provider. host: this week on the communicators we are pleased to be joined by fcc commissioner michael o reilly, one of three republicans on the commission and our guest reporter this week is margaret harding magill of axial s. commissioner o reilly, last couple of months have been a challenge for everybody but especially for the communication industry. what has changed? guest: everyone is faced with different difficult circumstances from the covid pandemic. the communication network as a whole seems to be holding quite well. i don t like to promise anything or congratulate anybody too early but we will have to see if things hold but i m pretty impressed with the way things are now. everyone s lives have been thrown in the air. i m being interviewed for my bedroom and yesterday i was in the nursery and i did a press conference from the girls room in the basement with toys everywhere. everyone s world is in a people and facing trouble and that is why most people have mor
i don t like to promise anything or congratulate anybody too early, so we ll have to see if things hold. but i m pretty impressed where things are now. but everyone s lives have been thrown up in the air. i m being interviewed from my bedroom. yesterday i was in the nursery and i did a press conference from the girls basement where all the toys are. everyone is facing trouble. and more people are having more circumstances more difficult than i do. so we re all living through this together. is this a permanent change in our lives? well, i don t know about that. i have to defer to some of the health experts. but in terms of some of the issues, some of the work-from-home issues, certainly conferences being done through this medium is more likely to increase over time. i wouldn t say this is the new normal but it s a lot more this way than returning to the old style, in my opinion. and if this is a continuing trend, what s the f.c.c. s role in this? well, it depends on w
country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. at each pious federal of the communications and he s our guest this week on the communicators . chairman pious but about two years since he seen you, two years since the republicans have had the majority over at the fcc. what have you accomplished? it s been quiet. i m not done a lot. it s great to see you again, peter after some time and we been pretty active addressing our top priority which is closing the digital divide. the number of priorities as well advancing public safety and attacking robo calls and generally speaking it s been an active commission and i like to think a productive one for the american people. was on the agenda or docket for the remaining two years at least? guest: we will continue executing on our agenda closing the digital divide. that includes a number of different components. for one, the future we get more broadband internet access to all parts of the country. we rece
host: kathy grillo is the head of bryson of a policy washington pictures also at senior vice president at that cooperation. she s our guest this week on the communicators. where are we when it comes to introducing and implementing 5g? guest: we are right at the beginning that we are taking off past. verizon what s been the first company in the u.s. to offer commercial product in 2018 and with commercial trials in 11 cities. we are very excited that we look at different aspects of how the spectrum works come have quit the works and we ll put ourselves in a position to launch a product in 2018. 5g is going to open up a completely new wave of innovation in the market pick is going to give extremely fast feed so you be to use 100 times what you use right now on your smartphone or your tablet. it will also provide low latency which is a fancy way of saying you can have instantaneous response time between devices. what does that mean? that means we can change the way we deliv
host: since november 4, 2013, tom wheeler has been chairman of the federal communications commission. that term comes to an end at noon on january 20th. chairman wheeler, during your tenure what d you get right? guest: well, peter, you know, i hope that what we did was we said that our job is to be the lick s representative the public s representative in a rapidly changing technological environment. which is affecting the way in which everybody deals within the works that connect us. and at the heart of that was consumers and competition should come first. host: how did that manifest? guest: well, i think you can look at a list of things. you know, we, we, of course, had the open internet order which says that the internet should be fast, fair and open for everyone. we established privacy rules for networks insofar as their relationship for consumers insofar as their relationship with the networks that says it s the consumers information, it s not the networks i