looking at this program and trying to understand it better. we realized that with the connections we have today, about half of our schools are connected at three megabits or less. that is not a speed you're going to use for the most innovative teaching tools. it is not a speed that you can use to watch high-definition streaming video. it is not a speed that we can use to educate the next generation of entrepreneurs. more than that, we should do something about this program because around the world, a lot is happening when it comes to technology. in south korea, 100% of their schools are wired for broadband and they are moving to digital textbooks by 2016. in places like ecuador, every primary student has a laptop. in thailand, they are moving towards a one tablet per student policy. we can let other nations lead the way or we can make the

choice to do more ourselves. if we take the ee rate program and revamp it, rebooted, refocus it, we can do a lot to bring broadband to schools across the country. >> you have put a lot on the table. joining our conversation is communications daily executive senior editor howard buskirk. issuesmentioned to big that there is a lot of fcc watchers believing will dominate the commission. the first is the incentive option. how far along do you think planning is, what other pressure points, one of the concerns about the option going forward? in 2014 was to do one but it looks like it could be difficult. >> i will say for starters that i am confident that i can be ready to do these auctions in 2014.

i have confidence in the agency's ability to do so too. when you look at the record that we have when it comes to incentive auctions and auction policy generally, it is tremendous. about two decades, the fcc has had a story to hold spectrum auctions. we have helped 80 auctions. we have issued more than 36,000 licenses and raised billions of dollars for the treasury. as my kids with tie, that is not too shabby. i think we have tremendous experts who know how to work with auctions and come up with good policies. i think that we can move ahead and get these auctions done by the end of 2014. waited for the senate to confirm tom wheeler and michael riley as chairman and commissioner. i'm just wondering if that process takes a while, could that complicate having a 2014 incentive option? >> i hope it doesn't take a while but i would also say that time marches on and technology

is advancing and i think the agency has its work to do and needs to proceed. rate, thatde, -- e is an issue that could get a lot of congressional attention. there is concern among congressional republicans about expanding the program. do you see that is blowing up into a big fight as the fcc takes a closer look at expanding the e rate program over the next year? >> i don't think so. i don't think education or infrastructure issues are partisan. if you look back at the e rate program, it was part of the telik communications act of 1996. it was something developed in a bipartisan way i senator rockefeller and snow and senator markey. it has a strong record of support in a bipartisan way and i think that will continue in the future. >> one final question, i think the concern is that this touches

on the issue of expanding government and broader political issues in washington. i think there is concern that some will zero in on it because they feel like it touches on a lot of issues that are of concern to them on a broader level. have --nk the e-rate program has always been about national support but local control just like our schools. there is a lot of opportunity there to do good things. i think that the more people learn about it, the more interested they will be. i will add that it will have a good effect on our market. we can leave to every school and local jurisdiction the task of identifying how to get really high speed broadband into their school. we can do it at scale. take it vantage of consortium and bulk buying. bring everyone up to the same baseline. if we bring everyone up to the same baseline, what i would like to see is 100 megabits to every

school buddy 2015 school year and a gigabit to every school by the end of the decade. that and make that capacity available nationwide, we are going to send a signal to markets, to device manufacturers, to content creators. they're going to create more content and more technology for our schools. over time, those devices and content will fall within traditional budgets. >> if i could follow-up, should there be set-asides in your view for smaller companies? or should it be a wide-open auction? >> i think we have had for the last 10 years a policy about spectrum holdings that has not been a cap but a screen. we started a preceding late last year to go and revisit that. that is a good thing to do.

i think after more than a decade, it is time. it is my hope, in the upcoming auction, that we will first and foremost follow the law. they communications act requires us to think about economic opportunity and competition. the middle-class tax relief and jobs creation act tells us that when we develop those auctions, we need to make sure that everyone can participate, that we can have rules of general applicability. we should balance all of those things and it is my hope that we will have opportunities for incumbents and new entrants alike. i don't think a single carrier can walk away with all the spectrum. wanting to follow up on howard's question about the nominees. he also comes from the senate. andou know mr. o'reilly knowing what you know about the senate, do you think it will mr.eed quickly to get wheeler and mr. o'reilly on board echoplex -- onboard?

knowing what i know about the senate, i did spend five years working on capitol hill with great privilege. i think it will be up to the good men and women of that body to decide when they confirm the two nominees. >> howard buskirk. >> let me ask a follow-up question. you mentioned spectrum aggregation. that no carrier should be able to buy all the spectrum. do you perceive the fcc imposing some kind of restrictions in to keep the two dominant carriers from buying most of the spectrum? >> i think everyone should have an opportunity to participate. there should be opportunities for the incumbents and small carriers alike. there are several proposals before us up right now.

