them, the institution, and the society. >> next week we will begin our encore presentation of our series, first ladies, influence and image. next week, martha washington to angelica van buren. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> senator mark pryor is joining us this week on "the communicators." your full committee recently approved tom wheeler to the sec. senator cruz,,

has talked about putting a hold on that nomination. any word on that right now? >> we are working on that. the may 1 say, thank you for having me on. people in arkansas to watch c- span lot, i want to thank c-span for what they do. back to the tom wheeler nomination, basically there is sentiment within the senate that we ought to repair this with the republican nominee. have acans would like to republican to go alongside the process. the problem is the we have not thecially released republican name that they want nominated.

hopefully we will get this done quickly and senator rockefeller has said this publicly that he wanted to expedite that. my view is that you do not have to pare them. it ink that if we can do such a way that it does not , it will beme protracted and i would go ahead to try to get tom wheeler on. >> one of the concerns expressed was about restricting political speech. >> i do not really share the concern. job, sec.hard people do not always appreciated. it is one of those jobs where it is not easy to make everyone happy. i just do not see them weighing in on a political speech. you know, certainly it is

something they could do, conceivably, but i do not see them doing that. we have to have a well functioning sec. let's get the chairman in there. together, thatem is fine. functioning agency boards and commissions. >> what is the goal of these hearings. do you see legislative action coming from them? >> possibly. with communications technology, excuse me, the internet have had ae, we series that started with four -- what to call them? a state of hearings.

, theve the state of rural state of wireless, the state of telecom. idea is we have , lot of new committee members maybe 25% to 30% are new. of these to get all people acclimated to the issues, get the state of play, and once we get these done, which we have, we can move forward. state of video was the fourth one. once we get that done we have laid the groundwork to look at legislation. the one thing the subcommittee has to do by the end of next year is the satellite reauthorization. it sounds like your audience here is a pretty sophisticated audience with telecom.

satellite telecommunications law, one of the other networks, satellite works, the question is, do we do a clean reauthorization? just kind of roll it over with changes? start gettinglly into some politics? that is really the question. what i am hearing from the committee and subcommittee is they would like to do a clean reauthorization. this is one of those rare bills where you have joint jurisdiction between us and the judiciary committee. of course, the house has two committees there. >> joining our conversation with senator mark pryor, a technology reporter with "cq roll call." >> i in your opinion, what is

the state of wireline communications? how does the concept of universal service play in prayer wireless internet and phones, perhaps more important than any consumer thinks, other than land line? >> you touched on a few issues that deal with land line. the wireline land lot -- land work is the most important. there is no doubt that if you have a cell phone and you call from washington, d.c. 27 cisco, at some point it will go over a land-based system. you do not talk wirelessly across the country. the other thing the mentioned before is that there is this big transition going on now.

clearly there is the internet .rotocol transition the traditional telephone that , there needsht of to be a new regulation where we need to say no regulation, like regulation. so, with your traditional phone -- i grew up in arkansas and i did not realize it at the time, but my local carrier had obligations to me. they were the carrier of last resort and had other obligations to me as a customer. monopolies are kind of gone. some of these companies want to come in and do this transition and kidder way, getting rid of

these obligations. it concerns me. it may be the subject of a hearing in our subcommittee at some point. duringsue really came up the wireline hearing and i think it is an issue that may deserve further discussion. >> you also touched on another aspect of this, which is that the traditional phone line system is far more reliable and perhaps resilience in the face of natural disasters than some of the issues we have seen with cell phone networks. do you think there is any possibility that congress could act in that area to require wireless carriers to take on the same responsibilities? >> i think that is will we talk about. the whole committee, the senate, we can talk about that. but you are right. when i was asking the question i was thinking of examples in arkansas with tornadoes, an ice

storm, something like that. we go without power, but the land mines still works. that redundancy is a good thing. oftentimes we see you when your power goes out that if it goes out in the wrong place, your cellphone itself may have power, but you cannot connect anywhere because the towers are down. seen that in natural disasters. we need to make sure the tower phone system works. maybe especially in the time of emergency. the other thing you have not really mentioned yet, which is critical, is rural america. we had a hearing on rural america, the economics of rural america have not changed. in the old days they could not get electricity there, could not get telephone services.

a lot of this is changing. there is a ton of change in this world and we need to make sure that rural america is on that. >> i drove home to michigan this weekend and i could not help but notice exactly which you were referring to, cellphone varies greatly. what can be done about this? shifted towards wireless. most of it will work towards broadband. what can be done in the wireless space? house, and senate have grappled with this. there is no clear answer in terms of consensus, but the economics of providing world wireless are just not as good as they are in urban areas. there is a density of paying customers.

