all of our legal function, public policy function, and security function. host: describe verizon as a business today. craig: it is a great question. verizon has changed quite a bit. we have more network businesses. business and our enterprise business. we have also expanded pretty significantly into internet of internet-video and content business. we have acquired aol, a plan to acquire yahoo!. we have acquired connected vehicles. increasingly building out --

you see us increasingly building out. host: given the nature of your business, how often does federal policy play a role in business decisions that you make? policy permeates a lot of things we do. it is not just -- it is no longer just telecom policy. companyryone in the wake up every day and think about coliseum -- and think about policy? no. the cause of the scope and span of our business, there are elements of policy that touch on most everything we do. host: with the new incoming administration, what is one of the issues you will be looking at regulatory and legislative? craig: a couple of things going on. one of the top things we are .ocused on is infrastructure when you think about the world

we are in today, whether it is wireless -- if you go back a couple of years, a lot of big sell tires transmitting -- cell otwers transmitting. we are building the fiber deeper and deeper into the network so that the wireless signals are traveling a shorter distance. when we talk about our wireless networks, 90% of that is actually fiber. the internet of things, smart cities, look at what cities are trying to do. a lot of the issues, where is all of the fiber going to come from? who is going to build it? host: you are not dealing just with the feds, you are dealing with state governments, local governments, cities. craig: one of the interesting trends we have seen in the last few years is the increasing

importance of the municipalities . they are looking at, how do they create environment as a great place to live that draws workers in, smart city solutions to make them more efficient. a lot of great interesting things. congress has been thinking a lot about another infrastructure bill. the president-elect is thinking about it as well. how could that play into what you see as the future of infrastructure? craig: it absolutely could be a part of it. knowledge base economy, the services being provided, we do need to see fiber as one of those aspects for economic growth.

one of the aspects discussed is the idea that as part of an for structure package, you might need subsidization of fiber build across the country. >> what kind of subsidies are we talking about? ,raig: what you want to look at anyplace the market is driving investment, you do not need to subsidize there. but there could be various ways you can do that. whichever players may want to play in that space, encourage them to build more fiber. >> what are the kinds of places we are talking about here? craig: the economics of fiber will get harder and harder the closer to you move -- the closer

you move to less dense areas. you are probably looking at rural areas where the economics of the build might not make sense. the second thing you want to think about, the combination of fiber and wireless is pretty powerful and you may not need to build fiber where you build it all the way down to a premises, but rather build out to nodes and let people build wireless capabilities at the end of those nodes. that could be a more efficient way to get fiber out there. >> what do you think president-elect trump thinks about the telecommunications business? he is succeeding president obama, who is very tech savvy. he professes not to be. he does not focus on silicon valley. what do you think he wants out

of the telecommunications industry? craig: i cannot speak for president-elect trump. i will tell you the way i think we should all think about this. we live in a world where increasingly the service's element of the economy is growing. it is a tremendous opportunity for the country to grow as we move into new sectors, new areas of innovation, research and development. all of that builds on top of committee case and's platforms -- to medications platforms. -- communication platforms. networkso have those as robust as possible and ubiquitous as possible. how do we continue to encourage the investment in broadband networks? so we reach as many people -- it is not a static point.

you never reach a point in which you are done. -- it should be a fundamental part of all of the other economic growth components of the new administration. host: you mentioned 90% of wireless traffic is done on wired lines. is there a disconnect between wireless policy and wired policy? craig: increasingly, we need to look at the networks coming together and converging and you need to look at overall communications policy. toctrum is very unique wireless. increasingly, everyone is looking at mobility. people are connected with their devices, tablets, but that may be in your home, out on the street. when you are doing that, you are connecting over wireless technology but moving into a

wired infrastructure. there are aspects of the differes that still a little bit. morexample, you still have nationwide wireless carriers and --umber of players coming in there is a lot of competition on the edge. there are fewer people building the core fiber networks and that will probably be the case. it will not be economically viable to have four or five or six players overbuilding those fiber networks. it makes a lot more sense to way.those shared in some you may have a lot of competition going on on the edge of the wireless networks with all sorts of different technologies. we look at the markets and how competitive they are, but a lot of the issues, think about

privacy and cyber security, those issues will be big issues. a couple of issues that might be revisited, net neutrality. craig: it may be. it will be interesting to see what the debate around that neutrality is. when we talked about this, net withality is conflated in title. i have said, we support the net neutrality principles. what the fight has been about is the jurisdictional hook the fcc used to get there. we came out some time ago, the way to fix this is for congress to codify the principles into and put the away whole debate behind us.

