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"after words," talking about a book about stephen bannon "alw ays a rebel." >> what odds do you give him for being able to reach his goals? >> so, you want me to be utterly honest or utterly hopeful? >> have you come to agree with a lot of what he says? >> i think there is a deep chance because i think steve bannon believes the electorate has already changed. >> even in the general election, donald trump was successful. he is not a perfect person, he would admit them himself by despite a lot of controversy he was elected. i think what anna believes is already the longing for populism whatationalism -- i think steve bannon already believes is the longing for populism and nationalism is already there. at some point, particularly the senate, is driving him. announcer: watch sunday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span twos booktv. >> this week, the federal communications commission is scheduled to vote on a proposition that prohibits internet providers from blocking and slowing internet content. brendan carr gave his perspective today at an industry gathering. this runs about one hour and a half. >> i'm with the consumer institute, a 501 c3 consumer institute research group. here, thankre to be you for coming. as of thursday, the federal communications commission holds a december open meeting and deals with one of several very important topics and the issue order to restore the internet freedom, which includes a number of important provisions. one is classifying broadband acid services as an inch -- as an information services it was once before. removing the ambiguous internet conduct standard and reestablishing the private mobile classification service for mobile broadband and promoting internet service transparency among other things. the transparency issue is very important to us because it helps give consumers better information to make better decisions. but there is a lot of noise out there. confusion and misinformation as to what this will mean for consumers and today we have a panel of experts. today i would like to first inch deuce a special guest to give remarks. we are so glad you were able to make it and join us today. the fcc commissioner wishing him a sleek and farmed and took office. commissioner rendon car. before he began -- became commissioner he was the lead wirelessf the fcc on public safety and international issues and before that, he worked as attorney for the fcc office of general counsel. priority joining this commission in 2012, commissioner car was an attorney and dealt with a lot of issues and telecommunications and communications regulatory law. a whole bile for all of our speakers today are available on your chair so i will not go any further with this. i just think this is a wonderful event and there is a lot to be learned on this issue and let me just say, here to talk about and give remarks on what this will mean to the public in general, it is my pleasure to inch deuce commissioner brendan carr. >> thanks for that kind introduction. it is great to be here to offer some brief opening remarks before turning it over to the panel. happy to talk about the fcc restoring internet rita freedom proceeding. in my view, this is a great moment for consumers, innovation and for freedom. fcc will votehe to reverse an obama era fcc's unprecedented decision to flag title ii services. this two-year experiment has failed. we have seen investment in broadband decline. we have seen isp's pull back on deployments. we have seen innovative new cap on the shelf -- kept on the shelf. all of this has harmed consumers. cap on the shelf --consumers ed open internet. fcc had not because the title ii in place. it is because the fcc at this long-standing approach. for 20 years, we abided by congressit is because the' diree internet should be allowed to flourish, free from heavy-handed government regulation. this was not a complete laissez-faire environment. this was not a no holds barred. back to 2015, that is the framework we are going back to. consumers were protected. innovators were allowed to innovate and we saw the internet the u.s. become the greatest success story that we have seen. 1.5 trillion in investment. businesses of all sizes from startups to large corporations launched and succeeded. excited that after this two-year detour, we are going back to the same regulatory framework, the tried and true approach. if you step back -- i know there rhetoric that surrounds the fcc decision. now to see what's trending faster than the nuance. i think the intersection of the government and they cherish their experiences. what i'm saying is the great title ii head fake. a tribute into title ii, things title ii does that too. one is the portuguese internet mean by repealing title ii will charge you for bundled access to the internet. or make you pay per website similar to what goes on in the cable space. not true. the title ii decision determine if isp wants to have curated practices they can. this does not change the law, another claim is the fcc vote will raise rates for consumers. they're free to charge consumers more. again, not true. the fcc decision majority went to great pains were not opening the door to isps that's currently the place. another thing is isps are not going to be free to block websites or throttle or create fast lanes and slowly from the internet. title ii is not a thin line between where we are in that conduct taken place. look at the d.c. circuit decision it expressly said that isps can block provided they disclose to consumers. there's no dispute that's the case. or repealing title ii not going to change the law. the sec's decision is going to be legally unsustainable or unlawful. the supreme court only time they've spoken to the classification upheld the 2002 decision that found them as a title i information service. so again that doesn't hold scrutiny. i want to emphasize or not experimenting with the newer radical approach that will give isps free reign to do what they want. the title and framework were trying to put in place includes robust protections one that i'll start with as market forces. when they observed that there is says there's a reason why they're not to. the d.c. circuit said it's fear of subscriber losses, there's many people that will market forces as a solution in the broadband market or otherwise. so are not relying on that. first, consumers are getting back strong consumer protection provisions. 