10, 20, 30 miles before you see in the house. , nonetheless, these are all challenges. the economics do not really work to provide state-of-the-art wireless in those areas. that is why things like the universal service fund, we have other names for it, but basically the same thing, that is why that is so important. we need to make sure that those folks are not left behind. we do not want the urban and suburban over here, the latest and greatest, with rural america two generations ago of technology, that is the good for anybody. do youtor, the use it -- foresee reform coming in this congress? >> may be another thing we should have a hearing on.

the to one-third of the witnesses in these hearings one way or another -- i bet you one third of the witnesses in these hearings mention it one way or another. it changes and transitions itself. nonetheless, that universal service fund basically means that everybody pays a little bit into a fund and that fund the goes to help customers, usually in rural america, but it could be a low-income customers. we want to make sure everyone can connect. my view of this is if you think about american history, initially when the first european settlers came they had to be on the coast because the had to connect and trade communication back to europe and as time went on you could settle on rivers. almost all u.s. cities, almost, the big cities, are on the coast or big rivers.

why? because that is how the country grew. so, when the steam engine came along, paddle boats, you could go further up river and man could have more control. then the railroads? but there was a time where if you were not on a railroad, you might as well not exist. your town would dry up and go away. in the last since i have been around, it is interstates. well, today is broadband. it is that thing, the one extra piece you have to have for you will not get jobs. it is important for a state like arkansas to do these things where they can provide some services, like health care services, to the more -- the most rural areas of our state, because you can connect broadband. so, there is a huge amount of

power in that. that is a great thing. >> when it comes to wireless communications and video services, is there enough competition in your view? can the senate, can the congress do anything to increase competition? >> is to say wireline or wire last? >> wire less. >> they are a competitive industry that beats up on each other all the time. the truth is it is competitive in most areas of the country, there are numerous carriers in most areas, but also it is mostly just the big two. at&t and verizon. they play by the rules and have grown their market share. what happens is you kind of have everybody else making up the third competitor. i think we want to make sure that the third competitor, which is really a conglomeration of companies and a lot of those are regional names, local names that

we do not know, that they are fighting hard to provide service as well and we need to make sure that that playing field is level so that everyone can compete. people that say they do not like regulation, the answer to that is competition. if you have real robust competition that is fair, once you get a competitive advantage you cannot just dominates, if you have fair competition that is the answer to regulation. fair competition in a good marketplace. >> you are watching "the communicator's" program on c- span. you're watching senator mark pryor, our guest reporter is call."q roll >> you referred to broadband as being vital to the future in rural areas. do you think should be something every household has access to,

either through a u.s. subsidy or something similar? >> i would like to see that. traditionally we have that policy for telephones. where every household basically have the right to have access to telephone service. i am sure it did not work out in 100% of cases, there will always be those really hard to serve, difficult areas, but i think try to give broad band into as many houses as possible, and the right level of it -- not some fly by night, cheap service, but something that people can really have access to and use, you know how it is, not everybody wants it. i know people that do not have the internet and to not wanted, but that number is terry small. most people want it, loved it, continue to rely on it. important for the way they communicate now. facebook, twitter, whenever it happens to be.

that is how people communicate. how grandparents stayed in touch with grandchildren. things like that. america is so innovative. we are going to find ways to do it, use it, things that you did not think would have existed. >> while broadband is increasingly popular, there is a show that it remained in the 60% range and cost is most recently a frequently cited. can anything be done about that? consumers are familiar with the cost continuing to rise, not always with performance. >> i do think at that is a real problem. a state like mine, i know that arkansas is not unique, but we have a lot of people who are low income and it is hard for them to afford that monthly internet

service provider fee. i mean, they just can do it. that is -- cannot do it. that is a concern i have more people say, for example you were talking about landline phone is a few moments ago, where some people would say -- things are going more and more wireless. instead of a land line from, how about a wireless phone? how much is that going to cost the person? right now you can probably get a land line phone in rural america somewhere for 10, 15, $20 per month? pretty hard to find a wireless plan that cheap in many places. we need to look at the cost to the consumer and look back to what you're saying a moment ago, it is a real factor in the rate of people taking the internet. first of all, you have to have a computer. i know the computer costs are going way down and you get a lot more for less, but there is

still a cost there and if you are a low-income person, you do not have an extra 500, 600, $1,000 line around. anyway, it is a challenge and funding is going to be a challenge, we need to make sure that we get as much access out there as possible without leaving people behind. >> your colleague senator mccain has again introduces all the carte cable bill. >> i knew that would come up. he has filed that bill basically every year since i have been in the senate. he feels passionately about it. i think we should consider it, but i also think we are seeing the market changed their as well. because now the whole idea of a la carte, intuitively i think people like, say,

comcast or time warner, whoever i buy from, when i buy that, i should be able to pick the channels i want. why pay for these channels i do not want? that is what he is talking about. if you want 10, 50, it is up to you. but that is not the way the cable systems negotiate their contracts with the content folks, hbo's, abc's, etc.. in effect he is saying that we need to lobby for consumer choice. that really big changes have cable is done today. changing as well. now if you want to watch say, shows and nbc, there are websites you can go to to download the shows.