senators did a lot of work to get there. was happened in this debate you had some advocates, either move the goalposts or revealed what they really wanted, which was not net neutrality but title ii. i think that was a little disingenuous. now as you look at a new administration, i think net neutrality principles are still important. what we do need to stand back and look and say, what is the statutory framework in which the fcc is operating? they've really been trying to put square pegs in round holes for some time. the new administration, looking at what you really need to protect consumers, what is the right setup of different

agencies, what is there jurisdiction -- what is their jurisdiction? we can do it in a much more efficient way if we stand back and look and say, we are in 2016, soon to be 2017, let's come up with a 21st century framework. it begins to get into a question of what is the statutory framework under which all of these decisions should be made? host: greg walden is coming in as the chair of the energy and commerce committee. craig: he knows the industry very well and he has been involved in these issues deeply for some years. he is fantastically knowledgeable. he is very open-minded and the way he deals with these things. i think he will be a great leader. find that congress

overall understand some of the technical issues you are dealing with? craig: like all issues, it is going to be a mix. you do have members who do understand these things very well. and they have staff members who have lived in this world deeply for a long time. a couple of key staffers on the hill who are very good, very smart, very thoughtful. there is a narrative that you may be hinting that says how can congress take on such a complex issue? , keyave some key leaders members, and key staffers who absolutely have the capability to do this. they have the wherewithal to take on these issues. >> do you envision legislation that could refine the definition of title ii or make clear that

your business does not fit under title ii? do you foresee this legislation would be limited to that or could there be a lot of other issues? what do you think those issues might be? craig: i would take a look -- i would stand back and take a fresh look. reflects the world of the early 1990's. long-distance and local competition coming into effect. think about the debates around privacy. you have the privacy provision, the so-called privacy provision, that was originally written as a marketing limitation. the local phone company sees your calling patterns so they have in vantage marketing along -- advantage -- advantage

marketing a long-distance plan. that may have been an important issue in 1995 but completely irrelevant in today's world. think about a world that did not have any of the major players we think of today. about localy long-distance competition in bringing the cable guys in. usually successful and what it was meant to accomplish but not at all structured for the way the industry works today. you want to stand back and say, what are the things you are trying to achieve around competition and consumer protection? how do you set up agencies designed to operate and achieve those things in today's world? >> do you see a far-reaching scope for this legislation? craig: i think if you think

about the amount of technological and market change over 20 years, if you will change it, start from a blank sheet of paper. do not tinker around the edges for something not fit for purpose at all in today's world. host: at one point do you draw the line in the sand? with technology moving so quickly, how do you draw that line? craig: you really cannot expect congress to put something in the statute to anticipate the future . congress to doct that. you have to design a law that does not assume technologies. you have to base it on core principles. how do you drive competition? how do you protect consumers? don't build a statutory framework built around silos of

telecom, cable, wireless. when all those things melt, it strains on the statutory construction. assume continued evolution. build it on a couple of principles, like competition, like consumer protection. indicate the fcc should be organized -- reorganized? craig: it should continue to evolve with the new technologies. it was originally built around certain silos of technology. as those issues become more melted, absolutely need to look at that -- melted, absolutely you need to look at that. frameworko change the of the regulator to make sure they are structured in a way to meet the needs of today's technology, today's markets, and

today's consumer behavior. >> do you think you should keep regulation of edge providers, the internet companies, when it comes to privacy issues, do you think that regulation should stay at the fcc or should move? the whole question of what you should regulate, we should be careful not to fall into a certain class of company or a type of technologies should be regulated. where is their competition? where there is more competition, you need less regulation. what are the consumer harms that could arise? as far as your larger question, it clearly is the case that they are increasingly overlapping. you see that with verizon.

situation where parts of businesses are regulated by one agency and the other parts are regulated by the other. consumer protection is driven by where in that -- is it the network, the operating system? that does not make sense. it is not good for consumers either. what are the important consumer protection principles question mark what is the agency best suited to regulate that across the entire ecosystem in a coherent way? that would be good policymaking. >> speaking of change in market, at&t is trying to do a deal to acquire time warner. how does that make you think about your business? speak i think -- i cannot

to at&t's rationale. it, weas how we look at have articulated a strategy and we are very comfortable to that. to a large degree, at&t is buying a couple of great assets that are some of the traditional creation --content in the content creation parts of the ecosystem. our strategy is looking at where productiontribution, is going. first, highlybile personalized over the top type -- a lot ofm videos our investments, whether it is aol or yahoo! or complex media, those are about saying, we think this is where the puck is going and we will skate to where the

