Formerly known as the cable association. Mr. Powell, how would you describe the state of the cable world today . Guest i think its pretty vibrant and dynamic, which is if afford correctly is both opportunistic and anxious. A period of phenomenal technological transformation still. I think many changes patterns and Consumer Behavior that everyone is adapting to. I think every now and then that kind of transformation and energy is invigorating and i thing the industry files invigorated the moment. On the operator side theyre on the doesnt of the most significant data and broadband speeds in their history, rolling out in the next couple of years. Extraordinarily new and interesting interfaces and apps and come come come cast, and think wore, wog throughout what the strategy ooh be and what apps are like and theyre Fresh Opportunities to innovate. Its in great shape. Host how many people get cable today and are cord cutters inevitable . Guest you know, churn is always inevitable. We have loss customers for 20 years to satellite. We want that 95 of the entire market in 1992, and thats now below 50 . Thats the reality of evolution in markets, and i think losing customers to new competitive alternatives that by their very nature are purely software and internet based is real. But what i dont like is that sort of turning into the dooming threat of inevitable instruction destruction. Thats overraithed. Consumerred will have many nor ways to tailor their experience but people are subscribes to one pay tv option or the other and some are finding out when you try to coble together al acart it cos you almost as much or very close it to. Host november 8, 2016, as president and crowe c of the ncta what was your reaction to the election . Guest i was surprised like any other . I because i think it just really wasnt what i was hearing. We have lots of access to Political Consultants and late knight latenight called bottom the other lex and everything had been told it was going in a different desk. So watching the returned it became evidence that something wasnt adding up. The conventional wisdom, and was a little surprised. But i have been through lots of transitions in government, ive been throughlets of president s in my Public Policy career and while we might have anticipating preparing for one kind of political policy environment it wasnt very difficult to quickly reorient ourselves to prepare for a different one, one that i think at least for the industry and with the new commission, i think actually holds opportunities for us. Thats kind of the way reacted. Host let bring lydia of bloomberg into the conversation. Host mr. Powell, to turn again to the agencies to lead, can you speak more specific live about the opportunities and what the change in leader from from democratic and thrown industry. Guest i think we have a deep admiration for pi. Im a fan of somebody who has been the committee for a long period of time, ascending to the chairmanship theyve spent years underring the institution and the issues. The first thing it means things can happen quickly and not a long litership lead leadership training curve, learning the staff and how he agency works which can take six months of just getting things rolling. Things roll right away because their familiar. The that commissioner chairman i tech he has a very committed understanding that both infrastructure and provide ores or equally important and for us to see that be reasserted is valuable no matter where it takes us on a specific policy, that is to understand what the country needs, the internet infrastructure to evolve just as aggressively as snapchat or facebook, and that if you really want to realize your greatest am mission busy what is possible in the internet, innovation has to be a concept not reserved just for edge providers. Its a concept critical to network so theres a little restoration and balance about the question that it think were encouraged by. And i think he is a visionary and focused on the concept for many years. And a light touch. The market move as breakneck speed and theres a huge amount of futility in the meetings. The market shifts radically and businesses dont have the luxury of sitting on decisions decisiox months or eight months and the new commission is committed to that kind of speed of action and the recognition of the value of a lighter touch and a market in which its very difficult, particularly from daytoday. So, all we ask for is a fair environment that recognizes those dynamics, investment, innovation,light touch and a recognition of the importance of infrastructure for the future of the information age. Host to drill down into one of those regulations, broadly speaking theres a very hyperpartisan discourse right now in american society, certainly on capitol hill, and Net Neutrality has been part of the partisanship. Is there a would to depot lit depot lit size Net Neutrality. Guest this is a very deeply frustrating aspect of this debate. If you really want to understand it well you should divide the commissions actions under chairman wheeler into two decisions. One to protect the open internet and there isnt a partisan divide and not a vicious disagreement about the importance of those values ongoing and continuing. And a second decision, which to me wasmer substantially described as a power grab in reclassifying carriers under common karen, Telecommunications Law that the commission would have an unbounded amount of authority to regulate the internet in ways they had not before. That part of the decision is highly conflicted and highly controversial, and i think highly unnecessary. Thats what is confused the debate around the nut Net Neutrality and allows people obfuscate the fact theres little difference about the ongoing commitment to an open internet and theres a tactic used by those who prefer a different model, to collapse the two decisions into one and suggest one is a functional econsecutive lent of the other. Whether its senator thune who talked about the importance of protecting the core elements of Net Neutrality and theres been advocacy which has been unflinchingly consistent for