Its a pleasure to be here today to talk about the i. P. Transition. But before we do what i want to talk about is another transition thats been occurring and thats directly related, and thats the transition of our networks from copper to fiber. Of course its generally understood today Everybody Knows that fiber to the home is the best Broadband Network possible and one that many are striving to obtain. When verizon started to roll this out ten years ago it wasnt so obvious and we got a lot of questions about why we were doing this. Who needs 30 megabits per second . But Everybody Knows today that we need much more than that which is why were now up to 500 per second over the fiber and much more to come. So fiber is an important part of the i. P. Transition and a basis for the i. P. Transition. But the transition of voice from copper to fiber doesnt depend on i. P. And thats what i wanted to talk about for a few minutes. So fiber started in the Telephone Network many years ago. There arent many in the room old enough to remember candice bergens commercial and the pin drop. But what differentiated Sprints Network at the time was that it was all fiber and as a result the sound quality was noticeably superior to the existing Long Distance network. It was initially deployed in the Long Distance networks and then in the interoffice facility networks but fiber in the loop has also been around for a while. What i have for a slide is the picture of a Central Office and im showing the copier connection from the Central Office to the house. This is the basic Building Block of the Telephone Network. In the Central Office there is backup power provided with diesel generators and batteries what power that copper loop to the home. And thats how basic voice was provided. Fiber was introduced into that loop many years ago, 30 years or more, with digital loop carrier systems. Fiber went out to a remote terminal that was out in the network somewhere and then from there copper connections were driven to the home. Again, the power was provided at the remote terminal. There was commercial power there and then backup was provided through battedries primarily because you cant have big diesel generators out in the neighborhoods. That fiber is pushed ever closer to the home with new networks now. We have fiber to the node or curb. These are even smaller boxes in the neighborhoods that have fiber coming to them and then use copper to provide that last connection to the home. Again, with battery backup engineered for a certain period of time typically eight hours. And then finally fiber to the home. And here that Optical Network terminal is right at the customers house and again battery backup is provided there for use storing Power Outages and what not. So how did fiber to the home, how did we start rolling out fiber to the home. We had our existing Copper Network that literally went to every home and business almost 100 . And we started by the easy thing to do is in the new build to just deploy fiber there rather than deploying copper. And we did that in some cateses. But the real significant thing that we did differently was to do a fiber overlay. And so where we had existing copper we ran a brand new network that was fiber that went past every home or business. And then as customers ordered the internet or Television Service, we would connect them with a fiber drop wire to the house install the electronics on the side of the house and provide the service. So that we began that about ten years agent weve now built our Fiber Network to pass about 18 to 19 million homes and businesses. And the results in the marketplace have been very interesting. Because what it shows is that the transition is actually well under way. I have a chart here that shows for those areas where weve deployed fiber where we have fyyose available more than half have left our network completely. Theyve gone either wireless only or Getting Service from a competitor such as cable. About 40 of the homes in those markets are getting our Fiber Service and less than 6 are on the Copper Network. So that Copper Network that was built out to serve 100 of the customers that over the past 10 years has shrunk by more than 94 so its less than 6 are on there. So as we look at why these remaining few have not moved over, in many cases its because of concerns that the fiber is more expensive and theyre going to have to pay more. And its true that the way that we were deploying this was if you ordered the Television Service or the Broadband Service that was when we would install fiber. But thats not the case anymore. And people who just want their basic Telephone Service over the fiber can now get that for no additional costs and for no installation fees, the same monthly price, the exact same service in fact. And so i have a chart here that just shows for basic Telephone Service now, we have a fios digital voice, an i. P. Based Voice Service. Thats not what im talking about here. Im talking about a persons plain old Telephone Service. They can have that moved from copper to fiber and get the same voice quality actually better because its less vulnerable to interference static on the line and those sorts of things. 