Transcripts For CSPAN The Communicators 20140531

More. The only way to claim it would not is to use more phony accounting. The proposal would also set a dangerous precedent by making private debt into public debt, not to mention that it would enact a job destroying tax that the senate has already rejected. Republicans have introduced bills designed to enable more High School Students to attend the college of their choice while creating jobs, while eliminating regulations that do formske a difference and required just for the sake of curiosity. The more involved the federal government becomes involved in something, the more it seems the cost. Health care is an example. In the early days of selling his healthcare plan, the president said it would Bring Health Care prices down. I warned them that we would see massive increases in not only what patients pay, but also what the federal government has to pay. Now many peoples premiums are up and continuing to climb. Prepares to collect heavy health care taxes. This may be the most expensive free lunch in our nations history. There are better ways to ensure more people have improved Affordable Health care. Gop senators have introduced measures that would repair the damage. We would protect takehome pay by restoring the 40 hour workweek. We would encourage businesses to hire more people without penalties. I want to repeal the unAffordable Health care act and replace it with commonsense, patientcentered reforms that let you keep your dr. , that let you choose your hospital, that reduces Health Care Costs and increases access to affordable, highquality care that you and your dr. Agree on. We have introduced plans that would do that. The administration and Senate Majority major costly governmentcentered mandates and regulations. They are building a system that, as one Health Executive Insurance Health insurance executive put it, would break them away from the choice habit and fixation on open access. Freedomwas built on the of citizens to make choices that are best for them as individuals. That is what republican education, health care, and other proposals do. Energy is another key area where we need policy changes. The administration has set out to kill coal and its 800,000 jobs. If it succeeds in death by regulation, we will all be paying a lot more money for electricity, if we can get it. Our pocketbook will be lighter, but our country will be darker. The administration also so wants of gas it is death by delay for the keystone xl pipeline. We all want clean air and clean water. We do not want costly regulations that make little or no difference. They are making things less affordable. Republicans want electricity and gas when they need it, at a price you can afford. Students, recent graduates, and all of us do not have to let ourselves be ruled by executive orders without basis in law, agency mandates without benefit, theprograms were only federal government is smart enough to make your decisions. America works best when americans are making their own choices. Americans are invented. Lets free our students with policies that provide opportunities. Do not handcuff them with i am from the government and im here to help. That kind of help will only hold them back. Holding americans hostage to forrnment get gifts which they will ultimately have to pay a high price. Thanks for listening, and god bless america. Coming up next, the communicators with verizon executive craig silliman. After that, a discussion about the future of the va after resignation of eric shinseki. And some of the commencement addresses from around the country. Speakers include secretary of state john kerry and u. N. Ambassador rice Samantha Powell u. N. Ambassador ric Samantha Powell. Cspan, created by americas Cable Companies 35 years ago and brought to you as a Public Service by your local cable or satellite provider. On ther guest communicators this week is craig silliman. Senior Vice President for verizon communications. He has been with the Company Since 1997. A lawyer by training. Our nations largest Wireless Communications company. Also in the broadband business. Thank you for being our guest. Isning me for questioning paul kirby, Senior Editor at telecommunications report. We are delighted to have you with us. Week, a group of your peers from various parts of telecommunications were asked about what you thought was the number one policy priority for this city in telecommunications. Your response was spectrum, spectrum, spectrum. Talk about the three institutions that have response ability for that. I will ask you for our audience to give a report card on how those three institutions are doing, and why it is so important. Let me answer those. The reason it is so important is that spectrum is a fundamental input for all of this investment and innovation that is going on. As we know from our personal lives, we are all carrying at this point multiple wireless devices. What we use for our work, our play, and those devices require spectrum. They require spectrum more and more to connect and communicate. It is necessary that we find ways to make more and more spectrum available to continue this investment. As far as how we are doing in different institutions, i think thesell three of Government Entities that you mentioned are doing a good job looking at constraints within the constraints in which they operate. We have some structural issues in the way that spectrum is managed in the country. There is no single government ityncy that has responsibil for managing spectrum resources of the country. That makes it a little difficult. Ntia does a great job working with Government Agencies to try and clear up spectrum, but they do not have the authority to take an overall holistic view, and then make their job more difficult. I think the fcc likewise is doing a good job within the constraints in which they operate. We are now for the first time looking out over the next year and a half or so, two out of three recent auctions of