for implementing spanish language alerting with a deadline for implementing longer 360-character length messages, all of these things will strengthen the wea system and keep america safer. i would like to thank the staff of the public safety and homeland security bureau for all the hard work and the commitment to serving the public they have shown. rochelle kelvin, greg cook, megan henry, niki mcginnis, emily, an of course james wiley. from the office of general counsel, thanks to david horowitz. with that, we move to a vote on the item. commissioner -- >> aye. >> aye. the chair votes aye as well. thanks for the great work. thanks, tina, very much. i will have a few comments and be happy to take your questions. today the sec took a major step forward in improving our wireless emergency alert system.

many in the public safety community have said wireless emergency alerts need to be more precisely targeted to areas where there is an emergency. when deadly wildfires igniter in northern california last october, some local authorities chose not to push out a wireless alert. they cited fears you look would have gone out to people who are not in harm's way, potentially provoking a mass exodus that could clog the roads and prevent -- those actions in danger from reaching safety. with today's action of the commission has addressed this problem and made an important life-saving tool even more effective. these new rules require wireless carriersto deliver alerts at more precisely match the affected area. so i will go to local officials to use these alerts during emergencies, and encourage americans to take alerts more circe. since folks know any alert they receive relates to anemergency that is in their vicinity.

the new rules will require alerts to be preserved on consumers phones for 24 hours which make it easier to access and use the information contained in those alerts. i am pleased we gained bipartisan support for these improvements among other items we adopted today. in our action on wea once again we demonstrate this commissionstrong commitment to protecting the safety of the american people. with that, i would be happy to take questions that youhave. >> i was wondering if there's any possibility of come if the sec has the authority was going to seek to compel the hawaii including official who wouldn't speak to to speak to them further? >> i can't speak to the particular for the investigator steps that we intend to take but we are hopeful that we can secure as much cooperation as possible from anyone involved with this incident. it is critical for us to be able to act upon facts for us to be able to gather all those specs. -- facts. grateful to our staff for getting what information the

y could. >> is in the contemplation of enforcement action? >> i can't comment on for the steps would may or may not take. >> i'm just wondering if you could comment any further on the ftc nominees and how they might set, you know, and enforcement trajectory since the ftc, or since the fcc has handed over some of its powers in that regard on net neutrality proceeding. >> i put out a statement about the nominees. they are a very impressive array of individuals both individual and as a group. i think they bring wealth of experience to the commission, or would if they were confirmed and i look for to working with them on some of the areas where we have joint interest. so, for example, i targeted robocalls when we ship consumer -- share a consumer protection function. we have responsibility to voice but we share that interest.

similarly with respect to promoting competition, there are areas where we can collaborate. i am very excited to see what the new team brings to the table and also want to take the opportunity to thank the outgoing chair of the federal trade commission, who has done a fantastic job both praise it as a commission that now over the last as the acting chair. she leaves some very big shoes to fill. have you had any discussions about how that will work because it does sound like there's going to be some level of communication between the fcc and ftc? >> again i have talked to those , nominees since they're going to the confirmation process. even when that process plays out i would imagine we will be in touch about those issues. commissioner o'rielly

mentioned with the hawaii preliminary report that he thinks fema bears much of the forwardbilities going to address the situation. thoughts on the division between fema and the fcc going forward? >> i would refer you to the public safety bureau which obviously has been handling this issue. i think that she put it well to commissioner o'rielly that the extent of the fcc is one of the players that is historically exercised somewhat of a convening role to get all of the stakeholders and one place. i think it's helpful for us to conversations we can explore some of the issues that have arisen and try to identify if there are ways we can take action.

hopefully we can come up with preliminary ideas of how we can go forward. i would hope we have a seat at the table. >> you mentioned that today's enforcement action was the second in this particular area. do you have specific ideas as to what kind of changes might need ratherade to present it and have to deal with it after the fact? >> that is certainly the goal could want to do for fraud from happening in the first place. i just want to judge where the record will take us. we just adopted an issue recently so we're going to let , the public eye to give us some input on where some of the vulnerabilities might be. then we will try to plug the gaps and make sure where we always should be when it comes

universal service funds. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> on the 5g memo controversy you were clear yesterday that you don't see a role for the as a builder of networks. federal government but i'm wondering if you'd be able to say that there is validity to the broader concern that china and other countries might be developing 5g technology faster than the united states than industry and the united states. i'm wondering what you make of that broader abstract i specific . >> i specific us if want the united states to be the leader in 5g technology. we want capital to be spent here, we want innovation to happen here, we want entrepreneurial spirit to thrive. that's partly somewhat over the last year in my chairmanship we've aggressively move for to , make sure we can push spec spectrum into the commercial