2015 when they voted to move to title ii that decision stripped the fcc of 100% of its authori authority. that was a loss for consumers that they're getting back as a result. second, the federal trade commission has been the premier privacy agency. brought over 500 enforcement cases when the fcc voted in 2015 created a donut hole for consumers had fewer online protections than they did before that. that is where we are today. after the vote on thursday consumers will get back strong online privacy that can be enforced by the ftc. there is federal antitrust laws. the sherman act makes clear that as it enters an agreement that am falls blocking or throttling websites that will be unlawful. section two applies to vertically integrated isp. will attempt to discriminate against another provided unaffiliated in terms of conte content, that's subject to be an unlawful. fourth, state attorney general's consumer protection laws and this is where there's been some confusion. the order makes clear state-level net neutrality laws are printed as a matter of law because it would conflict with a title i decision. it's clear that they are not preempted. consumers should benefit from those. finally a transparency role. they're adopting a rule that's likely more robust than what you would see said ensures consumers have full disclosure and if providers don't live up to the their power to take enforcement action. there's also claim that the regime is more difficult to enforce because there's a claim it doesn't have rules. this point misses the mark. the fcc we have a long those are not self enforcing. the same will be true after our vote. the ftc has legal standards, precedents out there, what are some of what they are and they can take enforcement action to ensure consumers are protected. i think it's a great moment for consumers, for getting back to the same machine that govern for 20 years. they had robust consumer protections and saw them launch and thrive. consumers benefit being protected. it's not a new experiment with the free market approach. i'm excited about it. this is a two-year detour they were pushed into, the senate committee found through political pressure it's not a place they found that they're going to go based on independent judgment. it's great that were getting back to this bipartisan consensus. how to take a couple of questions. from the sunshine time at the fcc. it prohibits lobbying of decision-makers during this time. see you cannot make a presentation to me that goes to the merits. if you're not certain it's probably best not to say anything. then we can transition to the panel. >> i think it may think it's difficult votes completely devoid. anyone have a question that's not a presentation? i think we probably have some would be presenters but that would be appropriate. >> want to think the commissioner. [applause] >> thank you. sounds to me to some extent we have some regulations put in place to fix something that was not a problem. without any evidence to benefit but it seems like there's no surprise we've seen some decline investments since 2015. how do we get there? what are the various aspects of the order? how will restoring internet freedom affect consumers, investors and innovators? does congress ultimately need to have a role. there's a number of issues to be considered and with that today we have an expert panel to clear up these important questions. moderating on the panel is randolph mae. randolph is the founder of a free state foundation. earlier he worked in policy research at a major law firms. prior he served as assistant general counsel for the federal communications commission. the full bios have been distributed. as always it's an honor to have you join us today. >> thank you for organizing the program. it couldn't be more timely. thanks to the american consumer institute for the work you do. we would jump right in. i'm going to introduce a panelist by their affiliation. then i will ask them to speak initially, no more than five minutes. unless the five minutes will be fine. maybe even prefer. we want to make sure we have time for questions. with regard to commissioner carr, you don't have to be quite as careful in asking a question to these noted panelists. they are not covered by the sunshine act. we do want to have time for questions. i just want to say briefly before introduce the panelist, i was associated general counsel of the fcc from 1978 to 81. spent a long time since i've been watching the fcc. i have a concern really that the way of proceeding like this the comment process in my view has been subject to some distortion. public participation is welcome and important. everyone can file a comment. when you get into arguments about this case with 20 million comments and you argue with a 50000 are valid or not, what is happening now disturbs me. it diminishes the notion of the expertise of the fcc. in the fcc's institutional integrity and the role of expertise. i hope we don't go too far down that road. ultimately what will occur on thursday should not and will not be based on the vote, how many comments are born against a particular proposal. this shouldn't be the way the process works. if that were the way it worked their way to not need the fcc to make that decision. that's important. with that, going to tell you who's on the panel, we have katie maccallum, baron, who is president of tech freedom, shane, a fellow at the american enterprise institute. we have steve who is the president of american consumer institute who is putting on this program today. remember the speaker will only speak for five minutes. on task baron if he will lead off. he's been a leader in exploring the ramifications of the fcc actions. you'll probably agree that if the fcc doesn't have the legal authority to maintain these rules, that goes a long way to answering the question as to what the fcc should do. i will ask baron if he will speak first. in fact that is the first question to be asked. if they decide they don't have authority then that's it. that's how agencies are supposed to work. you don't start policy questions are looking at comments. you say what authority do you have that you can validly claim. and then using that to the extent to camp. the draft order that will be voted on concludes the two major claims of authority made by obama were mistaken. that is 2010 claiming 706 was an independent grant of authority. in 2015 with broadband. fcc is reversing those menaces there's no longer any basis for net neutrality rules except for the transparency role. judge silverman in 2014 noted the fcc always argued there is a simpler basis for upholding that rule. it's on that basis the fcc is maintaining that. we're revealing back to status quo. at heart, as a legal issue that should not be controversial. if anything people who are worried about government claiming too much power of the internet might be afraid what this administration might to should be applauded the decision. for the same reason in 2010 they were warning the previous claim of authority over the internet was a trojan horse for broader regulation of the internet. i would say the same thing. that's why tech freedom has joined a lawsuit joined by small entrepreneurs and innovators who want offers a voice over internet services. they're afraid the legal interpretation open the door to blocking services they want to offer the to the services been subject to title to regulation. the 2015 order not only said that broadband in general is a title to service but it had to go to great lengths to justify broadband. it said anything that uses an ikea address could be subject to title two. that undoes the line the fcc drew between the internet and opens the door to fcc regulating the