 Hello, and welcome to everyone joining us in the room and via the live stream online. For all of you, I encourage you to continue the conversation online using the hashtag pound open internet, all one word. I'm Sarah Morris, Senior Policy Counsel for the Open Technology Institute at New America Foundation, and I'm thrilled to introduce a really great group of participants here today to talk about the future of our communications ecosystem. We're here today to talk about the open internet. To hear about the status of the case in the DC circuit where the FCC's open internet order is being challenged, but we're also here to look more broadly at the problems that have emerged as the FCC grapples with the scope of its authority over modern communications networks. The challenges that result affect us all and will continue to affect us all. Arbitrary regulatory distinctions mean that federal policies are leaving important fundamental principles behind in the internet era. Principles that ensure our communications network connect everyone, everywhere. That our networks serve as open platforms that allow each of us to access the content of our choosing and to communicate unencumbered. That new competitors can actually compete on a level playing field with incumbent providers. And ultimately, that a digital divide marked by racial, socioeconomic, or geographic lines is not perpetuated. The values that underlie these principles, the benchmarks of what is known as common carriage, date back over a century. They aren't new. And the FCC needn't reinvent the rules, reinvent the wheel. So we'll discuss here what a modernized application of these principles might look like in the context of 21st century communications. Joining me in the discussion today are Matt Wood, policy director at Free Press, Stephen Renderos, national organizer for the Center for Media Justice, Marty Donagite, Donakey, did I say it right? From AARP, Angie Cronenberg from Comtel, and Susan Crawford, professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, co-director at the Berkman Center, former special assistant for science technology and innovation policy to President Barack Obama, and author of Captive Audience, The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the Gilded Age. Susan, we're so pleased to have you here, and I know you have much to say on this topic, so I'll turn the floor over to you for opening remarks, after which we'll proceed to a conversation among all the participants. Well, thank you, Sarah, and welcome to everybody, and thanks, particularly to the New America Foundation for hosting us. So there's a spray of issues in communications, policy, and law, and a lot of shiny objects and a lot of confusion, so it must be relief to especially the journalists in the crowd here that the case being argued on Monday at the D.C. Circuit, it's called Verizon versus FCC, actually presents a moment of grandeur, a very significant historical moment. The question presented by the case is, does the U.S. government have any role to play when it comes to ensuring ubiquitous, open, world-class, interconnected, reasonably priced internet access? Does the government have good reasons to ensure that facility in America? I believe it does, both for competitiveness reasons, because in Asia in particular, countries are adopting industrial policies pushing towards exactly that end, and also because we have an obligation to ensure a thriving middle class that can help this country remain strong for generations. So this case being argued on Monday that we'll discuss today is situated in history for two powerful reasons. It is an attack on the idea that the government has any role in ensuring open, world-class, ubiquitous, interconnected, reasonably priced, high-speed internet access, and it's an attack on that idea both at the administrative level, so whether FCC has delegated authority from Congress to do what it did in the open internet role that we'll discuss, and administratively that attack is very strong, and it stems from some elaborate legal gymnastics that many people in this room are very highly qualified to talk about, and they'll talk about it in detail if you want, but that's all about policy. Those decisions made by the FCC were made against the background of assumed legal authority, and we'll get through those policy decisions one way or another. They'll get decided. That's the administrative level. What I'd like to highlight this afternoon is the profound, the profound attack this case represents on congressional authority to say anything about high-speed internet access under the Commerce Clause. Each talk has just one message, and so I get one thing that you will remember today, and that one thing that's so important is that the DC Circuit must firmly squash Verizon's First Amendment claim that any oversight of its high-speed internet access service would be unconstitutional. The DC Circuit must stop this argument in its tracks. Verizon says that in its capacity, when it's wearing that hat as a high-speed internet access provider, it is the same as the Washington Post, and that any effort by government to constrain its ability to slice and dice and prioritize and make deals with content providers about that high-speed internet access should be found unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Now, Verizon has plenty of good reasons to make this astonishing and laughable argument. It's an attempt to constitutionalize the regulation of general purpose communications networks. They want to move questions about the oversight of those networks out of the political realm, out of the political branch, congressional delegated power to the FCC, over to the courts, and make sure that there's a roadblock, a very tall constitutional roadblock to any oversight. They seek to remove any threat, any threat of oversight over high-speed internet access. We've seen this before. In the Lochner era, exactly the same claims were made by companies seeking to remove regulatory oversight, but even then, telephone companies did not have the hutzpah to claim that the First Amendment would bar any oversight or regulation of their transport activities. Verizon's goal here is to make this sound like a serious, legitimate constitutional argument. If they get there, that's a win. If it sounds serious, it's a win for them. Because that will make some court, and they're hoping it's the Supreme Court, someday, and they'll make this argument over and over and over again, agree that this is a serious question, that oversight of high-speed internet access or any general purpose transport network raises constitutional questions about speech. And then they'll pivot, and they'll say, well, in light of these very serious questions, you can't possibly defer to what the administrative agency, in this case, the FCC, has done to exert oversight over us. They will repeat this over and over again, this laughable argument, this happened with health care. Just keep saying it and hope that someone believes you that there's a constitutional claim at issue here. Well, I'm here to tell you that the government has very good reasons to oversee the operation of these general purpose transport networks, and these reasons are so good, and Verizon's claim is so absurd that it's important that the DC Circuit make a plain statement about this. Now, remember why we have a First Amendment. It's to keep government from directing the content of messages, from favoring certain points of view. What is the likelihood that governments in the net neutrality order at issue in this particular case or any other arena of communications policy over general purpose transport networks is actually suppressing speech or attempting to favor certain messages over others? I'll tell you what that likelihood is. It's zero. That's not what's going on here. There is no subterfuge, no attempt to censor. Verizon will say it's being forced to subsidize speech by being obliged to be neutral. That's nonsense. Fifty years ago, those same arguments were made by segregationists saying that their lunch counters were being used to subsidize sit-ins. Those arguments only rated a paragraph 50 years ago. They were disgraceful at the time. Here, sure, everything subsidizes something else, but there has to be some line. Scalia said this clearly about 10 years ago that a curbstone philosopher would claim that everything is related to everything else. But there's a line, and a transport network is not subsidizing the speech that travels over it, certainly not subsidizing messages, understandable messages by an audience with which it does not agree. That's not going on in this case. The DC Circuit needs to slam the door on this First Amendment argument decisively, because what Verizon is really trying to do in this entire case is protect its profitable position. It wants power to squeeze profit everywhere, both at its interconnection points with other networks, and in the last mile by prioritizing and discriminating with respect to traffic. But economic loss is not a First Amendment injury. Verizon is free to speak anytime it wants to about anything, merely allowing other people's speech to cross its lines does not amount to compelled speech. Luckily, in a recent Supreme Court decision, Justice Roberts very methodically made that clear in the context of the Solomon Amendment case. So we're hoping that the DC Circuit pays attention to that. And Verizon is not being singled out. These companies who are at issue in the open net order are regulated entities who provide wires and transmission lines and use rights of way to provide general purpose communications into U.S. households. Yes, there's a line between regulated entities and applications that use the internet. That's a line. It doesn't mean that the regulated entities are being singled out as speakers for their messages. The sidewalk is different from the conversation. And right now we're worried about the sidewalk's unconstrained power to rise up and make more money by picking and choosing the particular conversations of which it approves. Importantly, government has plenty of good reasons to prefer open networks to private carriage, to ensure ubiquitous access, just as our phone system was the envy of the world when it was built, and to make sure our infrastructure is world-class. Indeed, the First Amendment and its protection of dissent and freedom of the press is demeaned by Verizon's argument in this case. We're an ahistorical country, but surely we have not forgotten where all this came from. And we have common sense. Verizon is not a newspaper being forced to support views it opposes. It's trying to use