workplace to allow innovators to experience it with export voice to promotewireless infrastructure roles that will make it easier to deploy the next generation networks that was a different from 4g andprevious networks that we had. the private sector has responded to that. clearly, this is not an area where we can sit on our laurels and a participle the last year we haven't. >> what do you think all the activity you described describe stacks up against other markets around the world? >> i think we are leaving the world in 5g but there's a easy way to quantify this but what i will say is you judge from the priority wise place on this issue as well as the activity that we conducted a note to me that priority, that i think we're doing what we can to assert u.s. leadership in 5g. >> i'm wondering if you or members of your staff that had conversations with the white house about the state of union tonight and also what you want to hear. >> i have not, not to my knowledge. and i would like to

from the president and i will certainly defer to the president which isn't to say. it's been recorded infrastructure would be a a feature part of that and i reiterate what i said in the past with respect to the digital aspect of infrastructure which i think is very important. >> you got a letter from members of intelligence committee december about concerns generally chinese companies and use telecommunications which was also addressed in this action story. can you speak to concerns that chinese companies entering the use telecommunications market, and you think there are proper safeguards to ensure china cannot conduct espionage to our networks? >> what i will say is we received the letter from the committee as you mentioned. we are considering that letter and will respond appropriately. we work with various federal when it comes to national security on ongoing basis, and i can't comment on the nature of that consultative effort but i will say that it is robust and ongoing. representative's

gao plantsequest, look at their reliability of some of the advanced net neutrality public comment. what would you say about how much you relied onthe public comment in making the decision? what are you doing to ensure the reliability going forward, in you think any legislation is needed in that regard, reliability and verificationwise? >> in terms of what we relied upon, you can see for yourself in the text of the order that we adopted. we relied on what the courts have consists of called substantial evidence, comments that are substitute and meaningful grappled with the issues that we teed up in the notice of proposed rulemaking. in that regard, decision-making process relied on those comments that were in the record that were substantive. going forward we will assess and , consider ways, if there any

reforms necessary to the process, but as far as the december order goes, i'm confidence that we relied on that. >> is legislation needed not just for your agency but for other agencies to prevent or ensure the reliability? >> to the extent we are talking about legislation, that is something of the pervy of congress. i wouldn't prescribe to them what they should or shouldn't do in that regard. >> chairman pai, were you aware, referring to the axios story on 5g, where you well where -- aware that this was something that was underconsideration? and have you express your concerns are directly to officials in the truck administration for the white house? >> what i will say is that we regularly consult with federal partners on issues that were at the intersection at security and security networks and i

can't comment beyond that. what should happen now that this 5g plant we heard about over the weekend? >> well, it's up to others to decide what happens to it. i put up a statement yesterday and i stand by that statement. thanks, everybody. have a great day. >> thanks everyone. we will transition to the bureau press conference with my colleague, mark. [inaudible conversations] mark: greetings very let's just go through the five areas. are there any questions regarding the public safety presentation or the wireless emergency alerts?

>> yeah, i just had some questions about the hawaii thing. do you guys have any comment on the question i asked chairman pai, whether this could lead to some sort of enforcement action? is that even applicable to something like this? i don't know if you have the authority to do that. >> we don't comment on whether or not enforcement is a possibility. >> and then i was also wondering, the timeline that you gave of what happened, you said that the call, the message that was used to trigger this alert was not the normal message that that was or listed did not comply with their sop. can you give a reason for why they use a different phone message that time? >> the supervisor effectuated the message was of the belief that exercise, exercise, exercise with sufficient to -- was sufficient to communicate

to the officers that this was sufficient. and that's different than what is normally done in the circumstances in other states. >> how is the language normal from a different script? the hawaii emergency management >> agency consider the actual script they would receive during an actual alert or test to be confidential. we are not in a position to share that. >> can you give any sense of how much different it was in the normal script? >> the supervisor use the wrong material. she is an eas alert as opposed to a script. >> got you. would normally identify this is a drill based on the script, right? >> i can't say what they would normally do but intention was to communicate it was a drill. >> is there any way for you guys to ascertain who is right?

