Skip to main content

tv   The Communicators  CSPAN  July 2, 2016 6:30pm-7:01pm EDT

6:30 pm
7:00, beginningsburg and other supreme court justices share about the traditions.t's food >> whenever the justices have a brings in he chief some wine and we toast the boy or girl and sing happy birthday. we're missing our chorus leader because if the truth be >> and we'll talk about culinary customs dating to the 19th and 20th centuries. for the complete holiday schedule go to c-span.org. >> the senior vice president at verizon is our guest this week n the communicators. what do you do at verizon? >> i'm in charge of our federal and state and legislative and i
6:31 pm
have some legal responsibilities, antitrust, privacy. so how much time do you focus -- >> a lot of issues with a lot going on at the state, at the fcc. congress when it's in session. it depends on the issues and what's hot at the moment. >> what are some of the major issues facing verizon? >> spectrum is always a big issue for us. right now we're very focused on 5g. as a company we've committed to be the first u.s. company to roll out 5g. and 5g is essentially a new iteration of wireless technology. and now 4g l.t.e. the whole new wave of innovation commusing 5g. we've committed to a commercial pilot and product in 2017. to do that we need spectrum to roll it out. that is actually something we've spent a lot of time on at the fcc. chairman wheeler just last week
6:32 pm
actually announced that the fcc is going to vote on an order in july to open up a huge block of spectrum to enable us and the rest of the industry to roll out 5g very quickly. >> you mentioned the auctions. they began last march. can you give us a status report? >> talking about the incentive auctions? >> yes. >> that i actually can't because there are rules that govern -- we are an applicant so the rules that govern discussions about the auction. that is something i can't omment on right now. i'm sorry. >> let's bring john mckinnon into these discussions. >> you talk about the 5g and the kind of spectrum you need. how is 5g different from the last four g's? >> a good question. 5g is actually very different from 4g. first you'll have really high speeds. with 4g, probably 10 to maybe 50 times more in terms of
6:33 pm
capacity, improved put and speeds. that is very exciting. then latency, a technical, engineer term. what it means is you can have almost instantaneous response times between connective devices. what that means is in a 5g world there will be an incredible explosion in testimonies of the internet of things, how we connect to devices, what we do with transportation, what we do with energy. that is exciting. there's a lot of opportunity there for 5g. then in terms of home broadband one of the things we're looking at is whether you can use 5g for a fixed wireless broadband service to the home. that is a possibility as well. we're running field cases right now and those are questions about what sort of environment it will work on and the spectrum is actually high frequency. so there are bands the commission is looking at. because it is high frequency there are different characteristic. we have to do some trials to
6:34 pm
test how it's going to work in certain environments. that's what we're doing right now. we are very determined and excited. verizon is a big priority and we're determined to have a product in the market sometime next year. which is two to three years sooner than conventional wisdom has been. >> what are some of the specific applications that you hink could really change the way people live? >> there are a lot of possibilities. in the health care space it is interesting. one of the things i talk about is a remote monitoring service. a senior citizen living at home and you want to monitor whether they take their medication, how they're doing that particular day. how they're walking. that is a possibility. again, fixed wireless broadband type of use that might be ossible as well.