the Miami Herald case to say that's who it is. Nor is it wearing this hat a television distributor exercising editorial discretion over which stations or programs to include in this repertoire. That's another case it's trying to use, the Turner case from 1994. Now left to its own devices, Verizon providing high-speed internet access would like to cable-ize internet access, would like to choose programs and channels. So this claim has a crucial timing element to it. And a chicken and egg aspect here, it's got to be squelched before it becomes true all on its own. Studies have shown that the benefits of open transport communications networks to all of society far exceed the short-term benefits to carriers of extracting deals that help their stock price. This is not about regulating the internet. This is about regulating internet access and the congressional authority to do so. So to sum up, the DC circuit has to make this clear. Or we risk giving up on oversight over a basic network input into absolutely everything we do. We need to reclaim the regulatory ideal which unleashes human capital that is now stunted in this country. This won't be disruptive to those of us who are on the top who have fine educations. It will be true, though, that failing to do so risks wreaking havoc. We have a shared purpose as a nation. We empower the wrongly disenfranchised. It's in our collective self-interest to get this right. And this appellate case is part of the fabric of this story. Verizon versus FCC is the right case in which the DC circuit can make clear that Verizon is not a First Amendment actor when it is transporting internet access. Because Verizon is so clearly wrong in making that argument. And I look forward to the DC circuit explaining why Verizon is wrong, slowly, clearly, and methodically. And I hope the argument on Monday is illuminating in that regard. Thank you for giving me the honor of listening to me, and I look forward to hearing from everybody else on this panel. Thanks. Thank you, Susan, for that compelling examination of a core issue in the open internet order challenge. I'd like to turn now to you, Matt, and let you give us a bit more context and background on the case, where we are, how we got there. And then we'll turn to the other panelists to give them the opportunity to explain what all of this means for them and for their constituencies. Sure. Thank you, Sarah. It's great to be here, as always. Susan's done her usual brilliant job framing this case and telling you what net neutrality is not. It is not content regulation. It's not speech regulation. It's simply regulation of a communications network. And I love that line about the scheme using the sidewalk for the conversation. I mean, we've had a regulated phone network for a while, and in some ways it still do. But that doesn't mean the government or anybody is regulating what you and I say to each other on that phone. It means that there is a basic guarantee of openness and access and universal service and affordability for that line that connects us all. So that's what net neutrality isn't. It isn't some sort of content regulation. It isn't regulating the internet, even though people will try that tired line on you even today. What it is is a simple statement of the century's old principles that the person you pay to ship something for you can't mess with the contents of what they're carrying for you. Simply saying that contrary to Verizon's claim, ISPs can't edit the internet. They can't edit your email messages. They can't tell you which websites you can go to and which ones you can't go to. They can't say you can use some applications and services, but not others. As long as those applications and services aren't somehow harmful to their network, you should be able to use any one of them. They can't say some sites will cost you more and some services will cost you more, especially those, coincidentally, that compete with our own services. So a company like Comcast might say, you know, we really like it when you pay us twice. We like it when you pay us for cable TV service and we like it when you also pay us for internet access. Wouldn't it be nice if we could keep you from relying on the internet access piece for all of your video and keep that second check coming to us every month for TV services? This isn't hypothetical. This isn't abstract. This is something that they have tried to do, and that's really the genesis of the open internet case we have today, the predecessor case in the DC circuit that basically ran from 2007 through 2010 and finished up just as this one was kicking off at the FCC. So it's not hypothetical. It's something that I promise you ISPs want to do today. You hear them talking about it at panels and conferences like this one. It's slightly fancier, perhaps, in places like Aspen, where they say we should be allowed to, quote, experiment with new schemes for paying for content. And what they mean by that is more money flowing into the ISPs' coffers, not only from the people who pay them to deliver content to them. I pay Comcast, which is a shame to say, for that internet connection. And they want to have the ability to charge also Google or Facebook or Netflix or whomever, more importantly, the smaller companies that aren't quite as well-heeled as those guys are today. They want to have the ability to charge them as well for getting that content to me and creating all these additional revenue streams. And as Susan said, monetizing the network in all those sorts of ways. So how does that get us to today? What are these open internet rules that are under challenge in the court this week actually do? How well do they live up to that principle of what I just said they should do, which is basically keep the ISP, the conduit itself, from interfering with the message it's carrying for you? They do a decent job, I guess you'd have to say. I mean, sometimes you'll hear people say, well, there have been no complaints. There have been no high-profile adjudications at the FCC, so obviously that means there's no need for the rules, right? I think it just shows that the rules have in some way worked. They basically kept the lid on some of these worst ISP gatekeeping abuses. And they have worked to constrain some of their behaviors, even though, again, you hear them talking about it, saying, boy, wouldn't it be nice if we could do this? They haven't constrained every bit of bad behavior. We saw last year AT&T on their wireless network refused to make an application that Apple sells called FaceTime available to everybody who got wireless service from AT&T. They said, you can have it as long as you pay us for unlimited voice minutes and as long as you're paying us on a metered basis for the data you use. A lot like that Comcast model. You pay us twice. As long as you keep paying us for unlimited voice, then you're free to go and substitute something else for it as long as that check is guaranteed and as long as we're getting paid as the carrier two or even three times. Sure, go off then and innovate and have fun, but only once they have discriminated against the competitive content, the innovative application that might take away some of their legacy business. I said the open internet rules have worked to some degree. Of course, it's no secret that FreePress was not happy with a lot of the compromises struck when that order was adopted in 2010 by the FCC. Lots of open internet advocates were not satisfied with those compromises. I'll just touch on three really quickly and finish as the third one on the authority piece, which is, as Susan said, maybe not as compelling as the first amendment piece, but is very important in the case, and in fact will come first, most likely in the case, the judges will first consider whether the FCC has authority to adopt these rules at all. The first compromise we did not like was this wireless disparity that we've talked about in the past, where the FCC has different rules that apply to wireless and wired networks. And the way that plays out is that on a wireless network, the carrier has no obligation to uphold nondiscrimination principles. They can basically say, you know, we feel like charging you more for this application because we can and try and stop us. And that's allowed, or at least it's conscient by the FCC's rules, if not encouraged. They also said that the wireless carriers could not block applications that compete with their own telephony services. So think of something like Skype or Google Voice or fill in your favorite. Those are protected, but other applications like a video application, a music app, a social media app, those could be fair game, not just for discrimination, not just for differential treatment, but for blocking by the ISP. That's the first problem, the wireless disparity. Second problem, I'll talk about it even more briefly, where there are a lot of loopholes in the FCC order, and we have Angie Cronenberg here on our panel, and I hate to talk about the FCC and some incomplete definitions they might have left in the order because they all work so hard to make this important statement and preserve these principles for us. But things like, this might set off some nightmares for some people in the audience who spent years working on this, but things like reasonable network management, whatever that may mean, or managed services which really nobody has defined even to this day. There are these kinds of loopholes and landmines in the order that may be very legitimate ways for ISPs to manage their network and may be ways for them to abuse that privilege and abuse their gatekeeper power. Third way in which the order was unsatisfactory to us and to a lot of people was this authority basis, and Susan touched upon this, so I'll try to finish quickly and turn it over to the rest of our all-star panel to talk about the real world implications of this authority question, not get too lost in the dry legal part of it, but basically what the FCC has done for the last decade or more is continue down this mistaken path of saying, you know, the internet and internet access services more precisely are not really transmission services. They're kind of like a transmission service, but they're also different enough that we don't have the same kind of authority over them as we do over something like a telephone network. However, we still have some authority and it's, you know, very much unclear as to what that authority is. I wouldn't say that's necessarily a wrong argument or a bad legal theory, it's just not the cleanest one the FCC has available to it. And so the question in this case really on the authority issue is not will this