entire internet. that's why were glad the fcc is on doing all of the and handing authority packed and not just the federal trade commission but also the state attorney general. the superintendent for size that if you have no confidence in republican ftc or department of justice, the states can bring the cases too. they have fewer resources but if there's a problem though sound the alarm. if they don't bring enforcement actions it's because there's not a problem. since i don't have a lot of time, want to say that while i'm very glad to see the fcc is on doing these claims and will continue to argue in court the agency should not get deference in claiming that authority, ultimately they will win the next round of litigation for the same reason they want the last round. that also means who were reverted back and claim the same broad sources of authority over the internet. will continue to argue with the supreme court that they need to know that congress needs to act and fcc should not be able to claim that. unless the supreme court takes it up will be up to congress to resolve this issue. so over the next few years i hope we have a way of making a permanent through legislation. it's ultimately how we will resolve the fight. >> thank you. i think it's important to start with legal authority issues. i think next i want to : steve, steve, i'm sure you want to add to your introductory remarks and say more at this time. then we'll move down the line. >> thank you. i will defer to the panel. the sense you gave me the opportunity i will pass up the mic. just to put on my economist head, as i look back think it's an important issue we need to think about. when you look at title ii regulations, the reality is governments can fail. regulations can be imperfect and costly. for example, when you look at onerous regulations there might be heirs on what might be good market conduct instead of remedying back conduct later. these type of errors can be costly. they create uncertainty in the market which chills investment. they can increase costs and fees, they can take away opportunities of value limit price differentiation which is important for maximizing consumer welfare. and they can lead to rent seeking and gaming. with the alternate over to the panel and let them handle the rest of this. >> lets your next from shane. >> i want to thank you. i'm sure you've taken many e-mails, phone calls and have a lovely thanksgiving. the dad said explain why we don't have net neutrality. this will be somewhat results i just want to review real quick the issue that's been brought up that seems that a natural thing we want no throttling or blocking. most of these have been agreed to by the isps merger or acquisition. those reasons why you might want to do any of these things. i'll highlight those. with transparency in place you'll understand why this took place. this is a major reason why we have cyber attacks. if you don't have an ability to throttle or block it's one of the reasons why we had the major iot where they could take baby monitors and operators over. you can see that on the system where you are in the stack. you might be the isp. now they can see and have to let it wash over them. . . . . a lot of the great things we are seeing with 5g one of the reasons why self-driving cars will work is because the information flow will be seamless. the information flow to be seen seen -- seamlessly may need to prioritize the information that comes from the automobile to the downloading of netflix. it won't interfere with your downloading of video and i think there's a lot of misunderstanding if you put something at first it automatically queues everything less. there've been several papers i can point you to on the item. those are the three bright lines and issues that have a reason for occasionally doing something then blocking. a lot of it is to protect the internet which we haven't heard a lot about. we have heard a lot about killing internet that we haven't heard a lot about protecting the internet to a lot of things are the surprise me especially if you're trying to talk about this with lehman revolved into your plan -- european cautionary. we have a fear that things will happen. there've maybe been two incidents on throttling. one is when comcast was moving from one set of systems to another and they are legitimate or see -- reason to do it. and then we just had early on when you have a lot of downloads of illegal content and there was a point where the ip's are trying to figure out how we manage people downloading full major motion pictures on the system and throttling. early in 2007 so the precautionary principle is like them monster under the bed. your kid assured it exists so i think we have to look at why we are looking at these ideas and what is an appropriate time if any to use the bright line issue. the new on line consumer protection ammo use that the if tc said they will enter into later this week is very important because it puts us back from taking the precautionary principles of the fear things that might happen which very often does impede what we need to be happening in technology which is innovation in looking at the specific cases of what is actually happening and what do we do to make sure it's not more than one case in the one cases prosecuted case is prosecuted and the ftc is the place for that to take place. just another point and then i will hand over the microphone is a lot of times you think that you are having problems with your issues in the ip is the only thing you have a, you understand what's coming from them and the fcc looking at upload time in download time that we are not actually looking at the load time of the web so the next time you are browsing and you think this is taking forever we expect things to look within three seconds and in internet three seconds if you look at the web site especially new web site they are probably under 140 domain names in the average 5000 pieces of information. that doesn't load in three seconds there's a band of men. we are asking a lot of the system and what we really need to have happen is we are working on the next generation networks can provide the internet we are all looking for today and the next generation. >> shane, thank you very much. last but not least as we say we are going to call on katie mccullough. i would just say most of you probably know her twitter handle is @digital liberty and i have to say that's very apt because she is a great promoter of digital liberty so we thank you for all of that. >> thanks so much. i thank you all for coming out to listen to this conversation. we are hearing a lot of the theme of transparency, transparency, transparency and one of the things that i think it's great is great to point to is this is the most transparent fcc that we have had. if you look at we have the open internet and internet freedom order out three weeks ahead of the meeting. the internet order we didn't see until a week after was voted on, two weeks, excuse me. so this kind of transparency has been really help all for us to continue to have this discussion in public and to