911 works exactly the same. Health monitors, Security Systems, fax machines, all of these things work exactly the same because its the exact same service. And theres no change in price and greater reliability. And again, i talked about the power and backup battery backup capabilities. Thats part of it as well. So were now reaching the Tipping Point where we have so few customers left on the copper that it really makes sense looking at how we can complete that transition and move those remaining customers and in a way thats acceptable to them but it has to be done from the copper over to the fiber. And with that, i will turn it over to hank to talk about the i. P. Transition. Thanks, david. And thanks for inviting me to be here. That was really i think a great intro because when people ask me what is the i. P. Transition that sort of the shortest sound byte version of an answer i have is that it is a transition from narrow band to brondband. And i think your discussion really brought out the broadband part. Im going to talk a little bit about the pact switching part and what that means. At at t weve been talking about the i. P. Transition for what seems like a long time now. We filed our petition with the f. C. C. Asking them to authorize trials of the ip transition back in november of 2011. But actually the f. C. C. Started talking about it before we did. In the course of developing the National Broadband plan in 2009, the f. C. C. Sought comments on although it wasnt called the i. P. Transition they called it the sunset of the legacy phone network. And in the plan that they ultimately adopted, they basically noted that the i. P. Transition was inevitable because it would not in the long run be sustainable to maintain two networks. What are those two networks . What are the differences between them . That is what i would like to talk about for a few minutes here. Really, at the highest level the transition from circuit switching to packet switching is a very fundamental change in networking. A circuit switch network, thats the Traditional Network, works by reserving capacity across the network. So between whatever users are using the network for the duration of the call. A very smart engineer once observed that the value that really circuit switching is useful to do when the relative cost of transport is low as compared to processing. And so what moores law has done is of course relentlessly lowered the cost of processing. And so this particular guy Larry Roberts back in i forget the 60s or 70s kind of predicted that the transition was inevitable because the cost was going to drop over time where the cost of transport would not change as fast due to the cost of civil engineering. So were in that world today. In the circuits switch network you reserve capacity ton an endtoend basis. What packet switching does is instead of reserving capacity it breaks communications up into into small pieces and sends them independently across the network where at the other end of the network they emerge miraculously magically and are reassembled into a coherent stream. In a sense thats the transition that were undergoing in the i. P. Transition. What Technology Perspective, the traditional phone Network Technology is quite old. So circuit switches, circuit switch transport, ss 7 signaling, these are the technologies that ultimately will be sunset. The interesting thing is what theyre being replaced by is actually developments are happening so fast there that its changing. In effect we are now at the same time as we are making this i. P. Transition were also changing the core of the network. Were moving from a network where we had specialized this is a fancy engineering term for you boxes. We had specialized boxes used to provide services to a network and now i will use a fancy term. I hope its not too bad. Where what we have is something called Network Function virtualization where the functions, instead of being dictated by the pieces of equipment, will be software base, and offthe shelf routers will be able to provide any of the services that were previously provided by these specialized boxes. So this is a tremendous change in networking at the very core thats going on at the same time as were making the transition to i. P. Ultimately, the i. P. Network from a consumer perspective is a much Better Network because its not designed for a single use. I mean, the phone network was really designed to do one thing which is provide telephoney. The ip network can provide an infinite number of uses and people take advantages of them every day. Think of the ways you communicate, whether text messaging, video chat, social networking platforms like facebook. Theres an infinite number of ways in which people are able to communicate using ip net working. So the transition is a great boom for consumers from a Technology Perspective they have moved from dumb receivers or terminals of telephones to basically computers. Customer equipment of the i. P. Network. Whether a small computer like a phone or a big one. David really laid out how the Traditional Network is descaling in terms of it was a network built for close to 100 of the population thats now being used by a spall fraction of that. We see similar trends on our network and do not expect that to stop any time soon. So our view is the i. P. Transition is inevitable. Its well under way. What we want to figure out in concert with policymakers, Public Interest groups, other companies, is that how do we complete the transition in a way that works for everybody as best as we can . This is not something thats going to happen tomorrow. This is going to take several years to do. At t has targeted 2020 as our own internal target for hoping to sunset our t. D. M. , circuit switch networks and we look forward to working with the policy makers, other companies, Public Interest groups to figure out