be the end of the line for the FCC? They have other options available to them that we think they can and frankly should have taken a long time ago, but it might be the end of this sort of regulatory twilight zone in which broadband internet access service and other broadband telecommunication services have lived for the better part of the last decade now and now through two presidential administrations, and that's what we're going to see as the argument plays itself out and as the judges finally render a decision sometime later this year or maybe early next year if it slips that long is does the FCC have this authority at claims over network management practices or does it need to go back and try yet again? The problem is that this is not only something that affects that neutrality. If the FCC is given a broad decision and a broad loss, I agree that a narrow loss is more likely, but if it's given a broad loss they might be told, you know, you have no authority whatsoever over broadband communications over modern communications networks and that would be a disaster because we need the FCC to make sure we have a level playing field so that competitive companies like those Angie now represents are available to provide service to people and most importantly so that constituencies and communities like those that Marty and Stephen are here to represent have access to that world-class modern communications network that we so very much need even as the technology and the content running over it changes. So that's more than enough for me. I'll stop there and just ask Angie if I missed anything, if I got anything wrong about the compromises that were made during that very exciting, I guess might be one word for it, but also very tense time at the FCC three years ago. I'd like to give just a little bit of the perspective that I had as legal advisor to Commissioner Clyburn and I will admit that her whole team, her legal team was involved in the consideration of the FCC's order, but I was primarily responsible for representing the commissioner as we reviewed the order and had discussions with our fellow commissioners, the chairman's office and the staff. I wanted to take us back and just broaden a little bit about what was going on at the time that we were considering the FCC order. First, there was wide public support for the commission to act to do something. Why is this? Well, I think it was because folks began to realize how important it is to have access to the Internet as we had all grown to love it, to be able to access video voice alternatives, to be able to surf the web, check the Washington Post website, the New York Times and this idea that we'd have to pay more or the content provider would have to pay more to reach us was sort of a scary idea. How is that going to change what it is that consumers were doing every single day with the Internet? In addition, there was a huge economy growing around the Internet and we'd seen lots of innovation, alternative options, new competition and that's very exciting, especially because it's really expensive to reach consumers and here's an alternative to reach consumers in a new and exciting way. Many of the staff had grown up during this Internet age. I began work in the mid 90s. I remember when you couldn't attach anything to an email. I remember when we used to talk about whether or not you'd be able to provide voice or video service over the Internet. So the idea that we had actually gotten to this place, I think we all were a little humbled at the FCC. We wanted to be sure that we were taking steps to protect consumers but at the same time the rules wouldn't be so onerous that we really would halter or somehow stop new innovations that could happen that would benefit consumers. Another thing I wanted to point out to you all is that Congress had actually become quite aware of how important the Internet was. In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Congress had directed the commission to spend time and money putting together a national broadband plan. How can we get broadband? How can we get high speed Internet access to all Americans? That's affordable. And then they also provided in that act $7.2 billion to build broadband in America to make sure that all consumers would have access to this new, exciting service. They recognized it very much like how electric service had been when it first began, how telephone service began, and realized that this helps equal the playing field for consumers and provides them new opportunities. Here are ways that we can create economic opportunities and rule America. And the president, too, had included an open Internet policy and his presidential platform. So these broad discussions were going on, the importance of an open Internet going on. And I think the commission, you know, really wanted to ensure that, one, yes, consumers can have access to this open Internet. They have the opportunity to speak. They have the opportunity to reach competitive opportunities. And at the same time, we were very humbled with the position that we were in. And we wanted high level rules that would provide this. And we knew that, yes, it wasn't going to please everyone. And perhaps that meant that we actually got to the right compromise that on both sides, not everyone was happy. I now have a different hat on. I represent Comtel, which is the trade association representing competitive carriers. And the non-discrimination principles that are in the open Internet order and in the rules are really important. The commission laid out very clearly in this order how it is that large ISPs who also have alternative services, video services, voice services, have an incentive to discriminate against competitors. So small companies that are trying to compete over the Internet and offer alternative services to consumers would be put at a disadvantage without these rules. And so that's the perspective that I wanted to provide both from my old position and in my new position. And I'm happy to be here and to continue this discussion with you all. Great. Well, thank you, Angie. We'll definitely want to hear more from you about how your current members and the people you represent today are put at a disadvantage when we don't have certainty about just how the communications network and this public network hang together and serve everybody and the kind of benefits that your members can provide. But as I said earlier, not with no offense to the businesses that are impacted by this rule, I think even more important are the real people and communities who are impacted by these rules and by lack of certainty about their communications future. And that's why we're so excited to have Marty and Stephen here. Marty from AARP, obviously, a powerful voice on a lot of issues that are in play here in Washington, but especially on this issue as well and on the impacts that lack of affordable and universal communication services can have on all Americans, but especially on aging populations who have as much need as anybody for these services but maybe don't always adapt to the newest service instantly and need to have some kind of certainty in all of this changing technology landscape. So please, Marty, whatever you'd like to share about the impacts your members have seen. All right. Well, thank you very much and thank you New America Foundation and colleagues here at the Dias for this great opportunity to talk about potential impacts to the 50 plus population regarding this decision that other hearing next weekend in imminent decision. AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with a membership of more than 37 million that and we help people turn their goals, particularly the 50 plus population, they turn your goals and dreams into possibilities, real possibilities. We help to strengthen communities and we fight for the issues that matter most of families, we believe such as healthcare, employment and income security, retirement planning, affordable utilities, yes, and protection from financial abuse. Broadband services, the technology itself, many of you in the rumor, much more defined, specialists and experts than myself, but I can tell you that at AARP, we see broadband as a successful connector for the 50 plus population. We understand that while all people have a fundamental need to stay connected to one another and be part of a wider community, being connected is particularly important for the 50 plus population. Older adults find out later in life many times that there are more potential opportunities after the age of 50 than before, such as becoming an entrepreneur, you know, starting new businesses, just coming up with those those dreams and goals that they wish they had thought of and proceeded with when they were 20, but now after a life full of work, they have an opportunity to engage in that. This 50 plus population in this country is growing very rapidly and projected to increase by 21% by 2020 and those over 65 growing by 33% by the year 2020, which is just a minute away. All of the communities and all of this nation really need to go to work and find ways to keep this very large and vibrant growing 50 plus population not only engaged, but also connected. We'd like to talk about the technology infrastructure in broadband and the implications and the impacts for this population. We know that lifelong learning opportunities are very high on the list for the 50 plus population and they get an opportunity to study in local institutions of higher education and intergenerational access to public schools and community facilities, access to public services offered by federal, state and local governments where information on critical, life-saving and life-enhancing benefits are online now and those populations or those adults who have no access or who have limited access really value broadband and the internet to getting to those benefits. And again, I mentioned the access to entrepreneurial and small business startup opportunities very important. I want to talk very quickly so we can move to questions and answers about how we see this rapid technological change happening in telecommunications. AARP firmly believes that as the technology involves, consumer protections cannot become obsolete. They must move and transition with the technology. There is no stopping point. There is no tipping point. They must move as the technology evolves for the protection of the consumers and in the nation's public interests as well. We know that the classification issue is at the core or at the heart of a lot of the distress right now regarding the hearing next week and other telecommunications issues. We try to