of the other employees who remember hearing exercise, exercise. the employee was not talking to you but says she doesn't remember that phrase. is there any other way of ascertaining who is right? >> the bureau investigation is ongoing and that is something we will look at. >> i have one. so the eas and the wea, those are two different systems, right? >> yes. >> is one under fema and one under the fcc or are they joint? >> the way it works is that the fcc has authority over the communication service providers that participate in the eas, the emergency alert system, which is a broadcast-based system that broadcasters, cable operator, satellite and tv participated. the fcc also oversees the part of wea that involve the participating commercial wireless carriers.

fema has what they call an integrated public alert and warning system, and they administer that. that is the system that alert originators send, would send their alerts through that system. and then the alert gets sent to the the communication service providers over a secure pathway. it's that distribution from the communication service providers that we oversee. the front and it is the alert origination, that is the state and local government. >> thank you. so in general, to answer your question there are different , pieces and different organizations oversee each of those different pieces. >> i was wondering if you could possibly clarify where we are at with the capability for longer

alert and clickable links. it seems like if i remember correctly, this was approved already but it hasn't been fully , rolled out, is that correct? >> >> if the rules were adopted -- tell me the deadline. >> thanks. the rules were adopted september 2016 and therequirement to -- the requirement to support 360 character alert is effective may 2019. does that answer your question? >> yes. quite -- >> anything further on these items? >> thank you very much. next is a connect america finds items, questions for the connect the american fund? i'm guessing the wireless and wireline. >> i'm sorry, my question wasn't

on that. >> i have one. the program of the usf is about 4 billion a year, i and is that a fair estimate of how much is going to rural broadband, or is it a subset of that, do you know offhand? >> this this is a little outside the scope of the auction itself, the auction tries to budget. >> so this is $2 billion over a decade but it's about $4 billion, going from the high-cost fund? >> $2 billion over ten years is the budget for the connect america fund auction. then there are other kind of funding streams within the

high-cost program. >> it's about 4.5 billion a year for the high-cost program, some of which goes to areas served by other types of carriers, smaller entities, some of which goes to support global broadband, boys. >> is it fair to say most of the , or is it, youal know, not the lion's share? >> all of that money goes to what we consider high-cost areas. there is not necessarily a definition of a row, -- rule, rural but there arehigh-cost are high-cost areas where the cost of service is higher. a lot of that would be world it be fair to say, thanks. >> i've got a call extending in a question, so bear with me. do the fcc give more flexibility in bidding on census block groups and was in the draft?

>> the commission proposed in the comment using census block groups forbidding, so basically packaging, grouping the eligible census block within a block group to gather for purposes of bidding, and that is the decision that was adopted in the procedures public notice. thank you. >> i hope that's right. >> anything further on this item? the next is the economics office. are there questions on the economics office? yes, when has a question. >> commissioner o'rielly

referred to something called the -- i was wondering what -- we often laughed about but assume that's a real thing. >> it's not made up. it's commission release form. agenda item for being voted. and a istronic agenda reform. >> thank you very much. i'm sorry. >> i was just wondering if you any more details about how many economists work across the bureaus and with all those economists will be pulled into the same office now? wise,t of my head, agency i don't have the number but for this officer should be about -- the economist views, if you the technologists from the auction

divisions, but it is mostly economists.rea -- >> anything further? thank you. any questions on the media items? finally, the last item was the enforcement bureau action. anyone have a question on that? >> could you explain a little bit more about what the company was doing with the pricing and how that was affecting what it was -- i thought i heard it was deflating which did make sense to me but maybe i misheard. >> the way that the reimbursements from the

universal service fund to the service providers work is that a role provider is generally, the cost of providing service in a rural area is going to be higher than the cost of providing the same services in an urban area. the urban area, the differential between those two, the urban rate cost versus the world rate cost is reimbursedor can be bereimbursed by or can reimbursed by the universal service fund for the universal service administrative company. in this instance, we found evidence that it interconnects with artificially keeping that urban rate cost lower so that it could increase thatdifferential. -- that differential. >> anything further on this one? ok, i think that ends the bureau portion. i see commissioner o'rielly is here. and commissioner carr.