how to make this transition as smooth as we can. Ok. So i want to pause here and take questions from the audience about the i. P. Transition, basic issues at play before we get into our Panel Discussion. But let me just ask you. Maybe if each of you could just to clarify if you could just explain what the differences are as you see them between the two paths that your companies are taking, that will perhaps help set the stage for our discussion. So i wouldnt say that theyre so much different paths. Theyre just different areas of focus at the moment. Our network is undergoing the same transition from circuit switching to i. P. That hank talked about. And so the things that he talks about in the transitions that he talks about are happening. They are inevitable. And they are ultimately to the benefit of consumers and to the internet eco system as a whole. I think the difference is that we are so far along now in the copper to fiber transition that i think its important to accentuate the differences there and the fact that, yes, most of our customers over the fiber prefer to get the i. P. Based communication service. But for those customers who dont want those, who want to keep getting the same old Telephone Service that they had in the past, that option remains, too. And i think that helps to remove some of the concerns that people may have that people will be left behind or that there are capabilities that wont be available. And so thats the main reason inl i think for changing the point of focus right now. So just to clarify, because at this point i can its lost for a lot of people. So even as youre transitioning, youre still planning to offer a circuitswitched telephoney service so theres two different dimensions here of the physical infrastructure and the way that the service is delivered. Is that fair . Thats absolutely right. And as i said, the vast majority of our customers prefer the new i. P. Based rich Communication Services. But we didnt want to require people who werent quite ready to move in that direction on their own. We didnt want to force them to do that at this point. So we wanted to continue to make the plain old Telephone Service at the price with all the features and what not that theyre familiar with available to them. I agree totally with david. At the same time as we are working on planning for the sunset of the circuitswitched net work and the platform of system that is support it, were seeing the same forces driving fiber deeper and deeper into networks generally. So whether were looking at the Business Customer segment, the consumer segment, or wireless, in every one of those areas the market is going to continue to push fiber out closer and closer to customers for the simple reason that fiber provides greater performance and band width than any other physical medium. So in our Panel Discussion jody is going to start off by laying out some of the concerns that she and other consumer advocates have had. So well get into those. But for the moment does anybody have any questions on what the i. P. Transition is, how its going to work, the differences here to the extent that theyre relevant . Im happy to take those now. Anyone . If not, why dont we just get started then. So jody, you have done a lot of work in this area. Why dont you give us a little Historical Perspective here and take us back to the kingsbury commitment in 1913 if you would like. And if i may put in a plug for our previous program, which i think youll also find on the cspan archives, was on this very topic. So last fall was the 100th anniversary where there was a settlement where the department of justice dropped a lawsuit against at t. We had a debate at that point i think that harold was on that panel from Public Knowledge about in the long term was that really the best way to protect consumers and, or how do we apply those values in a world where you no longer have one system, you have competing systems, Cable Companies and Wireless Companies and at t and verizon. So you can start wherever you want there. Kingsbury Public Knowledge, up to you. Ok. Well, i will start by thanking you for having this panel and having Public Knowledge on it. I think since youve already described the commitment, im going to start with values, which was mentioned earlier, because thats really been a big focus of Public Knowledge as this debate really got under way at the f. C. C. And with at ts petition to start trial. So from Public Knowledges standpoint, weve we have have identified basically five fundamental values that underlie what the u. S. s policies have been for basic communication service, which up until now has really been basic Voice Service over the traditional phone network, and we think that its important to identify what those values are and understand what it means to achieve the goals set out in those values ahead of time. Because i think otherwise youll just as we move into this transition it will just become a battle of the wish list between the various stakeholders and there wont really be any Guiding Principles to figure out where do we want to go and how do we know when weve gotten there. So for us the five fundamentals were universal service, which includes basic buildout, in the past weve handled this with implicit and explicit subsidies. It also includes things like disabilities access, making sure were getting to everybody not just based on geography but also what are their needs in terms of a basic communications service. Second, we had interconnection and competition, interconnection