help our members understand the difference regarding the classification, telecommunication services, the FCC has so much more authority under that right, under that classification, as opposed to the information service. So we try to help our members understand the difference. But network neutrality, AARP supports an open internet. We support the consumer's right to access information openly without discrimination of content or service. So we are firmly supporters in that camp. We believe that policymakers should ensure that consumers have the right to use their internet connections to access, to use, send, receive, or offer any lawful content or services that they choose over the internet. And that consumers should also have the right to attach any device to the operator's broadband network as long as that device does not damage or degrade the subscriber's use of the network or other subscriber's use of the network. AARP is very supportive of the FCC's role as a gatekeeper over this very critical, vibrant, rapidly changing technology and its infrastructure. We believe that the FCC has a role. And it must be maintained. It must be protected. Broadband is no longer the fledgling technology of the 80s and 90s needing the nurturing of a light touch or a restrained touch of regulations. Instead, broadband technology and what the internet represents right now is a very full-grown, robust technology and industry that's very critical to our nation and the public interest of our nation and very critical to our 50-plus population and quality of life issues as all of us age. We feel that the public for its patients, its encouragement, and to a great extent its subsidization of this great innovation technology, broadband, deserves a federal communications commission whose role will be to protect, strengthen universal access of not only connectivity but of the content and the services that the internet will offer. Great. Thank you so much, Marty. We'll come back to you as well and I want to get Sarah back in and everybody else down there too. But let's finish last but not least with Steven. Marty talked about broadband as I would say it as the basic communications platform today no longer something that is fledgling. What does it mean for communities who don't have access to that basic connectivity? What kind of impacts do we see when we don't have equal and open access and affordable access for every population, not just those few who can afford to buy it from Verizon when they claim it's theirs and they can edit it if they want to. Thank you, Matt. You know, first of all, thank you so much for having me on this panel. It's an extreme honor to be on this panel with so many folks that I have the deepest amount of respect for and I'm just humble to be here. So I'm here with the Center for Media Justice and but I should be truthful who I'm actually here representing are the 160 members of the Media Action Grassroots Network, which is a national network that we coordinate with membership across the country. And for us, the open internet really has an impact to three areas. We know that it's vital to the health and well-being of the communities that are represented through our network, which are very much so communities of color, rural communities, low income, poor and working class communities. It's vital towards their health and well-being. It's important in protecting the public interest, and in particular, those same vulnerable communities that without these protections can be priced out of this vital infrastructure or sometimes relegated towards a second class internet that impacts their ability to communicate effectively and participate in this kind of global 21st century economy. And lastly, we see an impact being the open internet is vital in protecting a platform that has democratized our communications and really provided us an effective platform, a dissident platform, where we can voice our opposition. And I'll go into each of those a little bit more. For us, this case is about control and ownership of this vital infrastructure. And these are pre-existing tensions that communities of color, rural communities, poor and working class communities are all too familiar with. One of our network members, Young People's Project, which is an organization in Mississippi, they run this math and digital literacy program for children in elementary, middle school and high school, because they know how critical these skills are to a quality education. And they're engaged in this work trying to connect education to digital literacy just because it's so vital. Around jobs, broadband has been this engine behind economic development. This is an interesting study done by the Center for Social Inclusion in the Mississippi NAACP that took a look at broadband in the Mississippi Delta. And they analyzed zip codes and looked at how many broadband providers were in each of those zip codes. And zip codes that had four to seven broadband providers, internet service providers, there were about 378 businesses. And zip codes that had zero, there were about seven. And it's no surprise that a lot of those zip codes very much dovetailed over with rural communities, poor communities, communities of color. So what we learned from these struggles is that when we lack agency over these critical infrastructures, our communities suffer. This case and the fight for an open internet is our fight because it's directly tied to all of our other fights for community health and well-being. And as other folks has kind of alluded to, there's corporations are oftentimes always trying to look for more ways to, you know, make more profit, which is natural. They're corporations. So when profit making inevitably conflicts with the public interest, you know, and a lot of cases profit making usually wins out. But it doesn't have to be this way. Network neutrality is a principle that protects the public. And when this erodes, we face an internet ecosystem that preys on the public. You know, we look shortly after the FCC implemented its network neutrality rules, MetroPCS, you know, came out with a tiered data plan. You know, you could pay 40 bucks and you'd get unlimited, what they called unlimited web, you know, web browsing and you could get unlimited, I think unlimited YouTube. For a little bit more, you can get additional websites. And we start seeing this kind of tiered structure that is very similar to us when we think about cable. Well, MetroPCS is a company that, well, now it's T-Mobile. But MetroPCS was a company back then who was specifically marketing towards communities of color. So think about the internet experience that we're inviting people into when we don't have these vital protections. So when corporations are in a position to pick winners and losers, the losers tend to be those most vulnerable communities, communities of color, poor, working class communities. Without an open internet, we are denied yet again one more platform and arguably for us in our day and age, the biggest platform to express our opinions that reflect the best interest of our communities. This is relevant now more than ever as the president in Congress debate, you know, what action to take in Syria. It's vitally important that we have access to media platforms that allow us to oppose military force, to call for a peaceful intervention, that allow us to hear the stories of groups like the Iraq veterans against the war and challenge the obvious anti-Muslim racism that we see that is so much part of the mainstream media. You know, I think a lot about in this particular issue, a lot of the companies that, you know, are against network neutrality are the same companies that have provided this massive amounts of data to the NSA, you know, of users all across the US. And an open internet was the platform that allowed for us to hear of these secret surveillance programs and come to light. It's been the online communities that have fought back against policies like SOPA and PIPA. It's a vital platform that allows us to build power and challenge when it's necessary. So just in conclusion, I think those are the three pieces that we really see as important. We need an open internet for our health and well-being. We need the open internet for to protect the public interest and protect those most vulnerable. And we need the open internet as a platform for dissent. Thank you, Steven. That was very compelling. I want to take a moment and just broaden the scope a bit and think a little bit about this worst case scenario that Susan described earlier where the court would just sort of issue a sweeping ruling that says the FCC has no authority to regulate broadband. And to think about other policies beyond net neutrality and the open internet order, that this lack of authority would affect. And I can start off by flagging the Universal Service Fund and I think that probably Marty and Angie could add to this. But what we're seeing in work at the FCC and trying to broaden the scope of the fund or broaden the scope of the things supported within the Universal Service Fund to include broadband service in the context of Lifeline, the Lifeline program, which provides a discount for low-cost telephone service. We've seen calls from groups across the country to expand this program to allow it to support standalone broadband. And we've also seen a sort of inability or an inability at the FCC to work and extend those regulations to include broadband within the Lifeline. I mean, I know we've gotten there partially, but to actually support broadband as a standalone service within the Lifeline Fund. And so I know there's lots of the scope of the regulatory authority over traditional telephone companies involves much more than non-discrimination. And so I'd kind of like to dig in a little bit to some of these other related issues that might be affected. Well, actually my worst case scenario was even worse than that, which would be that there'd be no congressional authority to delegate power to the FCC to act. And what you get then is just a continuation of the status quo, which is divided markets. You take wired, I'll take wireless, able to charge whatever you want for whatever kind of services you wanna provide. It just becomes another, it just becomes a private limousine service that some people get access to, some people don't. And so all the positive, we call them positive externalities, economists love to do this, all the great things that happen for society because we have things like a postal system and we have the federal highway system in America. We've got communications networks, the phone anyway, reached everybody at an equal level. That huge