questions for us on this fine day? >> on the 5g proposal that came out on sunday, had either one of you ever heard about this before or do you think this is something that has been taken seriously by the white house or is still being taken seriously? >> the answer to your first question, no, it's the first i heard from the story i saw that you saw. i've had no conversations with the white house since then, so i don't know what they're planning to do with it. it didn't seem like it went very well yesterday, but i will defer to them. >> i don't have input as to where it is and the white house decision-making process. like i said, i haven't had any input in developing the idea. >> can you speak to the initial hurdles, i know you both have statements in terms of the massive cost the government, the issue, with the government have -- would the government have enough spectrum to do this on

its own? >> the band the document that i saw that's been public was indicating 3.7-4.2 type then spending a ton of time to free up forcommercial services. whether that sufficient for running a full 5g network is unclear. we're trying to work through those issues as it relates to 3.5 and trying try to find spectrum into 3.1 space and then 3.7-4.2 to make a full slate where other types of --so whether that one band could be enough, i don't know how they have envisioned it and have had no conversations with them. it depends on how robust you want certain things, how much capability you want, depends on how much spectrum you need if you did that particular spectrum band.

>> commissioner rosenworcel said something about -- [inaudible] she wants for eas procedures. she wants best practices. do you have any comment on some of the stuff she is proposing? >> i would just highlight there is a statute enacted by congress in 2016 signed by the president that governs a lot of the things that she was indicating that should like to see happen. they already have those requirements. they are supposed to be run by fema. if they are not occurring, that's a question you should ask them on what's happening. there's best practices, outreach, all of that she talked about at the beginning part of the horse were seems be the backend of the horse. so -- [inaudible] but so the front end of the part is the fema portion i wish i get -- i was trying to get at. the idea that she is put forward i think already in statute. if they're not being done sufficient that for congress to

look at where are the folks to examine, in my opinion. [inaudible] >> commissioners, what do you see as your next role, next steps for enabling telehealth innovations? >> so we have some funding issues with got to work through your in my opinion we have to do with the cap that we reach on rural healthcare. that is being examined by the commission now. i've highlight of my viewpoints and the good work being done in alaska and i want to see that being -- don't want to see that being trampled on but i'm cognizant of what the budget implications are for raising the cost there and looking to see ifwe can't offset that elsewhere. that is probably front and center. some of the other pieces that i talked about globally is how do we do with the fact we are only one component oftelehealth. we -- of telehealth.

-- may provide rule -- rural health. we may provide rule connectivity but a lot of the telehealth pieces are done by other agencies. we don't see, we're spending, people are expecting a lot out of the fcc in terms ofthe dollar figure but we don't see any of the savings part in terms of healthcare reform, terms of savings you can get from telehealth, telemedicine type services. i think it's important to have to be a larger conversation how these things work together and not anything will come from us. certainly regard to either get credit for some of it or addressed the budgetary issues because we've reached the cap. it's only going to continue to bang bank up against that in my opinion. looked atnth, as we some of the issues with the rural health program. i want to see the comments there. more probably we have to look how we remove these barriers, make it less costly, i think this or potentially potentially 5g could come in. so fixed wireless solutions to continue to reform

our infrastructure rules to make it less caustic fight services in these communities. have a good lunch. [inaudible conversations] >> and then there was me. [inaudible] >> you said a few times you want to combine the daisychain and the fema alert. can you explain what exactly you mean by that? >> >> sure. i saw this coming. i have some stronger ties to hawaii i think that my colleagues, and had the privilege of working for a

senator. i had the ability to speakwith -- speak with people who i long ago worked with in the aftermath of this. it was just harrowing to hear their stories. it is impossible to imagine what they went through during that 38-minute timeframe. and coming out of those discussions westarted to look at -- we started to look at what we could do here at the fcc. it's true that there are state responsibility, local responsibility and our national responsibilities. at our jurisdiction does not extend to cover them all. it's also clear that our colleagues at fema have a lot of authority in this area. and that relates to what i described before as the daisychain system which has been used as an old process that is different from the alert aggregator system they have which is more modern. but i think the most important thing is this the fcc has a states filet that eas plans with this agency.

they have to annually confirm those plans and have to report to us when you make changes in those plans. but what we should do right now is use that fact to compel states to follow best practices that we identify as the result of our investigation so that this never happens again. the fact that states have an obligation to file those plans with this agency is important, and i think we have responsible -- have a responsibility to make sure they are updated to reflect the kinds of best practices that will prevent this from happening again. >> have you gotten any reaction to that proposal? >> it's my hope that i keep repeating it i will remind everyone that, in fact, that obligation exists. and it is a useful way to try to compel change, and we see what just happened. i think that something we should all want to do. >> thank you. >> i know it's not to call as to -- your call as to whether congress changes a lot or not what you think about senator

schatz proposal that the government takes the responsibility for nuclear alerts out of the hands of state officials and makes it a federal responsibility? >> i think senator schatz is doing a terrific job trying to draw attention to this issue and looking at complex questions like the one you just described. i think the most important thing for hawaii right now is that we commit to getting this done in short order. disasters like this, we can forget about the overtime, and we cannot do that for the people of hawaii or anyone else who might be impacted by a false alert in the future. so i think the most important thing that happens like that is that we actually commit to getting something done in short order. >> i was wondering if you could give us more details about the roadblocks you encountered in the creation of the office of economics? >> we asked a lot of questions of our colleagues. they refused to answer them.