talk about how this is going. so we are looking at how this chairman particularly ended the previous administration talked about transparency and now he's definitely practicing what he is preaching as are the other commissioners. we have had the opportunity to review this and talk about it and looking at transparency it's very important because this isn't saying there shouldn't be someone that's regulating misconduct as both berin and shayna potter that you have the fcc and it turned general. the transparency will give those a tool to find bad actors but we don't want to in a setup where we are presuming harm before it has happened. that's the kind of thing that precludes any kind or a lot of the innovation going forward. if you think about where we are going to be we can't imagine. before the iphone was here we can imagine could imagine what that was going to be so setting these full before anything is happen would be problematic for innovative future. that's the first on transparency. we don't want to freeze things where they are and when you talk about applying utility regulations to the internet come the internet has only been around commercially for 20 years and you look at the innovation on the internet and compare that to our utilities which you are say are controlled by the government. they are regulated. the fees are regulated and networks are regulated networks are regulated that they are set not by what customers want but what the government thinks should be happening and i think example it would translate well to the internet. in looking at those things i think we are wise to have a new rule that responds to that her son doesn't presume that people are doing things wrong before anything happens. it's just a better system to be underpinned another aspect of the road once touch on was preemption. we saw after the title ii rolls went into effect in 2015 and number of states coming forward with their own rules that amounted to data localization and that's a major problem worldwide. you all talk about you don't want to see the internet broken up with data stored in areas. we want information to flow in people to have access to that. if states draw borders around their own internet pre--- creating their own privacy rules at interferes with interstate commerce so i going back to title i we avoid that issue and it's clarified that the internet is an issue of interstate commerce. this doesn't conflict with anything that happened before we talked about some people might ring up the issue of municipal broadband where pretold the fcc you can't mess with what states are doing their. that was because the fcc was intervening in how states were managing their budget so a state actually creates localities within it. localities have no constitutional protections. they are a manifestation of the state and the state manages them so the federal government does not have a right to come in and tell a state how should manage its internal government and that aspects of these are not the same kind of things we are talking and interstate commerce issue. in talking about privacy we really don't want to have states making these kinds of rules. we do want the expert agency, the fcc to be working on this. in fact right now that the workshop going on about informational injury and the fcc has been looking at these issues for decades talking about how data should be used in about privacy and we don't want to preclude different business models before they should come up. we don't want to hamper unlimited data. we don't want to prevent -- perhaps it could be compensated for the data were exchanging for companies. i think that would be problematic in some of us would like to be paid for using facebook ads. i will just stop there. >> katie thank you very much predators glad you mentioned water during your presentation because it reminded me in susan crawford spoke she was one of the leading opponents of net neutrality and she flat out unabashedly said she thought the internet should be regulated just like we regulate electricity and water. delivery. water just hasn't changed that much over the last couple thousand years. but the internet but that makes me wonder if that's really that's the way the internet ought to be you are regulated. what i want to do and you guys in the audience may be thinking of questions but let's do this. i want to touch on the investments. no commissioner carr mentioned one of the important considerations for repealing the regulations is the impact on investment and at a time when our economy needs more investment that's also important important. i will ask the panel but i know steve is certainly an acknowledged leader and the economics field. steve do you want to just explain succinctly if you can buy the current regulation does have an impact and if you think it does on investment from the isps? >> we have observed it. if you look at the decline of happened within several quarters of the decision itself also an absolute reduction in the number of rock band wired lines on the telco signs, we have observed that. we have had testimony from a number of small isps who have indicated the same thing. the reason gets back to what uncertainty does to the market increasing the cost to capital a member of number of the other issues i mentioned before. when you get into this mentality that says you can commit an error based on your conduct which in the end they be good conduct. what you end up doing is you snuff out good innovation rather than later on in coming back in saying hey in retrospect was this the right thing to do. so it's this kind of thinking that is a little bit backward and creates this uncertainty that raise the capital costs and chills investment. it's really as simple as that. it gets to be a matter of increasing industry costs and those costs flow in the form of higher prices than any time you shift the supply curve not only do you get increased cost but you get restricted output and that is what you would expect. that's microeconomics and unfortunately you know that's the problem with onerous regulations. now looking at these things after-the-fact you say hey somebody stepped out of the bounce was something like that, that's we have antitrust laws of the doj and the ftc to come back and take a look at whether or not there had been some violations. to do that as i said early on to not allow internet service providers to experiment than you are not going to get experimentation. the three minutes you would get on the phone there a lot of new plants coming out to provide three minutes of civics so you could watch it be spn and various other on line providers and the fcc indicated they may look at those case-by-case aces and essentially can't give why minutes for free. how do consumers benefit? how do consumers benefit from plans that offer free services but i don't want to go any further really. the point is when you do something like that you chill market investment is what investor wants to take a risk on something when they don't know whether or not the investment they made will pay dividends. we are talking about