>> another complaint that small carriers have had is that they would like to have the spectrum sold in smaller sizes rather -- ishe economic area that something that you're looking at right now is an issue? some are saying they won't participate in the auctions. >> i think it is something the network will have to take a look at. i understand the simplicity of using economic areas. rosenworcel, two big announcements this week in the wireless world with verizon buying out vodafone and microsoft buying the cell phone business of gnocchi a. -- nokia. does the fcc have any role in those transactions? >> i can't talk about specifics. that might be before us soon. i can tell you that we are likely to have to take a look at

the verizon and vodafone transfer. it is my hope that we will do that swiftly. i think the issues associated with microsoft and nokia are different because it is the combination of a company that provides operating systems with a company that develops handsets which is an interesting issue that is very much affected by our wireless vector policy but i -- spectrum policy but i don't believe falls within our jurisdiction. >> what is your policy in approaching a merger or buyout like the verizon vodafone? do you have a philosophy about how the market should operate? have is anwhat we obligation to act under the law. the communications act tell the fcc to take a look at transfers of licenses. for things like radio airwaves, what this involves. we need to make sure that on balance, the transfer reflect the public interests.

we look at merger harms and merger benefits. we try to assess them and make a decision swiftly and do it to the extent necessary and coordination with our colleagues at the department of justice. >> do you think you would move forward with a three-member commission if mr. wheeler and mr. o'reilly are not on board? >> that is a decision that is up to the acting chairwoman. i think time moves on, technology is moving at a blistering pace. i don't think the regulatory process can slow. >> i wanted to ask you -- you were on the senate staff when the legislation was passed that created this international network for first responders. how do things seem to be going so far toward construction of that network and do you have concerns -- we are hearing a lot of concerns about whether there is going to be enough money to pay for it coming back from the auctions and just the difficulty

of building a national network. what do you see as being the hard parts? >> let's start from the beginning. congress recognized that it has been more than a decade since the horror of 9/11 and many years since the devastation of hurricane katrina. that was tragic. we didn't have a nationwide network for first responders so they took action. i think that is a terrific thing. i think it managed to take off the table one of the last remaining recommendations from the 9/11 commission. what they did was remove the 700 megahertz band, a choice spectrum for first responders across the country. they assigned the first responder network authority with control for pulling this network together. new uniquelyome public network. it is an effort built on public and private partnership. nor is it strictly federal.

it will be all about local control. i think it has taken time to get things together but from what i see, i am fairly positive. we are seeing a lot of really good developments. a lot of respect in the industry. we now have a $194 million budget. they are planning new hires. they have already put out 30 different grants for state and local planning and they have already made arrangements in california and new mexico to use the 700 megahertz spectrum. i think we are making a lot of progress and there is more to come. >> to you, it is no longer an open question if this network will be built, it is a matter of when, would you say that? >> absolutely. >> you have also been really -- what isn the need

the status -- there is supposed to be a final report out on recommendations following last year's storm. that a lot of shutdown of 911. do you have any idea what the status of the report is and what would you like to see -- if there is something more the fcc should require of carriers to prevent those kind of outages in the future? factt's start with the that that was a big windstorm over a year ago. it brought life in this area of the country to a halt. power outages everywhere. communications failures as well. the most stunning failures came with the 911 system. think about it. when the on thing of all occurs, you want to know that you can call 911. we found in the storm that there were 77 911 centers that went at

least partially inoperable during the storm. 17 of them must connectivity completely. investigationn and not only that, i went and did some myself. i visited one of the centers that when fully out in fairfax county, virginia just down the road. i will never forget that visit. it is a great new center, one of the best public safety answering centers in the country. the director of it described how during the middle of the storm, the entire room went silent. he said he knew instantly there was something wrong. he was right. staff did athe fcc terrific job, a thorough investigation. but the found -- what they found was a few things. they found that backup generators failed to work leading to system failures. they also found that monitoring failed to work because of power problems.

