tom bliley was great. john dingell was great. rick boucher, mike oxley, just so many members -- >> guest: anna eshoo. >> guest: on the house side, just fantastic. trent lott agreeing on everything, and they just were going to clear the pathway to make this possible legislatively in a relatively short period of time. larry pressler. you can keep going down the line including jay rockefeller and olympia snowe working on the e-rate with me over on the house side so that the bills for every computer in every school in america for poor children would be paid for out of this bill so that we could speed up the pace at which kids get the new be skill set as we're speeding up the pace at which we're going to see technological innovation occur in our country. so the bill includes what is now $40 billion which has been spent on those poor kids, the largest single educational technology program still in the history of our country. if there's one thing i could do differently, i underestimated how much the phone companies would just try to gob

that's what tom bliley and i wanted to see accomplished. and where are we 20 years later? here's where we are. 99% of all americans are still renting a set-top box. that's not innovation. 99%. what's the average per family? $232 per year to the cable companies, to the satellite companies to rent the box. so, we haven't seen any innovation. we haven't seen any breakthroughs. we're still waiting for the revolution where you can go down to the store or download the app that allows you to have a new way of accessing this information in the modern era. that's what it was all about. so for the purposes of this discussion, net neutrality is to content what this set-top box rule-making is to ensuring the devices, the access points allow for the consumer to control, the consumer to decide. already, and so that's pretty much what this whole debate is about. and so, mr. chairman, how closely can we analogize this revolution to the set-top -- to the black rotary dial phone revolution in terms of our need to open up innovation so the consumer has more choices? >> well, thank you, chair

that's what tom bliley and i wanted to see accomplished. and where are we 20 years later? here's where we are. 99% of all americans are still renting a set-top box. that's not innovation. 99%. what's the average per family? $232 per year. to the cable companies. to the satellite companies. to rent the box. so we haven't seen any innovation. we haven't seen any breakthroughs. we're still waiting for the revolution where you can go down to the store or download the app that allows you to have a new way of accessing this information in the modern era. that's what it was all about. so for the purposes of this discussion net neutrality is to content what this set-top box rule is to ensuring the devices, the access points allow for the consumer to control, the consumer to decide. that's pretty much what this whole debate is about. and so mr. chairman, how closely can we analogize this revolution to the set-top -- to the black rotary dial phone revolution in terms of our need to open up innovation so the consumer has more choices? >> thank you, chairman. i think -- senator. i thi

having worked for chairman tom bliley who is the author of this provision i can tell you i hadn't opportunity and was in every meeting and this is one of his priorities. his intention of that provision was to make the availability of set-top boxes and retail establishments. >> .. >> >> i don't believe when you look at the text of the language talk about interactive communications equipment and other equipment it gets to the applications side where the application only world. it is over broad and penalizing going forward. >> the commissioner seems to suggest that that five or $10 app would suffice to make the rule change irrelevant. >> i would even think it is that much. i have 20 video app today i get them directly from the programmer or my cable provider they are free and watch programming on my phone and tablet and on my television through those applications without having the set top box stick it seems there is a question who is being helped by the rule. senator nelson makes a pretty good point about his concerns. chairman reeler has nothing to worry about. what do you say? >> while everyb