spectrum after about a fiveyear hiatus with no spectrum. That is encouraging, but we need to continue to look out five to 10 years and say, where is the spectrum going to continue to come from for the continued growth of the industry . Modernizing spectrum policy and the communications act, two big priorities, huge efforts on both cases. You said at the Panel Session that we as a country have no strategy for our spectrum management. How do we get there . How does the Strategic Vision evolve . Second question, does any country do it better than we do . On your first question, i commend congressman walden for all he is doing right now to push this forward, as well as many others on the hill. It needs to start with congress. I think in many areas of our Communications Policy today, what we are seeing in many debates, issues, sometimes fights with the industry, are symptoms of a larger issue, which is that we are operating under an outdated statutory framework that may have been successful for the things it was trying to achieve 18 years ago, or in some cases going back 80 years ago, but is really not well suited for the challenges we face today. Back from is one of those. As far as a strategy, if you stand back and look at this as a policy matter and i differentiate that from politics the to have to coexist. Policy is how the world should be, and politics is the way the world is, and you have to take both into account. But from a policy perspective, the way this should work is congress should appoint an agency that has the authority to manage the spectrum resources of the country and work at the so we cand best uses continue to serve all the important functions. National security functions, but also driving spectrum needs of the industry for continued innovation and investment. How about the second question is there a country that does a better job managing spectrum . So far ,no. I have to commend policymakers on that. Look at europe, where the market is fragmented and having trouble out. Ng 4g rolled partly because you do not have a europewide approach to spectrum allocation. So far, the nationwide approach, the farsighted approach policymakers have had, has been amongst the best in the world. But we are not all the way home. We still have to continue. We have room to improve. Before i turn it over to paul, let me turn to revisiting or rewriting telecom law, which has been in the country for 75 years. With the speed of change in this business, how would you counsel, if you have the opportunity, lawmakers and policy makers to think about a rewrite of this . How can it be platformspecific with platforms changing as rapidly as they are, and what should guide that . Onyou have put your finger exactly the issue. It should not be platformis it 54specific. We absolutely need to modernize communications laws. Many of the debates we are having, the open internet, things going on in spectrum, in video, are symptoms of the fact that policymakers are trying to apply outdated regulations that were not written for todays technologies and market to modern issues. So it is time to update those. The way you avoid the law being outdated the minute the ink is dry is to ensure you do not start with technology platforms, but rather start with the consumer. How do you build this around competition and Consumer Protection in a way that is flexible and can change as the Technology Changes . The Technology Cycles and the environment in which we operate today are so rapid that it is not a criticism of congress to say they could not foresee what the technology would be five or 10 years out. No one could. What you need to do is not try to craft a policy based on some prescient idea of what the technology will be, but rather look at general principles. Consumer protection, competition law, public safety, and build enough flexibility and discretion into the system that allows policymakers to apply that as markets and technologies change. The house energy and Commerce Committee has sent out several white papers. One was about spectrum. Several folks set a bifurcated approach where ntia is responsible for federal statute and sec for private and local fcc for private and local does not make sense. Supportse in verizon . He fcc being responsible what i do not want to get into what agencies are right for specific purposes. In the same way, i do not think you should build a statute around pacific technologies, you should not go in and say lets figure out the right agency first, and then back to the task. The right way what is the right overall spectrum policy or larger Communications Policy . Then figure out where the right skill sets are to manage those. You certainly favors some sort of agency having the power. The fcc may very well be the one. To manage the assets overall. Fcc adopted a Spectrum Holdings order and auction order. The holdings order would place limits on carriers with more lowerband spectrum. Verizon and at t oppose the rules beforehand. Since it was adopted, at t said they would bid for 20 to 40 megahertz. Vverizon praised other parts of the order, but did not mention betting limits. Give usious if you can a sense does verizon plan on participating in the incentive option . First of all, you are right, we did praise parts of the order. Theres a lot there was a lot packed into the order. Weve got a plan for the option which will take place we thought the plan for the option that will take place in november was very good. Updating the spectrum screen was long overdue. It should be a matter of institutional integrity for the fcc that you have an extensively objective rule, but they have not updated spectrum in use. Bringing that up to market realities is a very positive thing. As we have said repeatedly, we have concerns about putting restrictions in auctions. We think the incentive option is incredibly complex as it is. To begin to micromanage it as to who gets what is that as a policy matter, but also this real risk in the auction. It is premature to say