long-term investments that people have to put in the ground and it's a short-run decision. as randy made the reference to water the internet runs at lightning speed. we have fcc policies potentially moving at glacier. >> i agree with that characterization but i want to be really clear the problem is net neutrality so let's distinguish. net neutrality is an operational state, rights and privacy on the same level as that of distraction. then there's a question of the specific regulations that were put in place. then there's the underlying question of the fcc so the problem here come the thing that has the effect on investments in the recent fcc had always been reluctant to impose broad carriage regulations upon the internet across democratic and republican chairman was the concern about that margin of uncertainty which is not about net neutrality come it's what happens when the fcc opened that door. i want to be really clear the fcc will of said in the last chairman said don't worry all we are doing is we are just using title to a little bit to do net neutrality so don't worry about it. you can't have just a little bit of net neutrality or just the little bit of title ii anymore than he can be as the old saying goes just a little bit pregnant. it's really one or the other and the reason is that if they say don't worry we are just forbearing from the rest of title ii's about worry about it that forbearing decision can bieber first just as easily as the fcc made that initial decision and moreover don't worry because we are not applying all the other parts of title ii what they did find was the core title ii section 201p is about justin unreasonable passages and two was about discrimination. upcoming carriage regulation. everything else is just more particular implementation of that. once you have those on the table you are regulating broadband providers as common carriers. you are doing the very thing that schakowsky and the others who decided not to apply title ii. those are the things that can affect investment and the only way to remove that uncertainty is for the fcc to disclaim that power and i say said earlier for congress to take it off the table permanently or for the supreme court to enroll in that issue. >> okay i think what carr was referring to -- berin was referring to didn't want to drop the whole morass of public utility in the broadband pipe. that was a direct quote and he was prescient. i want to ask this question and then maybe anyone on the panel or more than one could answer it. we have seen so many instances recently where the edge providers google and facebook and twitter and others where they quote discriminate or take actions that are not neutral. they wouldn't be considered net neutrality as some of us think about that. chairman piemack has in the last week or so provided all of us with a list of a bunch of those actions. those are the advocates of course that are out front and advocating, maintaining title ii regulation. i guess my question is this. i will just say for myself to be clear i have never had a place in regulating those companies are restricting their speech. i don't think that should be done but you know there is a situation here where you have differences in their actions and how do you think about those in terms of net neutrality so i guess i want to ask the panel and maybe this goes back to the fcc, does that trouble you at all and what do you think if any, the answer should be to put these two types of firms that are in the internet ecosystem as we say you know on an equal footing if anything? >> one of the things that is important is the system is global and we all need to be working together on that. when you think about twitter facebook google and apple and what china's going through it does have a warning system of the challenges we have for the internet ecosystem especially from an internet government perspective. we are all part of the multi-stakeholder process is something we have an appreciation for because it very much falls in line with our constitution. the rest of the world this is see it that way. i can understand why it goes back to the monster under the bed. the way china and russia are saying we does want to be able to handle her system in china thank you very much in the fact that we see that as an interference that would be our first amendment right but one of the other things that is happening is having control of system means they can help with all the bad things that are happening. as we saw with the russians in the election in the very beginning we didn't have a clue how that was being managed and we are learning it real-time. that's important at every level including the providers. we are learning how to protect the system and protect the internet. they say in 2020 and want the internet to be as cool as it is now. in 2020 i don't want to be thinking remember the internet? yeah. >> to follow up on that at any point you don't really want to diminish property. when you are looking at the ability to control your platform those things are important and in going back to principles that can be across the entire ecosystem limited government that's its role is to afford contracts deter fraud and arbitrate is what the fcc's transparency process leads to. and that way you can respect a platform's ability to moderator manage what's going on in their putt form and also respect the platform's ability to monitor what's going on in their network to manage a more reasonable network management. so if you are looking at again just the principle to deter fraud, to arbitrate and enforce contracts that works well across the entire ecosystem. >> is more than that. the fcc has broad authority to protect consumers from unfair practices as well as police competition. no one here is saying that we should have a no-man's land of lawless internet. the ftc and the state ags and the department of justice quite have quite robust power to protect consumers. we can focus on the ftc in my and my own core focus is on the ftc because that de facto federal technology commission. has broad authority to deal with new technologies how did they develop and to deal with new problems and i smile a little bit when people say how do we protect consumers without specific rules on the books? the whole point of creating the ftc was to give them the broad standards and they could apply case-by-case and to build a common law over time to address those issues. i have my own criticisms of how the ftc works. it is becoming more important as we talk about those processes but no one including me wants to tie the agency's hands. we are simply saying we should understand how the agency works and make sure it's building a defective common law but it absolutely should hold companies to their promises, for rent practices that harm consumers and stop texas is that harm competition that approach will be a back-and-forth between plaintiffs and defendants both private plaintiffs in government actors over time. we will deal with problems and importantly if we find there are gaps in our process we will legislate. that is what always happens