuous change that we have to

be wary of. it is going to be insidious. this will not be a full frontal assault. tomorrow, before the house, you hear me say that a couple of times. it will be something small, seemingly innocuous, and we have to be vigilant. rick is absolutely right to underscore the fact that it cannot the the u.s. versus the rest of the world or industrialized nations versus the developing world. the sick, twisted irony here is that such proposals actually hurt the developing world the most. we need to venture out beyond washington, d.c., certainly, especially into the southern hemisphere, to find allies within developing nations, to let them know and give them platforms for disseminating the notion that an unfettered internet is really the best thing for their countries and their living standards. >> i want to ask dick this

question. are the proposals that commissioner mcdowell just referred to, are they on the itu side if people want to follow this and see what is developing? where did they find the proposals? then i have another question for you as well. >> that is a question that was posed in geneva a couple of weeks ago. colleagues from civil society at that point raised questions about access to information regarding proposals coming into the itu of the wicket. the situation today is the following. the council working group operates within council rules, which is that you first of all have to be a member of the itu,

but secondly, have access to their particular messaging system, and that is password protected. that is the situation. now, the access to the proposals, of course, as i have done and as others have done is if you ask me, i will give you those proposals. i do not want you to have a flood of requests coming in from the room or those in the television audience -- >> i thought you were going to say you give us the password. >> i cannot do that. but there was a very important discussion that took place in geneva on this point. civil society has, through the auspices of the group's affiliated in that particular context, and i do not know all of them, but they have written

the secretary general of the itu a letter in large part going to the issue of transparency. what i told them was that i went through the auspices of the united states and being the counselor at the itu, and i would make a proposal to try to make available those proposals in a public way, expressed that to itu officials as well, giving them the indication that we would make that proposal. that has not yet agreed -- and agreed to by counsel and we have not yet worked down the modalities for doing that, but i think basically the process benefits by making available those proposals so people can see them. >> my other question is this. you can tell by virtue of the interest we have here today and in other places that in the u.s. there is beginning to the

knowledge and concern about potentially the proposals that could be raised. we have mentioned some of the countries from which there might be concerned or proponents of the concerns that we have. just really briefly, are there are around the world countries in which they are as united and are working the same way that the u.s. government is working to be prepared to address these? maybe you could just name the countries if there are some, briefly. >> the answer is yes, the united states is not alone, as the first part of the answer to your question.

the old problem of naming names means you will never get all of them and i do not want to offend anyone. i will say this, by region, we have considerable support out of asia pacific, particularly countries that are leaders in internet deployment and broadband deployment. we have obviously considerable number of allies in europe and in our own hemisphere there are beacons of -- that reflect the positions that we take. the need focus -- and i think this is important. let me focus a bit on africa. for those of us who have spent our lives internationally in public policy over many years, one of the things that has been most notable, i think, is the response of africa to the internet.

if i could put it that way. principally, as commissioner mcdowell has indicated as a global matter, for mobile access to the internet. with that, it seems to me, there is the practicality coming from the continent as to how to deal with these issues. we may not always agree with them, but there it is a function of where we sit in many cases. we have found, as we found that the world radio communication conference and as i am certain we are going to find at wicket, that there are many in africa who agree with many of the positions we take and who will obviously be conversing between now and the conference to solidify that alliance. >> a just want to thank you again for the service that you

do. there was a time when i was in private practice, a long time ago now, when i used to attend some of the oecd teams in paris on behalf of some interests. the thing i remember most is going on to the -- is going to be a cocktail party is that rick talked about. while i was just there sipping drinks, it was people like dick and the ambassadors and so forth that were doing the work, and i recognize that even then at the time. going to open it up for questions if we have some. if not, uh, have some more of here. >> could i read one sentence to

you? >> if it is not about a cocktail party. >> actually, i stole the password, so this is an example of something that russia proposed. it is one sentence, but i think it gives you a flavor of what we're talking about. it says member states shall ensure unrestricted access and the unrestricted use of telecom. that sounds great. unfortunately, there is not a period there, there is an except, except when they're used for the purposes of interfering in internal affairs or undermining the security, national security or integrity of other states or to get information of a sensitive made nature. >> am glad you brought that up. one of the questions that you probably answered that i have, initially i spoke about how the wicket potentially might change

certain things in ways that would affect the free flow of the information's and free speech. as well as a fact commercial -- affect commercial enterprises. i know jackie spoke eloquently about that as well. when i listen to the language you just read, it seems like that is the type of language i had in mind as potentially governments using that in order to have a justification or a color for restricting speeches. am i on the right track there? >> that is our interpretation as well. back to be quite damaging. to askwe're going questions. raise your hand. i'm going to call on people and ask that it might be presented. kathy baker, who is our events coordinator, and to of course played such a large role in arranging this event, making sure that we had almost enough

food for all of you here, and did a lot of other things, would you join me in giving her a round of applause? [applause] ok, if you have a question, then raise your hand and wait to be recognized and the microphone will come to you. first.ng to call on dan when you ask your question, just the name and affiliation. >> i am dan with the hogan level. i was wondering if you could just give us a little understanding of what happened when the 1988 i.t. agreement came out. i'm one of the americans who read the eight pages. there were not very controversial. there were guidelines. were they presented as a treaty? were they presented as a treaty?