what we will do in any given auction. We will certainly explore opportunities in both upcoming options auctions. The incentive auction, the fcc said they would do things to try to attract broadcasters to the auction. If they do not give up spectrum, there is nothing for verizon and others to bid on. Should the fcc do more to attract broadcasters to give up spectrum . The agency is working very hard to attract broadcasters, doing an awful lot of average. Whether they are successful or not, i would have to defer to broadcasters in terms of what theyre thinking is and what impact it is having. Clearly you see german wheeler himself is spending a lot of time personally focused on reaching out to broadcasters to show them the benefits. The order that they adopted that got the most publicity was open internet the fcc is proposing to adopt the antiblocking Net Neutrality rule that verizon has successfully challenged in court, but with a different interpretation that would allow individualized bargaining about minimum level of access. Would this change be acceptable to verizon . If not, would it be worth verizon or others challenging it . When you see this change, you were bring referring to what . The individual bargaining the fcc has laid out. We will have to see what comes out fo this. We are at the beginning of the process, and there is a lot of, Comment Period between then and now. We cannot prejudge what the ultimate final rule will be. The important thing here is to look at what this overall process is and is not about. This open Internet Order and the whole issue of open Internet Order has been so complex for so long, partly because it has always been a bit of an empty vessel into which people pour lots of different ideas and ideologies, only some of which are actually related to the open Internet Order itself. One thing that should be clear is what this is not about, whether or not consumers have access to an open internet. They have and they will, regardless of what the ultimate rule says, for a simple reason. Isps like verizon, is in our own it is in our own selfinterest provide an open internet to customers. That was the case before the open internet rules were in place. It was true during it, and it has been true since then. I also say what it is not about is some sort of fast lanes. The way the internet works today, content does get delivered at different feeds. There is an entire part of the ecosystem, content Distribution Networks, whose Business Model is dedicated to getting Certain Companies content to consumers faster than others. If you go to google from your computer, content from google probably loads 10 times faster than from a Small Business in Mountain View nearby, simply because of the content Distribution Networks built out by google and others. So this concept of fast lanes i find a little bewildering. It is something someone came out with right away. People have since then repeated this mantra. In fact, you have to ask timeelf, why in all the the internet existed no isp has, with a plan to introduce fast lanes . The marketplace has already been filled with content Distribution Networks. There is no real demand pushing people in that direction. It is not clear to me why suddenly people fear that for the first time now this will be a new development. So what this process really is about, the question really on fhe table, is what type o regulation we want to apply to the internet ecosystem . It comes down to a simple question. Do you like the internet as it exists today . Do you value the innovation and investment it has driven . If so, you should be in favor of continuing the bipartisan light touch regulation from the clinton administration. As i read what chairman wheeler and the rest of the fcc are laying ourt, it is exactly that light touch regulation. We have felt new rules are not needed because the market takes care of it, but we think the light touch regulatory approach is the right way to go. The alternative is to reprocess reclassify Broadband Internet as a title 2 telecom service. That would constitute a significant change to the way this works. For the first time, applying 80yearold legacy telephoneera regulation onto this incredibly rapidly moving ecosystem. That is an untried, risky, radical regulatory experiment. We do not know how that would turn out. A couple things for our nonpolicy audience. A note of selfproposed rulemaking. The first stop. Therehis happens, is always a policy adopted . You can have in this we would expect something. You can have proceedings with proposed rules, at some point say we will not do anything. But there is a common preceding coming out of a nprn. They will look at the record. Folks can meet with them, and they will, at some point with an order. Sometimes you have a proceeding that is particularly hard. Instead they will do what is called a further notice and ask more questions. Here are things brought up in the original round of comments. Not always what we would expect. Whenever we get into internet policy and Net Neutrality there is always reference to title 2. For our audience that does not follow this, that means the threat of applying common carrier status to the internet. Could you expand to people what would be the implications of that . Is a great question. To some degree, we are still trying to grapple with what the full implications would be. But we think they would be dire. Common carrier regulation brings with it all sorts of prescriptive regulations. Pricing regulations, Service Quality regulations, resale requirements on downstream resellers. If you were to reclassify Broadband Internet as a title 2 common carrier telecommunications service, we believe it would have implications all the way through the internet ecosystem. You would begin to look at the fcc and state regulators beginning to get involved in all sorts of very micromanaged decisions on how services are offered, how they are placed, how they are resold. Not just by Internet Service providers