competitive advantage for the country is whittled away because we'll have a few people, the more affluent who will be able to get access to still second-class networks, but better than their less well-off brethren will. New businesses won't be able to rely on a common interface, so they'll risk having the rug pulled out from under them and they wanna attract new investment and they wanna get launched. We won't have equivalent access to healthcare for Americans, education, all kind, every social policy goal we care about is undermined by not having universally available ubiquitous world-class interconnected internet access. And we won't get that without having some oversight because left of their own devices will get what we've got, which is the status quo and a deeply profit-driven enterprise, as Steve described. And I also would like to emphasize, once again, I think it's been mentioned by a couple of people on the panel already, there are still pockets of populations in this country that have no access, a very limited access, rudimentary access to even phone service, great phone service, not to mention even broadband, internet, and so forth. So the demise of the FCC as a gatekeeper, as a preserver of public interest in that respect would already turn communities that are struggling to survive with no providers to probably what I would like to say wastelands because economic development doesn't happen. Populations who wanna continue through generation after generation, that's not going to happen, but we still have places in this country and without an FCC, a gatekeeper, a public interest role, those places may never get service and those places with limited service would have a very difficult time in attracting the profit-driven provider to come into those communities. So just wanna speak to those rural populations and other places that really don't have what we see in Washington, DC and other urban areas in this country. What we do know is that Congress had that concern already and specifically devoted money towards building projects so that more consumers could have access to high-speed internet service. And we also know that a commission who has a statute that hasn't been updated since 1996 looked at Section 254 and its lifeline reform which occurred about a year and a half ago, put together a pilot program for broadband internet access service for low-income consumers, relied upon pieces of the statute that are relied upon in the open internet access case to do that, has this pilot project that's ongoing right now so that they can turn the lifeline program into not just a voice subsidy program but also a broadband subsidy program. And as you indicated, Sarah, yes, the commission already permits the subsidy for purposes of packages so that if consumers buying both a voice and a broadband package, it can be subsidized but it's still the same amount of money that the subsidy is. So, and it's not apparent that there are a lot of companies that are currently offering that service to low-income subscribers in the lifeline program. So if the court, even if it shuts down the First Amendment case, okay, so Congress still has authority that it can delegate to the FCC, if they somehow limit the authority that the FCC's already been delegated and we have to go back to Congress, the commission has to go back to Congress in order to be able to ensure that low-income consumers can be served, that they can get access to broadband internet access through subsidies, it's going to take a while for that to happen and that's a concern if the court doesn't shut down the whole thing at this point and uphold the commission's statutory authority, the 706A authority, the 706B authority, the language that's in various portions that have been tied back related to the service of video, the service of voice and the 230 provision that was relied upon by the FCC. So I would even go and really stress even beyond what Susan has stressed and it's like they really need to uphold the FCC at this time and the FCC to have to go back and redo the amount of time that that would take the FCC and the political pressure that the FCC would feel from the public and from the companies, I really think this is not a great use of government resources. This question has been asked and answered and the court should uphold it and we should move on because there are many other things that the FCC needs to work on, including finishing up that pilot project and making sure that low-income consumers have access to affordable broadband internet access service. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, part of what I think about is I'm in this kind of interesting generation where I'm old enough to have gone to school and at times when I didn't necessarily need access to the internet but I was also the first person on my block when I was growing up in Los Angeles to get a computer and have a dial-up connection and I was like the go-to person for every query. But nowadays, when I go back, my cousin lives with my mom now and she has a broadband connection, a cable connection at home because she needs it because she goes to college. My cousin next door who's in high school regularly on a daily basis utilizes her computer to finish her homework. For me, the doomsday scenario is more about what the impact is gonna be to people in their homes, out in communities and this is an infrastructure that is now being utilized for so many critical things. I mean, I've helped my mom complete her taxes online. I've helped family members look for jobs online, look for directions. I mean, this is like everyday survival stuff and I think Angie's absolutely right. We gotta keep moving forward and this authority question, what's interesting is it's a very critical question but it's also interesting to me because it reminds me of a four-top song, same old song. It's the same old song. Every time the FCC decides to do something, it seems like and the carriers don't like it, they respond by saying, well, the FCC doesn't have the authority to do that and we've seen that recently. We just completed, our network was part of a campaign to lower the cost of phone calls from prisons and the FCC did such an amazing job in addressing an issue that had been longstanding at the commission for over a decade and Angie was very much involved in that so first of all, thank you. And what are the carriers saying? They didn't like it, they didn't wanna be regulated so they're saying the FCC has no authority. So in some ways, these arguments come up time and time again, any time the FCC tries to do something so yes, it's a very important question but come on. Well, and I think without really questioning Angie's obviously true statement that this will tie the commission up and not politically, I wonder if we could go back to that point a little bit though and to get past the same old song that Steven's rightly referring to. I mean, people will say sometimes, well, if the FCC does that, if they do the right thing, they'll be sued. Heavens, they get sued no matter what they do and a lot of our advice to them at the time of the open internet order drafting was at least get sued for the right thing. Do the strong thing, do the right thing and you're gonna get sued no matter what but go in with your strongest theory. Set that aside for a moment though, obviously this would if the FCC chose to redo the order based on some kind of narrow remand would be a big political fight but again, put that aside for a minute and the open internet rules net neutrality. Angie, if you could talk about the knots that your companies, that our com-tel members have to tie themselves into just to navigate the current system that we have where they can't even necessarily interconnect to a word that Susan's talked about a lot. They can't necessarily even connect to a Verizon or a Comcast or somebody else and be guaranteed that they can send traffic to one another based on nothing more than the technology they're using or the type of facility, whether it's a copper wire or a cable wire but they're providing the same service, they're providing a vital service, this communication service that we still need very much for our economy and our society and yet it's I think your companies who have to deal with the regulatory arbitrage and the games that the incumbents play to make that as difficult as possible for their competitors. Yes, it does seem like it's the same old song. So what Matt's referring to is that Congress did provide for provisions entitled to in the 1996 act to open up the local markets and specifically the local phone markets for competition and as we see more companies transitioning to new technologies such as internet protocol transmission, they are now arguing this is internet, therefore the commission shouldn't regulate it the same way that it's regulated the traditional TDM service and they do not want to interconnect with competitive carriers and they want the commission to treat it as though it's going to be all over the top and internet peering will take care of the situation and our position is that this is not internet peering arrangements. These are voice products that are managed services just like TDM is managed today over the carriers networks. In fact, they all advertise their voice over internet protocol services as not being carried over the internet and we continue to have that fight with them and so there is a lot of spillover the arguments that you've seen before you see again proceeding after proceeding and the commission's lack of determination about how to classify services, how to treat services and then it does have to tie itself up and not in order to enact consumer protections and occasionally we find out, well here's a consumer protection on interconnected VoIP that hasn't been covered such as a recent case on slamming, who knew that as it turns out if you're a consumer and your voice product gets switched over to an interconnected VoIP service without your permission, if you file a slamming complaint at the FCC, they're going to dismiss it because they haven't said that those slamming rules apply to interconnected VoIP service even though in many other contexts they apply the same telephone consumer protections for interconnected VoIP service. So yes, this is, it makes it difficult for our members. You know, we are concerned about exactly what steps the commission will take, what authority it will be viewed as having by the courts to ensure there's a level competitive playing field. Why is this so important to consumers? Because if consumers have choice, they'll have innovative services offered to them usually at cheaper prices. They