with the ftc and that's why the ftc hasn't found it necessary to use rulemaking authority that it does have when issues come up like the toll register at the children's on line privacy protection act. that is the approach that i would trust in going forward and i'd be happy to have a conversation and technology neutral way. >> i'm going to ask one more question and then i'm going to ask the audience whether they have questions. this question i was thinking about it when earlier the panels were talking about innovation and how they thought that the current rules, the title ii rules stifle or perhaps stifle innovation. something that i've written about sort of puzzled over for a number of years is this. in trying to understand why certain people in these positions in this proceeding, you know google and facebook both have advocated maintain current rules and for example google has said many times, i've actually been on panels like this which they set it and president obama even said it last year, that they are not concerned about google or facebook protecting themselves at all because they are big enough to protect themselves. they are concerned about the next google. google says it's doesn't need an annette neutrality rules to protect itself. it's concerned about the next google and so forth and having been around washington for a long time that makes me really wonder what's going on here. you know i think in fact these rules that are in place, this is what i believe that the rules in place actually serve to protect the large incumbents of the net neutrality providers to make it more difficult for a new entrant the next google or the next facebook to actually be able to use the increased flexibility to gain a foothold and challenge those incumbents. that's at least a theory i have. i want to ask the panelists, maybe see if his perspective as an economist. what do you think about the next google theory? >> can i combine that with going back to the question on investment and you talk about stifling innovation. because it looks the same to us when it comes across we don't always understand how much is changing both in the underlying infrastructure as well as the edge so there'll be network virtualization that will change things. a lot of times it's the only asset google element. we look at the browser to see the difference in what's going on. a lot of that is now divided into apps. i think the one thing that we may see coming out of china is having one app that aggregates everything so right now we are popping in and out. you come back in to facebook or you may go over to what's app or something and there'll be more of the aggregated app that will help you manage a lot of things in your life. there are reasons why they are doing it in china. there is an element that is seamless in how we manage things. think what we are going to see is probably a little more aggregation with the way that we manage our own individual financial services and our technology as well as other things that go on. there are multiple things be on social media than just basic networks that we are looking at here. >> okay, let's see whether anyone in the audience has a question. if you could just lean more in the direction of the question in the presentation in that way will be able to get more questions than an if you can identify yourself as well when you have a question. >> i wanted to ask some questions specific to small businesses. we represent small businesses that don't have the purchasing power of some large corporations and they depend very heavily on the internet in order to survive in many cases. some of our members have expressed concerns that repealing the fcc regulations with their businesses at a disadvantage because they are worried that their webpages won't be able to load as quickly as a webpage for a large company that has great purchasing power like target or walmart and people will exit the web site and not buy their products. is that concerned solid are they misunderstand the impact of deregulation? >> if they have a good web designer they shouldn't be having a problem. they don't know for end-users sending it to target walmart amazon or the small business down the road. from that level of architecture it's a matter when i mentioned earlier there is a report by a guy named richard bennett. the best thing they can do is invest and make sure they are on a system that doesn't put too much on the front page. one thing i would say that they have a concern with that actually having your internet service provider could be more valuable to them is using cybersecurity. small businesses are huge target for ransomware because a lot of times if you lock up their web presence they are making no money that day or that week. .. >> or when i am faced coming with someone. this earlier, privatization does not the certainly mean something loads lower. it means in order for everything to show up the same way, something has to get prioritized. when you think about a video call that requires more data than it does to simply load a webpage and that is where an instance of network management actually happens so these things appear seamless and the same. i would not think that would be a problem. webpage,int about your a lot of times, things let's the most arepages the advertising on the side and how much data there is behind that. whether it is video or those sorts of things. there are lots of other things to look at rather than title ii type rules. title ii is more about government control of the internet and what kind of regulations at state, local and federal government can put on the internet and less about that seamless nature that your businesses would want the customer to experience. the internet two answers -- legd practical. matter, the commissioner said under the fcc owns rules,as a legal if a broad provider wanted a district to opt out of that framework and start discriminating, it could have done so. i want to make that really clear. if they thought that was a problem, title ii would not address that problem. as a practical matter, there is no market for doing what you are describing. i don't think the rebel will be. -- there ever will be. the concerns the oxford hours are pursuing are not about that. what they want, very unusual circumstance of offering real-time, high quality voice streaming where what really matters here is latency. websites that somehow are not going to load or that someone will not be able to get the services they want, that run-of-the-mill service is never going to be effective. we are talking about on the margins. some services being able to ensure that there is quality given to the delivery of their packets. that is why they are concerned. you could do that without affecting the delivery of others. >> i think -- did you have a question over here? >> i did, thank you. hi, i everyone. tracy. advocate.umer two questions. first, when it comes to the question of broadband investment and its decline, which you have all spoken to extensively, there are several isd's whose investments have not declined in the last two years and that