we asked how many people would be moved in this agency. they refused to tell us. we asked what divisionsmight be shut down or collapsed. they refused to tell us. we asked to count individuals who would be moved and what would be the broader impact on the rest of the agency and its responsibilities. they refused to tell us. at some point you to acknowledge that it's irresponsible to vote on a substantial reorganization without knowing its detail. the last major reorganization of this agency involved the closure of field offices. i've voted on the closure of those field offices. we knew down to it was what the impact would be on this agency. i do not understand why they refuse to support the other offices and supply that information right now. i think it's important when we make conceptual changes that we actually understand how we are going to populate them. moreover, i think going forward

it's important that we look at the path of a new office as designed and make sure that when we look at economic analysis, it is subject to peer review, whatever rely on should be subject to peer-reviewed. it's also important that we do something that our colleagues at the house of representatives time,ed, which is every filed, away and that is you need to say who supported it, who spent for youradvocacy -- or at th your advocacy today. >> that's an easy thing for us to file when we serve here at the agency, but they require that if anyone withany association with industry. >> i think going forward the office of economic needs to require that. just a follow up on that.

is that normal anywhere else in the fcc? i do not believe it is but i think that normally when we have, for instance, legal authorities come in an advocate on behalf of the client they make clear to the client is as as a matter ofregular practice. we should require the same of the economic analysis that is submitted to this agency. that is a basic matterof transparency and i hope it's a principle that the office will apply going forward. >> thank you. >> on the office of economic analysis, just a few moments ago staff told us there would be 200 people moved into that. >> yeah, i overheard that. they did not tell me despite the many, many times we asked. >> so i was wondering when you asked, do you ask chairman pai directly and he relays it? is at the process or are you allowed to ask staff directly? >> my staff asked directly and repeatedly, and was not told the answer. >> thank you. >> what do you think the commission's role should be,

especially with regard to other federal agencies in advancing telehealth? >> i think there are actually many things we can do with telehealth. i will agree with my colleagues who spoke before we start a fairly substantial effort here late last year to look at our role healthcare mechanism and try to understand what changes should be made to modernize it and what changes should be made to make sure our budget works for the world we are in today. i'm looking for to the comments that are being filed and have a good idea that comes into our record, and we're still waiting on those comments but i'm looking forward to reading them. >> thank you. >> i've got one more from a colleague. you said you want the fcc to schedule a new spectrum auction, but chairman pai and others have said the fcc can't legally deposit funds in the bank due to certain legal obstacles without a congressional fix. does that prevent the fcc from having a new auction or is there a way you can do that without that fix? >> here is what i know. the fcc was conducting six megahertz auction last year. we found a way around that

hurdle to the extent it exists then. we should find a way around that hurdle right now. it's imperative we do that if you want to lead the world in the next generation of 5g services. sitting down and powering -- cowering and pretending there some kind of financial bank issue that is preventing us from moving ahead is ridiculous. if you want to lead the world we have got to schedule an auction. south korea has always schedule is 28 gigahertz and 3.5 gigahertz occupant were sitting there waiting in the wings. at a minimum right now we could identify a target date and put out proposed auction rules and seek comment on them that we are -- them, but we are not doing that and i think our failure to do that is a choice to cede our leadership to other nations. >> thank you. >> all right. i'm going to go finally have lunch. thank you all.

>> sunday night on q&a, author bill james talked about his book the man from the train in which he investigated one of the deadliest serial killers in history. times it happened within a hundred yards of the railroad track. one of the things that helps us identify his crime as opposed to someone else's is that it usually happens at the intersection of two railroad tracks. intersection of two railroad tracks presumably because he knew he had to get his-- after he committed crime he had to get out of town before dawn and he did not want to be standing there waiting for herain to be there that could hop on. so being at the intersection of multiple railroad tracks gave him opportunities to get out of town. >> sunday night at a clock eastern on c-span's q&a.