will have alternatives but they don't like their service from Verizon. They can go to somebody else. This is a good thing. This is what the 96 act intended and we want to see those provisions continue. So Angie, you mentioned in your earlier statements, this, you highlighted the widespread political and social support back in the days of the original drafting of the open internet order. And given this sort of, this regulatory arbitrage that Matt highlighted and that your stories exemplify and the fact that as we're seeing more and more companies are moving away from traditional telephone technologies and into phone systems delivered over the internet. So we're seeing a shrinking of a base of companies and entities that these rules are actually protecting. So as we transition over, this is sort of, we're reaching a critical moment. So I'm curious, where are we now when it comes to this political and social support and have we missed the moment? Have we? No, I think there's a lot of confusion and I don't want to put you on the spot but even there's some confusion in what you just said, Sarah, because the numbers actually show not much of the voice service is actually over the internet right now. The use of IP internet protocol is a transmission technology. It doesn't mean it goes over the internet. And so through this confusion, well it has internet in the name, therefore it's going over the internet. I have something to tell you all, that's not true. And that's a misconception that my association is spending a lot of time trying to correct. And so, as it turns out there are some folks that are choosing to have their voice products over the internet and that's great and we want to encourage that. We think that that's really important. But it's also true that they're continued to be managed voice products for consumers. In fact, well over the majority of residential consumers are choosing it and almost all business consumers do. And that's because for business consumers they need to absolutely make sure they have good quality of service. And the internet is a best efforts network. It doesn't offer the same kind of guarantees that the telephone network has traditionally offered and that is so important for so many consumers. I have to tell you, it's even important to me as a residential consumer with two young kids in my house. I don't rely solely on my mobile service. I still continue to purchase a triple play that includes a voice product because I absolutely want to be sure that I can stay in contact with my friends and family and loved one and God forbid if there's an emergency in my house. And that managed voice product that I get from Verizon is a managed voice product that does not travel over the internet. And in fact, you can go on their website and they'll tell you that. So that is, I just wanted to be really clear so folks understand. And it does, the commission, the lack of certainty and definition from the commission's perspective and it hasn't defined what interconnected VoIP is, it continues to be a problem. And sometimes it isn't even a problem that they foresee such as the slamming situation. You have enforcement bureau who's looking at the slamming rules and going, oh, well we can't handle this complaint. And one thing else I should have mentioned, most likely the state couldn't either because so many states have deregulated VoIP services. So where's the consumer supposed to go? How is the consumer going to be protected from that? And so it is important that the commission, that they address issues head on. And the politics, yes the politics are hard, I've been there before. And I've also been in this situation where I'm begging the chairman's office to make the hard decision. And this is when it's very helpful to have the grassroots and the consumers say we want these protections and it's so important for the commission to do its job and protect consumers. And especially in light of the fact that there are about 50% of the states that have deregulated. So the FCC is the last agency that can protect the consumers. And I just want to thank Angie for the clarification. But also it highlights the necessity and the dire situation we have, AARP and other consumer advocacy groups, particularly with the state legislatures and state utility commissions who don't have the best information. They may have the best lobbyist that the carrier can provide, but they don't have the best information. And they get a lot of conflicting information as to where their authority begins and where it ends and where the FCC is able to step in and what its role will be in terms of being a stop gap. So I just want to speak up for the consumer groups who are fighting at the state level who are dealing with legislatures and utility commissions who are getting these mixed messages about the FCC's role. And at the state level, they're saying, don't worry, deregulate. The FCC will be there while here in Washington they're doing everything to make sure that the FCC will not be there. So you have state regulators who are confused by what lobbyists sell them. You have real people who I think are confused. I think that's exactly right, Angie. And I think it goes back to something Marty talked about earlier, Steven touched on, Susan touched on. Maybe we can finish there with some final thoughts from all of you before we start taking questions. One of the benefits of being in DC is we have as many experts in the audience, if not more than you have up here in front of you. So I'm interested to hear what questions we might get. But there's this confusion and I think the confusion stems from not lack of concern or care about these issues with just simple disbelief that suddenly consumer protections don't apply. I can call anybody I want to on my phone. What do you mean I can't do that with an email? Or what do you mean I can't do that with a website? Why would that be different just because the technology has improved or changed? Why would suddenly I not have the same types of rights both economically speaking and from a internet freedom standpoint, from a democratic standpoint, why can't I go and find that dissent that Steven's talking about because the ISP has the right to choose which sites I can go to or who I can talk to. I think that's where a lot of the confusion comes from and really where the ISP has been so successful at muddying the waters for people. Yeah, and it almost makes you smile because from the consumer's perspective, these are just general purpose transport networks and you're supposed to be able to pick up the equivalent of modern day equivalent of the phone and do whatever it is you need to do. And it should be world class and interconnected and we're America, we're always supposed to be number one. And yet steadily at the state level, at the local level, at the federal level, all of that structure is being removed and this case is absolutely central to that very well thought out campaign and the problem is that there is enough of a shell game, maybe it's not going over the internet but it's going over the same pipe provided by the same guy. So, and everything keeps moving around and redefined and defined broadly and yet it shouldn't be that difficult. This is our basic general purpose transport communications network, it's the substitute for the telephone, it should be treated that way but without clear congressional authority, clear FCC authority and by the way, very strong role for the states who can pick up the phone. The FCC can't pick up 300 million phones and respond to people's consumer protection complaints. There's a very important role for the states to play so we've got to get them back into that position. We've got this opportunity now, the next couple of years to move this ship around and I am hopeful that whatever happens with the FCC's legal gymnastics on the open internet rule itself, we'll see a wholesale move towards this as a very important social policy issue for the entire country. And on that note, we do have state commissioners who are engaged on these issues and we need more of them. NAIRUC, which is the organization that represents the state utility commissioners, the president of NAIRUC put together a task force and they just released their white paper on the cooperative federalism and state work that needs to happen with new networks and so I encourage you all to go to their website, look at this paper but we need to have more of that discussion of how we have this engagement of the states, the state commissioners, the state legislatures and the FCC all working together to ensure there's a level competitive playing field so that we all have options as consumers whether we're residential consumers or business consumers and that we all know that competition is one of the best ways to protect consumers off renovation and lower prices but then also there needs to be those basic consumer protections in place that Susan's talked about, that Steve's talked about, Marty's talked about that absolutely ensure that folks get the kinds of guaranteed service that they've always had and they rely on and that they don't have to understand the legal distinctions when they're using the internet versus when they're using their wireless phone versus when they're using a wired phone. What I would add just really quickly is that part of what we've tried to do with the Media Action Grassroots Network is really bring that grassroots voice to a lot of these places, not just the FCC but also at the state level, a lot of our member organizations were involved in California and the unsuccessful campaign there to stop a deregulation bill but we need to also be able to organize people and organize those stories to not be able to provide those technical distinctions but be able to share what the potential impact is to their everyday lives. So for folks out there in the interwebs, feel free to hit us up, magnet is where it's at. And with that I think we can open it up to questions and speaking of the interwebs, we have some folks monitoring the Twitter feed for the hashtag so we'll try to at least get one or two questions from the Twitter feed as well. Earl, I think that your hand went up first. Thank you very much, Earl Comstock. It seems to me, I think the panel's done a great job of sort of presenting some things here but I have to say there's sort of an elephant in the room that's being overlooked and I think you'd clarify for your audience the tremendous amount if you'd address this. You know the reality is, Angie you mentioned that it's been since the 96 act that this was done. Well I'll just remind everybody that the 96 act was written 60 years after