includes verizon, comcast, harder, windstream, and media calm. i have a question whether we are somewhat overstating both the amount and the impact of net neutrality regulations on broadband. largest some of the isps in the country work completely unaffected. the second question, did not hear anybody on the panel mentioned the current case with the ftc.o at&t and at&t, as some of you know, is one of the largest isps in the country and it went to court to remove ftc jurisdiction from itself and this case is being called back for non-bank hearing. resolved. been does it make any sense to revoke these regulations when you are relying on the ftc to do so much in fact be may not able to and secondly, why didn't and if you guys mention it? it seems kind of relevant with all this talk. >> those are two good questions. one has to do with investment and the other with the impact of the at&t mobility. >> i will leave the questions to others. i did not mention that at&t mobility case because it is too much time. specificallyose deleted from the jurisdiction, which includes common carrier. until the at&t panel decision of the ninth circuit earlier this share, the ftc had always understood that met it was activity-based. if you are company that offered a common carrier service it would be recommended by the fcc or whichever was regulating and the other would be left in the jurisdiction. in that circumstance, it would decision once the ftc smoothlyit would transition back to the federal trade commission. i'm glad the lady brought it up. the panel decision would create remaining issues. the transition would work better company that would offer both services like google fiber offers broadband service as well as voice service said there was a concern that a company like fcc would still be in the jurisdiction exclusively because in status was that of a common carrier and then the non-common carrier services would not therefore revert back to the ftc jurisdiction and would fall into no man's land. that is the caps on. now, the thing is that the full 19th -- ninth circuit, when they decided to re-here that -- to re-here that, that means not only did they think it was mistaken and therefore the whole ninth circuit won't reach that conclusion but they took the unusual step of vacating the underlying panel decision. so that panel decision essentially never happen. now, it is still a question and is possible the fcc might ultimately lose now and that at&t's argument might prevail but it is extremely unlikely and essentially the same likelihood is before because now that question is going to exist as a their article question and it is possible that another circuit might find that. if you're concerned about that come the answers for congress to clearly legislate. thatis a one-sentence bill states the common carrier exception was correct or repeals the common carrier exception which is something democrats and republicans have called for. it is an easy fix and something that is very speculative at this point. even if the full ninth circuit somehow upheld at least part of the panel decision, that would circuit.y in the ninth so apart from legal fiber, i'm not aware of any large isp based in the ninth circuits so the laws everywhere else in the country would be the same. so, it is a fair point but pretty speculative and until the night circuit issues a decision, which could happen present, there is not a problem and again, if they were then tech freedom would be one of the first organizations going out to say congress should legislate immediately and even this congress for all of its legislation could pass that one bill pretty quickly. >> that was a thorough explanation of that point. with if anybody wants to send thing about the investment -- wantrst of all, we do not to see investment go down. even know there are several studies that have shown that. not all of these companies do the same thing. putting more money into their system, that it's good for all of us, especially consumers. they are not the only ones we are concerned about, though. you need to have investment and arer and people knowing we going to small cell technology, there are several companies that are going to be engaged in that isps.yond just regular there are several studies that showed this is a challenging year. the last few years have had a decline. we're looking for an apples to apples comparison. >> to make a point, the number of companies identified have had mergers so when you go to their corporate data, you will see charters merge with another large cable company. andzon has merged with aol yahoo!. comparingdding in and and i would suggest going back and making that correction to the baseline. >> you know, just to add to that really briefly, think when you are talking about investment it is really important to also it is not that whether you have some absolute orrease in investment decrease, i think i believe the studies -- a number of credible studies of shown it is going to decrease but really the way you want to think about it is whether there is less investment than their other would have been absent the regulations because you might have increasing investment if it is less than it would've been absent the , you know, andn you don't need the regulation to protect consumers if you assume ist may be true, then that not good. that is harmful, really, to the economy when you make about an eight cost-benefit way, really. >> i can follow up on that with exact numbers. i just old up the study here from the phoenix center which very interestingly compared and investment before 2010 when the rules were first talked about and then after 2010 and showed a .ecline fixed assets would've been about 30 bay dollars more annually and equipment and -- would've been about $20 billion more. so the threat of the classification decreased investments of that does not necessarily mean there would not have been in investment, just that there would have been more. bags in that specific study, believe they compare to other industries are again they are trying to find a baseline that is even for everybody. >> is there another question from the audience? do we have question? led -- ok. in the front row. just a minute. he will bring up the mic. can you identify yourself? [indiscernible] [indiscernible] >> -- are we going to allow [indiscernible] -- >> at again, title to does not actually do any of the things everyone claims it does. the d.c. circuit upholding the dcc classification said that it is voluntary. companies could opt out of. if you are concerned that there is a problem, i just reiterate to you that title ii is not in fact the solution you think it is. if what you want is a clear, legal basis for addressing this, we have supported net neutrality legislation for years and will continue to do so. i happen to think it is better for that to limit the federal i would bession but happy to clarify the underlying core roles. if people are concerned, that is the issue that people are concerned that case-by-case enforcement alone is inadequate or makes it too difficult for a small company to bring a