6:35 pm
we're still in the early stages. we have to see where the technology takes us. there is this ability to have this almost instant response time between dices. when you look at what the world will look like in five or 10 years, by 2020 there will be 50 billion connected devices in the market place. the use cases are endless and the possibilities are there. that's why this is such an exciting issue and why verizon is really focused on it. we really led the way with 4g l.t.e. we were the first company to announce we'd use l.t.e. that set the global standard. in a lot of ways that led the u.s. to become the leader in the state. the u.s. became the leader in the space. we want to maintain that global leadership position. i think it is fair to say that because the fcc is moving so quickly we can do that. >> have you seen chairman
6:36 pm
wheeler's proposal and do you support it? >> we've seen a fact sheet. what he said is he is going to circulate an order to vote at the july 14th meeting. we haven't seen all of the details. the very technical issues. he's laid out what i think the outlivense the order and the outlines of the proposal and a lot of really good stuff. one of the things we've been focused on is timing. like i said we really want to maintain the global leadership position. to do that we have to have access to the spectrum because right now the rules, it's not available for commercial use. in july after july 14 the gates will be open and we'll be ready to go. we're excited. >> will #g use a lot more spectrum than 4g? >> it will. certain other spectrum options like the one we were involved with recently you would talk about 10 to 20 megahertz. for 5g we're looking at spectrum that are chunks a
6:37 pm
hundred megahertz or 200. even higher actually. even more. that is because that is the sort of -- you need wide bands of contiguous spectrum to be able to operate the technology and get the high speeds we're talking about. so yes. actually this order is going to deal with four different bands ut it'll be in the -- much more, exponentially more spectrum than we've seen released for commercial use to date. we're excited. >> you mentioned fixed broadband wireless in homes. talk more about that idea and how that would be different from what people have now. >> we're having the field trials so we're trying to work out the specifics. in some ways it might be similar, the device, you know, in your home that like you have a cable modem not exactly the same but that sort of thing. then you'd have a wireless connection to the network and that would be what the fixed broadband went over. when we're doing the field trials that's a lot of what
6:38 pm
we're looking at, the environments we're testing. there are some characteristics of the spectrum that make it complicated in that environment. there is a very narrow line of sight. >> it doesn't go through walls very well? >> exactly. >> there are some issues with that. but there's actually a lot of complex engineering developments that have developed these new antennas. they call it bean forming. so actually a way to adjust for this kind of issue with the spectrum and make it more useable in that kind of environment. so that's the kind of thing we're testing in our field trial. >> would someone get a new device in their home and then, you know, extra antennas in the house? can you talk about what the technology looks like? >> that's kind of, you know, a lot of this we're trying to work through. there aren't even, these kind of devices republican party necessarily developed yet. that is a possibility, exactly. but a lot of the antennas we're talking about, too, sort of the antennas that were in the network itself as opposed to in
6:39 pm
the house. thn they used these sort of new techniques that, you know, basically make clear that the spectrum can travel in a way that would make it useable in the home environment. >> so, what was your reaction to the use of technology recently in the house when the democrats had their sit-in, not your reaction to that issue but your reaction to the use of per scope and then putting that, we put that on tv. and it's been around the world from a phone. >> yeah. it's exciting. that is another thing. looking at my career in verizon i started in 2002 and we were actually applying to be able to offer long distance service, long distance voice. now look at how the world has changed. i mean it's amazing. people maybe at that point would have been calling each other to talk about the sit-in and talk about what was going on. here you could actually, wherever you are whether on the subway or, you know, the grocery store, you would turn on your phone and be watching. and communicating with other
6:40 pm
people through facebook or twitter. so it's exciting. the mobile phone and use of mobile video, you know, in particular the millennials. i mean, i read a stat the other day that i think millennials use their mobile phones. 37 hours a week which is essentially a work week. and a lot of that was exactly that. they're watching video. they're communicating and usually kind of short content. not the sort of long programs. i thought it was really exciting. i expect that'll continue on all world events. >> going back to 5g for a second, where do you foresee that being rolled out? is it going to be in a particular city, particular part of the country? or just a few houses? how would it work? >> that is something i think we're thinking about right now. probably would pick some cities across the country and to do trials next year and see how it would work. right now the trials are maybe an apartment or a house. probably would do that on a
6:41 pm
larger scale in a particular area. probably urban areas first. more densely populated to start and then kind of move on from there. >> you are not the only people with this idea. talk about some of the competition out there. and the countries interested in take go-to lead on this. >> yeah. >> we're not the only ones. we want to be the first in the u.s. and i think we will be because we're definitely result and d that working quickly. we're working with vendors across the world because we want to drive the ecosystems and make sure vendors get started. they start thinking about devices and the technology can get rolled out from there. there are other countries, korea, japan that are looking at 5g and trying to move forward quickly as well. in some ways we're partnering with those countries, too, and some of the vendors in those countries. we are determined, you know,