so, that is changing as well, where this whole area is morphing so much. i remember when i was a kid, there was a family in arkansas that had cable. >> you could not get any broadcast television out of little rock. nonetheless, those were the earliest ones. light years ahead of what they used to be. it is crazy and much of changes. will this be something that is that desirable for people five years from now? things are changing so rapidly. he has certainly earned the right to bring things like that up. >> you alluded to how quickly the video and communications game is changing. is that part of the explanation

for why we have seen reluctance from congress to take on these larger technology focuses? things like rewrite of the 1996 telecommunications act? we hear people saying that these laws are outdated, there is a real risk of seeing the market shift under your feet. >> that is exactly right. if you think about something if congressrte, tries to legislate to much in these areas, suddenly we stifle innovation and we prevent the investment that we need to keep the cutting edge in the u.s. economy likely have had. i have had people tell me we need to rewrite this act or that act. they say we need to do this because the internet is only mentioned twice and they say the 1996 we have moved

so far beyond that that it is not funny. true, but if you look at the innovation in the industry, how the industry has driven the u.s. economy, the investment, how amazing this stuff is, how much it changes, other is so much emphasis and resources there, what would be changed in the law to try to make this better? this is a funny industry, most people are hyper competitive and they just fight, fight all day, complained every day about this guy getting a better deal, that industry getting a better deal, but guess what? they are all doing great in terms of them having the chances to succeed with a lot of success. out of time, we

want to rescue about the spectrum incentive options. is it going to happen in 2014? pushed to 2015 demo will be your goal? 2015? what will be your goal? >> here, again, when we had our wireless hearing, every other witness, every other answer the to spectrum,ack spectrum, spectrum. one of the things we need to talk about, and i am sure you have talked about it before, the amount owned by the federal government. the part of defense is kind of the poster child for this. as you know, the department of defense recently came out with a proposal for how they should proceed on some of the spectrum. you know what? we need to be sensitive, just like any other agency. out ofjust as we have utilize e

wireless services more in the private sector for ourselves, they have done the same thing. they rely on us more and more, their systems are more and more based on this. you cannot just kind of flipped a switch. it is going to take some time and some money to do this. one of the things is to try to give them the incentive to do this. i would hope that we would get it done in 2014. there are lots of issues within peopleut -- you that just to national footprints? locally? do you cap their ability to hold a certain amount of spectrum? i think most of those will be resolved by the sec.

definitely be a candidate for the subcommittee. >> finally at wanted to touch on an issue that you raised in the past. the issue of accessibility. also the risk of people differently able to being left behind. can you speak to the state of that legislation, still pending? >> we passed it two or three years ago. the 21st century communications act. i cannot remember the exact name. it is now being implemented. saycally what happened was that normal telephones, the requirements about access to the hearing impaired, when you got to the smart phones there was no such requirement.

no consistency. companies are now getting on board about how they have to do this and why they do it. there are still some bombs in the road. one is about closed captioning of the internet. and some video closed captioning, to make sure the death and the blind community can have full access to all the technology. i am a big supporter of the. just because you have a disability you should not be left behind, you should be available to enjoy the benefits of a small town, iphone, android, tablet, whenever it has to be. >> finally, what grade would you give the federal government when it comes to cyber security? a c at best.y

i have been pushing for this, moving into far superior legislation. cyber security means different things to different people. we need to get this done. for me to say the house has done something right, they are fine, but they have actually passed on this and i think we need to look at what they have done. artainly, if we want to take stab at doing our own thing in the senate, that is great. we need to get moving on this in the senate. it is a real threat, a real problem. all of my colleagues lay awake at night worrying about cyber security. beennator has mark pryor our guest. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] "washington journ[captions copyl cable satellite corp. 2013] 1979,pan, created in

brought to you as a public service by your television provider. >> of the next "washington journal, dan ballz discusses his new book. and jack martel talks about his state. our summer reading coverage continues tomorrow. join us live it 12:15 p.m. eastern to take a look at cyber security here on c-span. when did we reach a point where you have to have a certain philosophy because of the color of your skin? when did that happen? [no audio] [applause]

just asked me why i did not talk a lot about race. i was no surgeon. the color does not make them who they are prayed when are we going to understand that? ben carson takes your calls, e- mails, facebook comments, and tweets. >> potato look at the influence a first ladies -- we take look at the influence of first ladies. .e would hear from authors this is moderated by richard norton smith.