puck is going. go 90 is an app that serves up short form specially produced content on an advertising base model. you get the content for free and it is supported by advertising and it is designed for the way millennials are consuming content. on the go, mobile first, short form. download.for i can help you put it on your device, peter. fios?what happens to craig: that continues to be a great business. fios includes broadband. be a greats to business, one we continue to invest in and we also see the traditional linear content model

continuing to be attractive for some time to come. consumers do want more and more flexibility. we have been pushing skinny bundles, trying to give consumers more flexibility. because oftruggle the way contracts are set up today. we are trying to push that to give consumers a full span of options. >> going back to the at&t deal, does it put more pressure on you to do a bigger deal? you have acquired some big companies recently. are you under more pressure to acquire a big media company? craig: i do not think so.

whether we do or don't not be driven by what at&t has done. >> how do you see the landscape differently than at&t? craig: as i said, there is a whole spectrum of potential content consumption, production, distribution. there will probably be room for success in various -- invariants of those models. it may be that there is room to compete in different areas of the same time but we are putting a bit more of our bet on the forward-looking distribution and consumption models than at&t. tom wheelier is not a

fan of your ratings. craig: zero rating is a business model. has street journal advertisements. broadcast tv and radio, i can consume content without paying for that. back in the day when netflix was doing a lot of dvds, they paid for the mailing of that. there is a fundamental business model that has been a long time -- that has been around for a long time that says companies will provide the transport for free in order to encourage consumers to consume more of the content. that is a pretty well-established business model and generally speaking, when consumers get something for free, they are pretty happy. i've been a little amused as i see some of the advocates opposing zero rated. hl mencken defined puritanism as

a haunting fear that someone somewhere is happy. i think about -- this thing about zero rating, some of these folks fear that someone, somewhere is getting something for free. it feels condescending if i say, peter, i know you like to get that content streaming for free, but it is bad for you. take my word for it. i think it gives people more of what they want and it is a well-established model. thing that people like is to get their broadband and have it work and be able to get on websites. increasingly, people are worried that our networks are not terribly secure all the time. do you want to talk about cyber security and what you think the industry can do differently to

make it safer? first, obviously, industries need to take cyber security very seriously. we certainly do. it is not something you are ever done with. it is a constant arms race. andan do various things there has been some helpful developments as -- that enable members of industry to share information so that you see common threats and you all for the best information that you have. i also think there is a growing trend that is very important. threat fromgrowing nationstate. the u.s. government is a little bifurcated, a little schizophrenic on this issue. when you have a major attack,

you have parts of the government are there to help and parts of the government who are punishing the victim. every time -- you can have a breach and you have agencies coming in saying, we will find company forine the doing something wrong. if you have a cargo ship that gets torpedoed by the russians, you did not have someone in the government saying, you should have hardened the ship against a missile. i am not saying companies do not have responsibility to be responsible about cyber security. when you are beginning to deal with nationstates, you are dealing with an adversary that has so much capability, so much

power, the u.s. government is struggling to defend itself. it is unreasonable to simply say, if you get hit by an attack of that level of sophistication, we will punish you until you do better. we need to have more of a dialogue between the private sector and government to say, in sophisticated,y very high capability attacks are coming in. how do we work together to doend companies, just as we in the physical world -- there are fundamental roles of government. as we get into these attacks, we need the government to help protect rather than come in and fine after the fact. >> can the government do more? should we be retaliating more aggressively? craig: should the government be doing more question mark yes.

the whole question of retaliation gets into thorny issues. it is a case-by-case situation. companies should not be in the middle of that. the u.s. government has tremendous capabilities and i think we need to figure out how to leverage those. there are important privacy issues that need to be taken into account. there are important separation of government and private sector issues that need to be taken into account. we could do more to work together to protect important industries and important networks. , what isig silliman the status of verizon's purchase of yahoo!? craig: nice segue. we have said things publicly a

couple of times. we continue to work on the deal. i do not have any news to report today. when we have something new to report, we will be saying it publicly. host: c-span, or history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. joining us now is kevin mccormally, the chief content officer and senior vice president at kiplinger. he is here to offer year-end advice to viewers about tax

policy. thank you so much for joining us. guest: thank you. i am happy to be here. host: let's start off with our viewers who are preparing our taxes. strategiesme top they should be thinking about? guest: we have three weeks to go. charitable contributions. if you itemize deductions, if you make them before december 31 or it is a check you put in the mail by december 31, you can deduct that on your 2016 return. gift, are planning a big put away your checkbook and look at your portfolio. say you bought stock 10 years ago for $1000 is worth $5,000 now, if you give that to a charity, you can deduct the full