the 34 act and Congress did know about the internet. There was a lot done in the 80s and 90s on the internet so I would maintain the statute does address the internet and I think it would be helpful for your listeners to understand that in the event that you get past this First Amendment argument and in the event that the FCC goes down on 706 which I think they probably should. The reality is the FCC was given the tools by Congress to address all of this advanced networks and I'd like you to maybe educate the listeners on the fact that in the event that the court strikes down the rationale put forward by the FCC all is not lost, you don't need a new statute. You could go back and address these things as they've been done before and I feel like everybody's tiptoeing around the fact that the FCC got itself into this box by basically defining what Angie rightly points out is something over IP as somehow outside their grasp and then they sort of scrambled around the edges looking for provisions of law that they could point to to say oh but we didn't give it all away. We just gave away all the important stuff. So maybe you could talk a little bit more about how Title II, Title III and Title VI might actually continue to apply in the event that the FCC went back and revisited their definitions. Absolutely and I did not intend to tiptoe around it but the commission reclassified Breibing and Service. Breibing and Internet Access Service is an information service. They first did that for cable modem service and then they did that for DSL service and so that is one option. The commission could go back and look at those decisions and say no we're gonna classify the service as a Title II service and then it clearly has all the authority it needs and it could even price regulate if it wanted to. It also could do other things. Instead of classifying Breibing and Internet Access Service as Title II, it could classify the Breibing and Transmission under Title II and then make it available on a wholesale basis to competitors and create a more vibrant competitive market for Breibing and services so that other providers could offer an open Internet to service to consumers. So I think all of that though will be very politically difficult inside the Beltway if that's what the commission would be left to do and it's very hard to speculate exactly what a court would say if they were striking down what it is that the commission had relied upon but yes there's a series of decisions that occurred in the prior commission under prior administration they left it in the position that it was in and the FCC that I was a part of made the decision not to go forward with a reclassification it has an open proceeding as part of that discussion and I think one of the reasons why it didn't because it was just too hard to do it there was such an outcry that it shouldn't do that that it should go this particular route and see what a court says. I'm glad you think I'm so graceful Earl that I tiptoed around it but I felt like I've stepped on it a few times I mean the FCC has twisted itself and not but thank you for bringing it up again because I think it is important I mean it's very important people not think this case again is somehow the end of the road for the FCC it's just the end of this road of that regulatory twilight I talked about earlier where they have tried to say we have jurisdiction over broadband Internet access service but only in kind of convoluted ways and maybe that holds up maybe the court will find that to be the case for these rules it just isn't good enough in our view for all of the things and all of the responsibilities the FCC has under that act and all the roles they have to play to make sure we maintain this communications network and don't let it somehow disappear just because the technology has changed and I think our members would have real concerns as I mentioned earlier about the amount of time that it would take for the commission to make this decision what the end result could be one of the things that I would hear constantly from those lobbying me when I was on the eighth floor was we need certainty, we need certainty, we need certainty just make a decision and so this puts us all back into a more uncertainty and there are other proceedings that are going on at the FCC that my members care about special access reform reforming, modernizing the last mile of policies at the commission and instead we're gonna rehash this and the other responsibilities that the commission's been given that has it and they have deadlines the incentive auction you know it's this is not our preference our preferences is for the court to make a decision to come out very clearly that this is not a First Amendment right that Verizon you know has and it should shut down the claims that the commission's overstepped the authority that it has it's time to move on we need to be addressing larger issues and it gets back to you know what else does the commission already have what they've already done and how that might impact such as lifeline and high cost reform and luckily the E-rate reform that's before us there's more specific provisions about advanced services and I think that's gonna be affected thank goodness but you know it's we need to be having a different discussion it's it is time for this to be shut down and let's do it here and should this get to the Supreme Court let's hope the Supreme Court does it again and I'd like to point out you know we have none of us has talked about the city of Arlington case and the commission won the city of Arlington case split the conservatives I personally am really proud of that case I was one of the primary authors of the underlying order at the FCC as a staffer in the wireless bureau I was thrilled that the commission Chevron deference was upheld for purposes of its jurisdiction and not just its general statutory authority and so I really hope that the DC circuit's gonna look at that they're going to look at all of the other provisions that the commission cites it's redefinition of what 706 is it's reinterpretation of 706 is and uphold the FCC so that we can get beyond this conversation frankly and talk about other things and and ensuring that consumers have access to broadband go ahead my name is Lee Young first I appreciate this panelist discussion but I always want to go back to our really basic principle how we're going to improve everything and from the basic principles and concept for instance we want to promote the equal opportunity and equity and helping the poor and everything all our commodities or goods we have to base on the principles so the internet and broadband is the same concept why do we have to limit it to just a small area why ignore all other area the problem for instance way back to the internet we have a computer we have a phone landline phone everything they have a big problem already that they have been obstructed diverted so your business line would be not your line at all because they divert to other customers so if we have this type of thing if we don't resolve it we have a big problem and the reason that we have phone rate you know in prison the high rate is big issues but the problem is you have a bigger issue than that because they don't even allow you to use the phone and they have a phone there for you to call the police so just in case the patient or inmate got sick you can call the police but they line the line is not working so all these big issues if we don't resolve it we got a big problem so whether there's a civil organizations profit or non profit they don't based on justice so if people complain they don't resolve it just the FCC or they go to anywhere they will obstruct people's complaint they don't allow them to speak so if we don't mess on this we got a big issues I mean as a point of principle our organization and our network believes that the right to communicate belongs to everyone you know out there in this world I think you mentioned the availability of broadband what we're seeing is that broadband is becoming more and more available but when we take a look at adoption rates and there was an interesting survey that was recently published on the Daily Yonder that took a look at adoption rates in urban communities versus rural they found that they took a look at adoption rates from 2003 compared those to 2010 found that virtually the gap hadn't really changed and in some cases when you took a look at demographics it actually got wider so the digital divide in some places is growing even though the availability of broadband is there but it's either unaffordable or whatever mechanisms need to be in place in order for people to utilize this technology and communicate effectively in our 21st century digital ecology uh... you know it's it's not there that infrastructure isn't there and obviously the FCC state and regulatory agencies play a very critical role and ensuring that people do develop that that ability to communicate um... that's what I'd say to that I want to check with uh... our online monitors do we have any questions from I have some online access over here thanks to the interwebs that we talked about earlier and I would say I mean I want to make sure we get this gentleman's question too but something that's popped up time and again and I don't know if Susan you want to jump in here or anybody else uh... the question is why can't the FTC do this why is net neutrality anything more than just a substitute for antitrust and I would start to answer that by saying well the FTC we don't know how effective they are at actually doing what they're supposed to do today for one thing but for two you know we're talking about pro-competitive policies at the FCC but it's about more than that it's about universal service and deployment and adoption issues and things that Marty and Steven have talked about it's about the communication network functioning for everybody not just do we have options so as Angie said earlier competition is a great way if you can get it to improve services for people but it isn't the only thing that we should have in our toolbox and it hasn't been enough in the current incumbent dominated space to actually result in lower prices for people if you talk a lot about the second rate networks that were uh... often relegated to here so that's true so not only does antitrust just deal with a subset of the many social policy issues that attach to a communications network like internet access but also it inherently looks backwards and it only protects competitors it protects competitors here we've got a marketplace where these guys don't really want to compete with each other and