6:42 pm
we're proud that we're the leader on 4g l.t.e. >> in your view does the u.s. have a right regulatory framework for creating such things as 5g? >> the order on july 14 will be big first step toward that because you need spectrum and to build the infrastructure. we're working on that, too. that is more of a local and state issue in a lot of places. there are complicated processes for when you want to put a small cell somewhere or put a distribute antenna system somewhere and you have to go through localities, go to particular states. there are different rules that apply. stream linge that process and making it easier for companies will speed up 5g as well. we're focused on that at the state level too and making sure the right policies are in place so companies can do that. between those two, there are others, too, but those are the
6:43 pm
two big ones if we can make progress on those the u.s. will keep the leadership position. in the wireless space. which is important. >> what did you think of the appeals court decision on net neutrality? >> yeah, i mean, it was a win for the fcc. favor of the d in fcc on most of the issues. from our perspective the important issue now is what happens next. a lot will depend on how the fcc applies its rules and how it interprets the statute. the other important question is will congress take another look at the act that is woefully outdated and really was written for a different era that has, you please, a lot of issues applying that in today's world. will congress take another run at that? >> you opened up a lot of issues there. the first one is will verizon pursue this to the supreme court? >> verizon wasn't a party to the appeal in the d.c. circuit.
6:44 pm
we won't be a party to any upreme court proceeding. >> would you like to see a comprehensive rewrite of the act? >> i think we need one. it's always hard. it is a big effort that's always difficult to do that. but what we're going to see if we're still going to be facing the same problem, so the statute as i said was written for a completely different world. the internet as we know it to see to your point about how people used periscope to broadcast from the house floor was unthinkable in 1996. so we have an act that just isn't applicable today. when the fcc has to turn to it if there is a policy issue or regulatory issue that hinges on what the statute says we'll keep having this problem year after year. i think eventually it will be inevitable that we will have a rewrite. though like i said, i recognize the timing is somewhat
6:45 pm
uncertain. >> as you mentioned, a lot of things could flow from the net neutrality decision. the fcc has a few issues on the table right now including privacy and logical consequences of the net neutrality decision. talk about those and how you would like to see them come out. do you have any concerns about what's on the table? >> in the privacy proceeding we do have concerns. the initial proposal that the fcc put forward in the fall, you know, a couple things. the first is that essentially what that would do is apply a separate set of regulations to one part of a very large ecosystem. when you look at what the internet world looks like, even just the digital advertising space, there are multiple players. there are big players in that space, too, that have a big market share. we're trying to enter that business and we purchased a.o.l. but we're trying to build on that investment and become more of a player in that market. but the fcc rules would apply a
6:46 pm
really strict kind of set of requirements to essentially do entrance in that space. the big players. that's a concern. the second concern is the rules themselves apply to a pretty broad category of information. so it's not calibrated to whether or not the information that would be covered by these rules, whether it's sensitive or not from the perspective of the consumer. that's another concern. the f.t.c. actually recently filed comments in the fcc proceeding kind of underscoring the same point. and so we've been having meetings and we're having discussions with the fcc and we've made those positions clear. but those are the main concerns. >> and that is an issue that as you say has generated some pushback from segments of the industry. >> yes. even outside the telecom industry actually. >> right. i don't think it's risen to the pushback on the
6:47 pm
separate box proposal has been. do you think there is really enough concern to slow down or stop this privacy proposal? or do you -- just talk about it how it's shaping up. >> i think there's been significant pushback is the right word but significant concerns expressed by a number. even the advertisers. actually a collection of groups that represent advertisers that came to the fcc and raised a lot of concerns for the proposal. so it's been pretty extensive with a lot of comments, a lot of data on the record, too, a lot of experts, things like that. so it's been fairly significant. like i said, comments from the f.t.c. that, you know, weren't basically highlighting particular parts of what the ftc proposed. again, this distinction between what do you require, opt out, what do you require opt in? there is a big difference. >> what about congress? have you heard much from congress on this issue? >> i've seen some feedback from congress, some concern in the same way. again, what are the scope of
6:48 pm
the rules? who do they apply to? does it make sense to apply them to a small part of the large yune i was of players? >> kathy grillo, what kind of safeguards does verizon have in place to protect the information that you get from your consumers and how is that information used? >> a good question. we have a privacy policy in place that covers how we use customer information for a whole list of different issues and a whole -- there is a line drawing exercise the fcc is exercising right now trying to figure out where do we give customers notice and when do we actually want them to affirmatively consent to our use of that information. we've had to make those calls, too, over the years. we're pretty proud. we spend a lot of time on privacy, the chief privacy officer reports. we spend a lot of time on that. very important to the company. because we have a lot of different businesses.