years that the support Net Neutrality. The only thing we have thrown a hissy fit about is the radical decision to change 20 years of telecommunication policy that had been bipartisanly supported, not to regulate the internet using 1930s and 1940s communication models and thats the thing the commission insistedded on dog that led on doing that led to hottest part of the controversy. As we go forward thats the party we should focus on. If we want infrastructure deployment to increase and want Rural America to become less economical. If we want 5g to be successful, which depends havely on investment and backbone infrastructure, we should use regulatory model that dont retard that and common carriage was a mistake, is a mistake and will be the major obstacle to those ambitiouses. Host do you see a return to powell doctrine. The powell doctrineves to a general powell. Host im talking about years of Net Neutrality. Guest i have always been extremely proud when i was chairman in 2004tie 2005, that it i gave the first speech that talked about the internet fee dom which is talk about as internet or Net Neutrality. This is my point. Could have assert the importance of that at the same time i was the chairman that classified Internet Service as an information service. The understanding that was the compact that the internet isp communication would be lightly regulated in order to encrypt them to move from their only structures to this one to the knew one and they had to stay cog cognizant of the importance to consumer. When i articulated the provisions, they were cast as consumer rights. The right of the consumer to go where they want, the consumer to do what they want. Over the years chairman have change it and it not for the better, by make it about the producer. Net neutrality wars north been consumerrer. Theyre about different sets of corporate interests who want advantages or disadvantage imposed on the other through the use of rules. This now about netflix and comcast or startup and another company. And we have lost sight of the fact the rules were originally conceived of as the right of the consumer, and i think on that, i hope we are continuing to be committed to that and i know in my industry theyre an unshakable commit to it, not because were goodharted good hearted people. It makes the most sense if asked chairman wheeler and pass comment is with were so incented to block or charge for prioritization urethral, why for 20 years did we never do it. Why was it never a compelling strategy . Because is isnt. Its hostile to your customers. Its hostile to your network economics. Better serve i them with a high throughput and high quality structure and thats what well continue to do no matter what the rules are. Host to look a little the future of your industry, charter and comcast have invoked their wireless spectrum leasting option with verizon and there are a lot of opportunities for cable to go back into the wireless space. But what can is this going to be gamechanger for the industry and how can cable compete in an environment where the wireless carriers are offering unlimited data. Guest ill key off something you said, go back into the wireless world. One of the biggest things we have to change in our thinking and telecome is to act like wireless and wire line are different. They really no longer are. 70 , by 2021, according to cisco will be moved over wireline structure. This future of 5g depends whether or not theres wifi in the system and whether the fixed wired line broadband the traffic this. Our industry deemploys over 500,000 hot spots. A huge permanent of what our customer does is over wireless infrastructure, whether out of the home or even in home. Think we are already the Wireless Industry and have been for quite a long time, and i think we still are living in the 19961934 bucket way to think about the world. But comcast and charter and cox as much wireless toys as anybody. Only thing they have not been is an owner of proprietary spectrum uses, selling handsets to consumers. Why they have empowered iphones and ipods and use i would identifies put not a product offering. So theres discussion of them going back into that market and they have so much invested and consumers place a premium on mobile, and if you look at the great creators in Silicon Valley and software folks, almost everything being made is for mobile devices. The facebook revenue growth, everything has to be mobile. Its completely natural for the industry to continue to expand it understanding and its place in the wireless space because they cant really divorce or distinguish it from their fixed businesses in a meaningful way. Host kind of a back to the future scenario. Guest yaw, perfect. Host you mentioned an important term, infrastructure. Everyone wants to broadband to be a component of whatever infrastructure bill come out of the administration and congress but its unclear what that bill will look like and its not even clear that Something Like senator thunes mobile now bill will get passed. So, what can the industry do on it own or with the fcc to achiever the infrastructure needs and deployment that its looking for. I think there have been rick decades of lack of good focus on americas critical infrastructures. Ive been proud that it you compare most critical infrastructures to the one were involved in, the difference is night and day. We give roads and bridges and sewage and Water Systems dplus, dminus grades in america. Not attracting capital. Crumb billing infrastructure. The beauty of broadband is its been a stellar growth in comparison to those. It attracts phenomenal amounts of private capital and investment and grows in output and value to the consumer, gets better, not worse, at lower prices. So thats not confuse the two. Let not talk about broadband as the same problem as roads and bridges and water and use the same kind of governmental intervention of the same type. Rural infrastructure is always been a problem and always will be because of the fundamental uneconomic nature of the last five to six percent bulk. We forget that 90 of america is classified by the Census Bureau is