they've divided up marketplaces all over the place uh... so it would be looking backward and would deal and would not you can't the f t c cannot say you have to enter a market in order to serve people who are radically unserved only ex-anti regulatory policy does that and can create the system of cross subsidies and everything else that needs to happen in order for everybody in america to have world-class high-speed internet access which is where we should be so the f t c you know has a interesting consumer protection role but when it comes to making prophylactic regulatory rules that will protect nascent industries only the expert administrative agency can do that also would prevent the kind of tearing that we see it's even talked about with metro pc s earlier i mean you can offer any kind of service you want and call it uh... basic communication service but yet it's not it's something that's a limited subset of that right with face book on the front page bill marmin now with the european institute i want to get back to that elephant uh... in the room uh... i'm a little bit out of touch but but uh... couple years ago the uh... the f cc lost this this the comcast case and wondering uh... with some of the same issues were at stake uh... gather and uh... is the f c c arguing that case should be uh... repealed or are they going to is it can be distinguished uh... or you know how serious is this congressional authorization well it's very serious uh... i would say some people say that this second case the one that's going to be heard on my knees like once more with feeling let's do it again uh... other people say uh... now we rewrote section seven or understanding of which section seven oh six part of the communications acts means and you're all can talk to you about why that doesn't really do it and you know when we've we've established statutory authority based on pasting together several sections of the act so that that's the approach that's being taken by the fcc and the elephant in the room is why not rip off the band aid call this a telecommunication service title two then you could forbear from applying all kinds of things if you don't want to wait down high-speed internet access provision but at least you've got your basic statutory structure clear but the point that it would be a very political argument is absolutely right and so a problem is not having enough representatives in congress either understand this issue or willing to stand up against the lobbyists who will assault them and say we won't give you any more campaign contributions really deeply that's where the problem is this is all about campaign finance so if the fcc tried to act aggressively there's a real risk that their budget would be cut in half at the appropriations committee because the lobbyists would march on congress so that you know if you want to talk about elephants in the room that's really the elephant room is the problem of uh... congressional ability to stand up to whatever happens in their offices elephants and donkeys right the commission is relying on several additional statutory provisions that were not in the original comcast case too i should note additional questions i work to talk with the athletes regional commission keep talking about that elephant doesn't the fcc have the authority to read to make the reclassification if it's so chose and and go from title one to title two and then yes there would be fallout from that but at least to be able to make that reclassification isn't that in their ability to do that right now they do but they have to have a reasoned basis for doing so and you know it will go to court again and but it's it's clear from the brand x decision that the commission has that authority to do that and that it must be able to explain why it's doing that brand x back in two thousand five said not the fcc is correct in its determination on the merits here it just said the fcc has the discretion to do this they can decide that broadband internet access service is not really a telecom service and is in fact an information service whatever those things mean in the statute justice galea in two thousand five didn't agree with that he said no the fcc got it wrong they don't have the authority to read the law this way they have to read it to say that a telecommunication service something that lets you and me send information to each other that's exactly what this internet or internet enabled or whatever other term you want to put on it that's what that platform is it is still a telecommunication service even though there's a lot of information writing over the top of it but people who want to spend brand x and say that it uh... you know confirm the fcc on the merits of this classification decision they're just not reading it the right way we have time for another question do i see that url has a follow-up i was just gonna add that you know in fairness i wouldn't put all the burden on congress really the fcc could do this that's what they're created to do and they have plenty of justification it as the discussion of of white over the internet verses i p enabled services talks about the real problem is is they're just not willing to do it in the fact that the fcc is left unclassified now for what the last fifteen years what is the status of a voice over internet protocol service i think gives you pretty good clue as to where the problem lies the agency is very reluctant to tackle that issue for precisely the reason that they can't really explain what is the difference between the transmission service and and i p-based service they there is no fundamental technical difference and so i with all deference to people who say all of the problem is that congress would cut the funding uh... somebody spent ten years up there i could say that that's not as likely to happen it if the fcc made a principal stand is some might think well so let's be optimistic so that let's say that the dc circuit says something very clear you know whatever that is and that will give everybody a roadmap about what to do next and what what principles really need to be invoked i think we have time for one more and there is a hand there in the corner patrick so for those of us who are not super familiar with this incredibly nuanced issue uh... i'm wondering about who care about the open internet i'm wondering what kinds of uh... communications products are killer infographics or comic book version you have to educate citizens about that and give them a pathway for action public knowledge put out something good just yesterday right about what is what is net neutrality so look at public knowledge dot org i wrote a book about this called captive audience which which does put this in context explains how this all fits and tries to do it in an approachable way but frankly that's been one of the problems that there's a very steep learning curve here a lot of acronyms lot of shiny objects and people get confused we'll have more content to steven mentioned magnet which is a great resource that at free press dot net and and save the internet dot com as well will have lots of information as this kind of revives itself i mean people have sort of said oh that's that old issue right and it's really not yesterday's news in any sense it's just as vital today as it was three years ago fifteen years ago you know forty or fifty years ago in the fcc started struggling with the issues i think the appeal to common sense is really about the best we can do though you know should your communications capabilities be changing just because today you can send an email is that really that different from a phone call or do you still have the ability and frankly the right to send your information to whoever you want and you know so it's a little bit hard to draw the internet even though we've tried uh... but i think it's easy for people to understand that these are tools they need and need today as much as ever and it's even said you know the people rely on these as basic necessities now that that is a horizon that moves over time and we need more and more access to information just to keep up in this economy and just to keep up with our families and and i just want to say hopefully very quickly uh... again i want to emphasize uh... what i've said to the commissioners themselves and what i've said to other audiences the fcc that the commissioners have to begin to say very loudly so that state utility commissioners legislators and everyday citizens can hear them say there are mixed messages out there and that they exist for a purpose the fcc does and that they are not the stop gap that many in the industry are telling these policy makers and that people will be harmed uh... because of this misinformation and i think the commissioners need to be more vocal to more diverse audiences in letting them know what their role is and and why they were created in the first place and the statues that they operate under so i'll offer up in terms of our national network uh... we host uh... monthly conversations called digital dialogues where we try to take a look at these issues really deconstruct them uh... and also connect them to some of the broader social justice issues or some of the issues that people really care about on a day to day uh... some of the members in our network have developed some interesting tools uh... to kind of help break down the issue one thing that comes to mind in particular people's production house which was an organization in new york uh... produced a video called internet as serious business which if you look it up on vimeo it's a great video that's produced by youth uh... they really kind of explains how the internet functions but also takes a look at this issue around network neutrality uh... they also in partnership with the media literacy project produced a dialed in toolkit which took a look at how mobile functions and mobile obviously being uh... an issue in relation to net neutrality that's very relevant since a lot of folks uh... the same protections don't exist uh... necessarily for folks who are uh... exclusively wireless users uh... and then lastly you know when that neutrality was a big uh... hot button issue a couple years ago our network produced uh... what we call the rap it was a is a remix of a warren g a song called regulate uh... which was specifically looking at trying to explain you know what this whole proceeding was about so you should look that up i i was gonna say i think that we're hitting that the firm stop now and uh... i noticed the room getting a little restless so i think that uh... will end it there uh... but will be around anyone has uh... any additional questions for us