6:49 pm
we have consumers who are concerned about these things. we spend a lot of time. we have a very extensive privacy policy. that we post on our website that's clear for -- we give customers separate notices. you know, when we change our policy or when there are particular events that are important that we think they need to know about. there's a lot of information that we provide to our customers and try to make clear to them. again, how their information is used. how it's collected. and what we do with it. >> do customers read those long, sometimes complicated forms, privacy forms? >> they do. the other thing we do, we spend a lot of time trying to make sure that we explain our privacy policy in a way that is understandable to people. we spend a lot of time thinking about we call it plain language. we even work with outside experts sometimes to make sure that to your point that when customers get the kind of information it doesn't just go into, it is not something they
6:50 pm
just dispel and don't pay attention to. that they really understand what we're doing. that is important. again, it's not just that we want to post this because the regulators asked us to but because our customers, it is important to them and it is a trust and relationship between us and them. there is some trust that goes n there. if they get this big long document they don't understand that is not good either. >> kathy grillo was a litigator, is from long island, u.v.a. undergrad and long school. john mckinnon from north carolina and "the wall street journal" next question? >> another thing that flows from the net neutrality decision is what the fcc is going to do about what i think of as zero ratings which is who gets to charge or not charge for which kind of data. verizon like everybody else is in this conversation. talk a little bit about how you think that issue ought to play
6:51 pm
out. >> yeah. i think the way that should play out is actually on a case by case basis. these are products being rolled out right now by various companies in different ways. and it's a nays ent product so to speak. they haven't -- the customers have been responding to them pretty positively. people like free data. they like free things. the real issue, it's not really what we're charging for it but who pays for the access to the content. is it the customer or a third party? somebody that has a new product and wants to get it in front of customers. we hope what the fcc does is kind of let the products roll out and see what the customer reaction is. and then make a case by case determination. right now customer feedback is very positive. ctia has done some surveys. particularly millennials like
6:52 pm
these kind of products and the dea of these products. >> but isn't it an unlevel playing field when you can give your data to customers free and they have to pay for the data from say netflix? >> no. the way we structured our program anybody can have access. anybody can participate in the program and sponsor the content for the customer. so that, the terms that we offer are available to any provider that wants to do it. it is really up to the third party whether that is something they think would make sense for them from a business perspective. it is a very level playing field i would say for that reason. >> which of your products, talk about which products are involved in this conversation. >> basically a wholesale product. we call it freebie but essentially a way a third party can sponsor content for its customers basically. they can pay for the customers, pay for the data usage rather
6:53 pm
than the data usage counting against the customers. >> okay. is it the wave of the future? are there going to be a lot of these products? are they going to become very popular? >> it's hard to say. that is one of the exciting things about the time that we're in is it's kind of hard to know where the market is going to go. all of us are trying to figure that out. that is another reason why it makes sense to let the products evolve. let the market decide. let the customers decide whether it makes sense. customers are smart. they know when they're getting something good and when companies maybe are not. and so that's why i think -- there are rules in place the fcc has and neutrality rules are in place. so there is a basis for them to step in if they think they need to. but right now it looks pretty positive. >> given that people use both wired and wireless and more and more wireless should there be consistency of regulation
6:54 pm