complaint, we can can and there againsttisan consensus the role about blocking and so on and so forth but i think that should live at the ftc and ultimately the hard question is what you do on the margins about things like giving away free data. there are all sorts of harder cases. our fellow intervenors who are concerned about void services. voip are -- about services. and ftccessively standard about meaningful harm to consumers. i think that is a meaningful answer to the problem. we can put that in legislation and that will resolve these debates once and for all but disguised not going to all without legislation. the doj is going to police hold theeal harms and ftc to its promises. as long as it will last, it only lasts until the next of a chronic fcc when we may be where we were last year, absent legislation. drugs that would say we do have regime under which title i, we should be following the certification of interpretation on -- >> i would say we do have regime under which title i, we would be following the certification of interpretation. there have been bills discussed. i do not been talking about politics or the slowness of congress is a good way to look at that. our legislation is designed for purpose and the fcc is a creation of congress so to just start putting out roles kind of like the bureaucrats who don't have that much accountability is not really the direction we .hould be going on that there are, you know, when we look also at the way consumer response comes. respond very well, we've seen that a lot in the past year when people ever expressed certain opinions about a ceo or a product or about a store having a particular withct, i might not agree those inclinations, companies do respond very well and very quickly to consumer preferences. that would be my addition to that. >> ok. i think our time is drawing night here. one more question. i see one in the back. we will take that and then wrap up. congress -- congressman's gomez's office. we have been getting a lot of calls from constituents concerned about their prices going up for internet access. i want to see if you can maybe give me some information on that. sayn that point, i would your prices are not going to change to anymore they would with the market as it is. i mean, looking at -- this is the same trajectory from title i. we are going back to the internet from one year ago, two years ago, there have not been any major changes. ien you see prices change, mean an interesting thing about the transparency requirement from title to which -- and i do not even of this has been worked out -- when companies disclose their prices they're not required to disclose with the taxes and fees on top of that and when i worked on the consumer advisory committee at working on we were the broadband label, it was decided it would be too difficult to include state and local taxes and fees on internet access because there are too many of them and they are two very. so one of the important things for transparency is what is the government charging. we just had a steady come up from the tax foundation about how high local taxes are. in some states, taxes can be up to 22%, well above the average tax rate. with title ii, as baron said, that does not prevent any of the so-called net neutrality tenants but what it does is add more government involvement. more ability of state and local to add fees. more ability for states to combat the internet at their border. that is not what we want it within a title i framework, we can rely on it. >> the government's ability to tax broadband which are effectively taxes, depends on title ii ossification and the fcc, the last fcc was smart enough to wait until after the election to drop that shoe because they realized it was a loser. that is what has not happened yet. that is the thing that would've raised prices for broadband. that will not be possible once the fcc undoes that title ii classification. thatdless, the irony is now people are saying, prices that hasup even though nothing to do with net neutrality. remember, the last fcc assured us they would not use title ii to regulate prices. that is the fundamental concern because price regulation is the essence of common courage and is on his title ii is on the table, that is a very real thing. in my opinion, price regulation tends to drive up prices. but that is the argument the other side is facing having said before they can never, ever dream of using title ii to regulate prices. if that is the concern, the real answer is to promote competition. the fcc is doing a great deal on that right now to work on broadband diploma. there are things he sec could do on its own. there are other things congress will need to do. we are pushing legislation. there's a flurry of. there right now and that is where we should be focused. is tuesdayday, today , the fcc will be meeting on this. i think we have really covered the waterfront and been fortunate to have an expert panel here. we talked about the legal ofhority of the fcc and all the various policy aspects of the decision confronting the fcc. hopefully, you will agree with me that this has been really educational to do that. my hope is that going forward, the fcc will remain an institution where we value the expertise of the commissioners, whether we agree with them or not and if not it really becomes a place where we think it is or are to be influenced by who has the largest protest at the front one or whether there are million more comments here are there because if we do that, then actually it will be devolving really into political institutions and the place for politics is more appropriately right appear in congress rather than over at the portals. i want to thank steve and the american consumer institute again for sponsoring a program that is so timely and that i think has been so educational. join me in thanking our panelists here today, please. >> thank you, too, randy. [applause] >> thank you, everyone. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] announcer: watch c-span3 thursday at 10:30 a.m. may for live coverage on the fcc vote on that neutrality. the idea is to roll back those past during the obama administration and also to deregulate part of the internet. free, or listen with the c-span radio app app. drags this weekend, c-span cities tour takes you to saratoga springs, located in upstate new york. with help of our ekstrom cable partners, will explore the liberal life of the city known for its famous mineral springs. >> this is the place where ulysses grant penned in his memoirs in 1885. he was dying of throat cancer facing family was serious financial problems. at this point in his life, he was a man trying to take care of his family. we get to tell a story here that most people do not know about. announcer: than local author and prosecutors shares his book "sheer madness." up, thought the person who was addicted to heroin lived under a bridge somewhere and was pushing around a shopping cart or something like that. that is not the case. on the most abused drugs on wall right now,g traders and these are elite professionals, are opioids.