not also found carriers did notify 911 centers. we did a rulemaking on issues like that back in march. i hope that we can bring that to some kind of conclusion soon. i think there are commonsense things we can do to prevent this from happening again. >> do you foresee that there will have to be some additional regulations imposed to try to keep the outages from happening in the future? just in this, not region of the country but everywhere. this is an opportunity to put better practices in place to prevent this from happening again. >> you're watching the communicators on c-span, a weekly show looking at telecommunications and some of the people behind it. this week, fcc commissioner jessica rosenworcel is our guest. howard buskirk of communications daily is our guest reporter. commissioner rosenworcel, the issue we have talked about for years here on the communicators is usf reform.

forou see any potential actual reform in the u.s. have? -- usf? >> no matter where you live in this country, you have an opportunity to have first-rate communications. got to the agency, my colleagues embarked on a very significant reform project. they took the universal service system and migrated it from a system focused on telephony to broadband and wireless services. i think that is a terrific thing. they also increased accountability in the program. they put it on a budget. it is all good. i will also say that the program has gotten very competent at and i think that -- confiscated and ted and that -- complica

that makes it hard for rural areas. going forward, i hope we can make it more simple so the carriers can get the support they need to provide the communications they want to provide. a vital program? >> absolutely. >> one thing the fcc hasn't looked at his reforming the way the contribution -- the way money is paid into the usf and that the controversial because he would have to expand the types of communications that were covered. it could possibly be controversial with the high-tech community. it was talked about as an additional tax. do you see that as something that the fcc is anxious to wait into? andt is an important issue one we will have to consider in time. universal service policy has two sides. the funds come in and they are paid out to support

communication services. the way we collect funds today involves assessment on interstate telecommunications services. in plain english is your long distance services. there is an argument that the way we are using our networks is changing over time. the networks we are supporting our changing over time. going into that conversation, i think it would be good to look at a connections-based system that doesn't distinguish between specific types of documentation. i am open to other ideas too. controversialbe with the high-tech community? >> i am not sure. i don't know that it is a prudent thing to do to continue to focus on discrete services. technology is evolving so rapidly. the idea that we only focus on a limited set of circumstances over time might wind up limiting our ability to do good things with universal service. >> commissioner rosenworcel has

spent several years in the senate as a legal advisor. to go from being on the staff to it from my position? have spent some time working on these issues. i have been in the trenches and the agency. i have been up on capitol hill. coming to this job, some of these things were familiar but it is a tremendous privilege too. communications economy is one of the most dynamic sectors in our economy and it is a privilege to have a front row seat. >> how did you get involved in this area? >> i work for a private law firm on the privatization of a state- run telephone company. which i just thought was incredibly interesting. to identify how to make it more efficient, more competitive. to work on i went on some early broadband proceedings at the fcc.

i had an opportunity to work in a commissioner's office and an opportunity to work for senator inouye so i consider myself to be very fortunate. >> i wanted to ask you about the auction. this is an issue you have been outspoken on and you would like to see a delay in that until it can be combined with other spectrum for a larger auction. can you talk about that and why you see that as an important issue? >> sure. i will start with the law. the middle-class tax relief and jobs creation act directed the fcc to auction in a traditional way 65 megahertz a spectrum. includes the 2155-2180 and -- band. it also includes spectrum that has been identified by the

department of commerce. on top of that, it includes the h block which are two five megahertz blocks. addition, it directs the fcc to auction another spectrum for ,hich we have taken a look at 1755-1780 megahertz. the under that, the important thing to note is that this needs to be licensed by february 2015. if you back away from that, you realize we need to auction it in 2014 to meet that deadline. i think we should auction it all together. all 65 megahertz at once. here is why. spectrum i just described to you, if you look at it closely, it is within 500 megahertz of one another. bidder finds that they are

not succeeding in one portion of the auction, they might look at another. in addition, i think when you put 65 megahertz to market, you attract a lot more bidders, a lot more interest than if you just attract what you would attract with just 10 megahertz of spectrum with the h block. furthermore, i think more bidders means more interest, more revenue, means that we can take the revenue and make a down payment and help our first responders early with more funds for their system. the more funds we develop, the more flexibility we will have down the road when it comes to incentive options. i think that we should auction all 65 megahertz together. it is not just me. i found that analysts agree. an increasing part of our record in is pretty thing also thinks that auctioning all at once is good. >> are you making progress in getting your fellow commissioners to go along with

your prospective? >> i hope so. i think it is the best spectrum policy. i think it is the best policy for first responders under the law. >> do you think it is possible that that auction could go toward paying for the first nat so that it won't require as much money from the incentive options? >> absolutely. would you want to do is attract a lot of bidders when you hold an auction. the fundamental things when it comes to the success of an auction. the more bidders we attract, the more revenue we can raise. the more revenue we raise, the more we will be able to fund. if we fund first met early, we will have more flexibility when it comes to offering incentives on the road. >> commissioner rosenworcel, we have talked with members of congress about other issues. i want to get your thoughts on them and whether or not the fcc has a role.