rural. Its massive country and large swaths swaths swaths swaths of gee agoography that are hoss style deploying a network and we have never shied away from the reality that you have to make what is uneconomic cal more economical. And that can only be done in two ways. Either radically lower the cost, what it takes to serve, or increase the amount of my style pay for the service. In terms of reducing costs, i think one of the things i hope time around people will be more thoughtful about it weather have many nor Network Tools in the toolbox. I dont think the programs are thoughtful enough about whether satellite is the solution, stop pretending, its wire, wire broadband when make economic sense to reach homes of hundred miles apart in a mountainous region. Satellite we should figure out how to invest and use satellite to better serve because of cos of much lower or mobile wireless for fixed wireless. More sophisticated about the technology, think. We have to be more disciplined in our financial programs be resident we put the money. Ive been through this 50 times in my career and seems to me every time we turn around, money will always try to creep black to the part of the market that are semi economic, and that means we end up serving what we call underserved instead of unserved. Communitied that already have broadband, that the private market was able to support, and the government comes running in and subsidizes overbuilding and calling it competition and communities who have zero broadband done or up remain unserved because too much of the money got sent to the other. My belief as a citizen and as a Telecom Expert is, nobody should get to eat until everybody has got ton eat once and i think theres a lot of america that is still waiting for the first iteration of the solution and the money is taken off and beam have eaten at least one. To serving in a disminimummed way is important itch also think what institution wes use to manage the programs are important. The long history of support programs that have been very tied into one particular technology or the other. Im not a big fan of the Rural Utility Service not because theyre bad people or havent done good work but its a very tightly net overall infrastructure, and within that, that i money that goes to rural but there are other Summary Judgment important broadband provider, including us, wireless guys, who should have better access to the opportunity to compete for those space is. So i think thats really important. Lastly i would say the ftc is terrific institution for this issue, as it has always been. Woven do sweep telecom law is the commitment to universal service and universal service means u upick witness and ford kyle remember being hauled into the ted stephens office to be reminded there are alaskans out in the middle of the most rural and desolate parts of the environment who have to be on the network, nor hawaii, and theres not a chairman or commissioner who hasnt nobody that one critical part of the obligation is working that problem. Commend the heeler commission to try to shift money toward broadband, toward the problems, toward use of the technologies, funds mortared i think all of that is very thoughtful and on the right track and if i were congress i would continue to work with the fcc to nix fix the problem. Host given the odd scale do you see further consolidation and maybe some crosspollination in the stray to get this buildout . Guest no. No. I dont. I dont think that consolidation or scale or the explicit purpose of more economically serving parts of the country is necessarily in the offing. If anything you see a lot of major wired Infrastructure Companies reordering their portfolio that way, meaning the phone companies who. Verizon who have been selling off fixed lines lines ad diversifying intenses and other spaces itself dont know whether consolidation were seeing today or tomorrow will necessarily tell us anything. That particular issue. I think that the consolidation that has been taking place has been an effort to be more strategic, and to be more diversified. So, all of us city on businesses that are all under stress from one thing or other. Natural an industry and company to diversify sources. Eye im sure that verizons argument for aol and and the its part of the charter thesis, but i think sectly, Everybody Knows they have a whole lot of experimenting to do. And whether you subscribe to the narrative or not. Randall stevenson will tell you the strategic tell of the importance of experimentation, and others a story of innovation and narrative through core bundles using a combination everybody is out there trying really new and novel combinations and i think their merger activity is strategic to trying to have the assets to do that better. Host is it time to reorganize the fcc some maybe combine the bureaus . Get rid of some . Guest my theory is every new chairman is not only a policy wonk. They are an administrator, and i think they are a ceo and i think they are as much responsible for the morale of the great men and women who work there and the organizational strength of the institution. People forget the fcc is a big place. Close to when i was it there was 2,000 people and a serious budget. So we dont get to see the fcc chairman in his office going over the budget, going over the staff, going over the pay and all that, but this particular one will have to move, which is going to be pretty preliminary indicate complicated. Its part of their responsibility. Making sure is maps with the market and important and it should map we the with the market as seen through the eyes and ears of consumers. When i talk to neighbors theyre perplexed the way we talk about the desspirit pieces of the world they experience. Sometimes they dont see any seamless difference between broadband and what facebook is. You take an issue like privacy, but the commission pretend that the consumer thinks of these two things separately. Theres no separation. Nobody i say to my son are you going get to on the internet, the internet to him is a combination of the that that makes it go and the thing he goes to. And to act