themselves, but by those reselling those capacities. That takes into account all sorts of aspects of the ecosystem. To have built out Networks Like google and netflix or microsoft ring downs, filte into other parts of the ecosystem. It has not been done. You have had the fcc agree that it was not the right way to go. We think the implication certainly would almost immediately depress investment in the industry, but also likely would change the Way Companies all through the ecosystem interact with their customers. We have about 12 minutes left. On the mobile broadband side, fccnprn adopted by the discussed modifying rules for wireless. The original rules treated differently, because it is a different technology. The 2010 orders that mobile broadband providers cannot block websites and applications that compete with their voice and video services. Does this suggest the possibility mobile broadband providers should not be able to block apps that compete with the providers own services, not just telephony . Is there a big difference with what they are proposing . , the premiseyour of your question, wireless is different. We think rules are not necessary for wireline broadband, and if rules were to be adopted we think that it is important to continue with this light touch Regulatory Regime that has been a bipartisan consensus for many years now and has driven all this investment. But even if there were to be rules for the wireline side, we absolutely believe we need to look at wireless different ways. We know wireless has unique characteristics. We talked about spectrum at some length earlier. You have different scarcity in terms of the spectrum capabilities there on the wireless networks. You had unique Network Management issues. You need the flexibility to continue to actively manage those networks in order to serve customers well. Without regard to what happens on the wireline side, it is essential that we continue to recognize the unique aspects of the Wireless Technology market. The Wireless Technologies and the wireless spectrum constraint issues. So what is being proposed is problematic . I do not want to get too far into that. We will be filing our comments soon on that on a detailed level. We will be commenting on that physically. Hasof the things the nprn proposed is whether wireless should continue to be treated in a different way. We think absolutely that is the case. Do you think it is likely that whatever the fcc adopts, we will be back in court because of someone . It depends. It depends on what the fcc does. If the fcc were to reclassify broadband as a title 2 telik mediation service, i think it is inevitable that that will end up in court, but i do not know that they will necessarily regardless of what the fcc does. I think this is an issue that has generated a lot more heat and light over the number of years it has been debated. A number of people in the industry are ready to move on in this issue. Far more there are important policy issues in washington we should be talking about. The question is, can the fcc that continues to encourage investment in the ecosystem, that everyone can say, this works well enough, we can move on to other things. We think a carefully crafted final rule without a carefully crafted final rule, that is a possibility. The fcc had an item earlier this year. They will companies will be doing trials to try to see, in an allip world, but we have to look for . The chairman has talked about making sure things that protect the public to not go away just whatse things might be would verizon like to see in the trials . Give me a sense of how you would like this to go. Paul, you stated this very precisely, which was great. You often hear people talking about Technology Transitions. We have a lot Technology Transitions going on. There is the tdm to ip transition taking place. We see people going from wireline to wireless, about 40 of the population today uses only wireless for home phone. And you see a transition from copper to fiber going on which is well underway. These things often get conflated. One thing we want to make sure happens as part of the trials is that the sec does not fcc does not impede or slow down the Technology Transitions going on that are driven by consumers. Consumers are voting with their feet in their transition to wireless. We see transition to five or. Fiber. We are doing transition of copper line to five or line. Fiber lines. These are customers keeping the same services, over a different physical infrastructure that is far more reliable. We have just come through one of the toughest winters in a long time up and down the eastern seaboard. Our Fiber Networks really showed how resilient they are, how much less repair they take under the stress of weather. That is a very positive thing for consumers. We think the fcc is asking important questions in terms of the types of values that we have as we move forward with our customers, but we also have to make sure that we do not get into a situation where Technology Transitions that are well underway, such as customers choosing wireless or transitioning from copper to fiber, an improvement for customers, do not get slow down slow down or impeded by a series of prescriptive rules or questions that need to be answered when this is an improvement for customers. That is an issue, customers choosing. There are concerns with the customers do not choose to go to wireless. After hurricane sandy, there were concerns that some customers were being forced to wireless when wireline infrastructure was destroyed. Wireless is not the same. You have propagation of other issues, reliability i think you referring specifically to the island in new york. It is predominantly a summer population. This was an example to me of the advantages of a robust and diverse technology. Couldntsituation we with a wireless solution to give people some really good functionality with the intent of improving that. We talk to customers over the course of the summer and at the