cell phone unlocking and à la carte for cable. >> ok. ok, cell phone unlocking. it turns out that the library of congress is very powerful. late last year, the library and decided that unlocking your cell underwas no longer legal the digital millennium copyright act. frank, that doesn't make sense to me. i don't think you should go to jail if you want to unlock your phone. if you want to unlock your cell phone and you are not down by some other contract or obligation, you should be able to do so. take it and use it on another network provider. it is my hope that either through updating the digital copyright act or using the fcc to develop some kind of industry commitment, we can make real change in that. i think consumers should have the freedom to do that. carte, a perennial issue. i look at this as both a regulator and a consumer.

as a consumer, it is hard not to notice that your bill for your channel lineup goes up at more than twice the rate of inflation. it is also hard not to notice that i get lots of channels, but my family watches only a handful. at the same time, i know that this is a system that has come to support some really great programming. still, i see that à la carte has similar. -- as allure. have toe, they will provide more à la carte options. people are seeing screens all around them and they want to watch what they want to watch when they want to watch on any screen handy. >> howard buskirk, one more question. >> i wanted to ask about retransmission consent. there was an agreement between time warner cable and cbs before the start of the nfl season. do you foresee a lot more of these types of disputes?

in the end, will this end up costing consumers? >> a good question. the vast majority of retransmission consent negotiations which are negotiations for carriage of broadcast stations on cable and satellite systems, they go on uneventfully. we never hear about them. every now and again, we have these disputes. when the disputes get heated, sometimes consumers will turn on the television to watch the news , the game or their favorite show, and they will find a dark screen just like consumers recently did in new york, los angeles and dallas. that is not a good thing. we shouldn't want that to happen for extended periods of time . consumers deserve a refund if that happens for an extended the word of time. -- period of time.

asked, do i think these will occur with more frequency? to be honest, they are getting more attention right now because the number of platforms we can use to watch video is expanding and the issue of digital rights of programmers to access those different platforms is much more competition than it used to be. it is also really good for consumers. to justo longer limited watching television sitting on yourself in your living room. you have all these screens and digital platforms around you where you can watch programming content. i think that is one of the sources of making these disputes so heated. >> jessica rosenworcel is a new member of the fcc. howard buskirk as executive senior editor which medications daily. this has been the communicators on c-span. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] span, created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought service as a public

to your television provider. >> there is a continuous argument about, is lincoln with the radicals or the moderates? argument ishy that continuing is that there is very strong evidence on both sides. it isn't just that he played both sides of the street. he also felt the pull of both sides of argument. it is probably a difference between means and ends. i think use with the radicals -- he was with the radicals as far as ensco. he was aware of the temptation of being swept away. what is this speech about other than the addition of being swept away? mind athere is in his taming tension between his commitment to this worldly means -- i should say, legalist means to other worldly ends.

he didn't say i will of our slavery because god told me to. there is always something very askew previously -- scrupulously legal about the way lincoln asked. >> how president higgins use of language conveyed the issues at stake in the civil war, sunday at 7:30 p.m. eastern. >> season two of our series first ladies begins live monday at 9 p.m. eastern with a look at the life of edith roosevelt. as a prelude to the series, we heard how the media has covered first lady throughout the years. how they have crafted their own image. this is from -- it is about 50 minutes. >> good afternoon, welcome to the museums studio. i am your host, john maine art, program manager here at the

museum. today we examined the influence and image of america's first ladies. margaret truman once said the first lady has have the second hardest job in america. lady bird johnson said are slated to the only ones who can tell the president to shut up and not get fired. and jacqueline kennedy once said that the one thing she does not what he called his first lady, it sounds like a saddle horse. certainly three different viewpoint of a position in our government that we perhaps do not know enough about. this monday, c-span will help educate us as it resumes its for that resumes its series, "first ladies, -- resumes its series, "first ladies: influence and image." it resumes with edith roosevelt, leading up to the series finale with michelle obama in february. the series is produced in conjunction with the white house historical association, a charitable nonprofit institution whose purpose is to enhance the understanding, appreciation, and understand