between wired and wireless? >> i think that also depends on the issue. the wireless industry is extremely competitive. when you look at the industry now it's more so than ever. so i don't know if there is a real clear answer to that in every case if that makes sense. in general it's ghood to apply regulation in a way that is technology neutral or provider neutral. but it's hard in our space. things are so complicated. and there is so much nuance and change that it's hard to say yes or no. to that kind of question. >> is there going to be wired telephone service in 10 or 15 years? >> nope. is there going to be wired telephone service? probably. there are some people who like it. that will be a challenge though. because the smaller you -- the smaller the pool of people that use it the expenses don't always change to keep the
6:55 pm
network running. we offer a voice service over fiber. that is much better frankly than what you can get from a connection. that is important in emergencies. fiber is always better. it's cheaper to maintain. it doesn't cost anymore to the customer than a regular or traditional land line would. so it's hard to say exactly. if you look at what customers are doing and what customers think, they're moving away from land lines in droves. it would be interesting if you talk to someone in their 20's, a land line is, some don't even know what it is. that is something for policy makers in the industry we need to think through. >> it just goes back to 5g. does the world move toward wireless particularly hard to serve, rural areas do they become more and more served by wireless and not any kind of
6:56 pm
hard line? >> that might make sense in a lot of places especially as wireless service develops and becomes more resilient. it really will depend on the place. maybe fiber makes sense in some places. wireless may make a lot of sense depending where the customer is located or what the weather is like there or hatever. the point is we have to be flexible. some people in the industry will be very adamant you have to have a copper phone or this or that. because of the economics and the pace of change companies have to have the flexibility to make the decisions in a way that is good for customers but also economic this terms of business. see thy grillo, do you more build out for verizon? >> recently we announced a
6:57 pm
project in boston so we are ing to build a fiber network in the whole city of boston, a big project, $300 million investment over six years. the interesting thing is it fios but be about 5g. when we look at building fiber we in a particular area look at can we do 5g? you need fiber connections between the network and the 5g. cell in order to do great for the city. boston will be one of the most technologically advanced cities in the country. they'll also be ready for deployment for 5g. when we think about it that way.
6:58 pm
you can see how important that is from a business perspective. >> finally the fcc recently came out with a new plan for set top boxes. where the verizon on that? >> we stayed out of the lobbying battle on this issue for the most part. we filed comments. we understood the goals and we understand people want to move away from set top boxes and that is a pain for customers. we see the industry evolving that way anyway. set top boxes are going away. no question. we are planning on that. we understood the goals the fcc was trying to accomplish. we had some concerns about the specifics and the cable companies and at&t recently have proposed a compromise or kind of an alternative i guess they would say proposal. which we thought affs positive step. the chairman i think felt that
6:59 pm
and google made similar comments. we'll have to see how it all develops. >> john mckinnon covers technology for "the wall street journal." this month watch c-span's coverage of the 2016 republican and democrat national conventions and we'll look back at past conventions, at the presidential candidates who won their party nominations. tonight we'll focus on nominees who ran for president only once during their political careers. harry truman at the 1948 democratic convention in philadelphia. the 1960 democratic convention in los angeles with john f. kennedy. barry goldwater the 1964 republican convention in daly city, california. the 1976 republican convention with gerald ford in kansas
7:00 pm
city, missouri. walter mondale at the 1984 democratic convention in san francisco. michael dukakis in atlanta for the 1988 democratic convention. and the 2004 democratic convention in boston with john kerry. past republican and democratic national conventions tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. this 4th of july weekend book tv has three days of nonfiction books and authors on c-span2. tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern on "afterwards" we'll have the discussion of the book "rise of the rocket girls, the women who propeled us from the moon to mars" in which she chronicles an elite group of women and their contributions to rocket design, space exploration, and the first american satellite. she is interviewed by lisa rand. >> in the beginning they did a lot of trajectoryies so they

50 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on