Gadgetory

hey Maggie Reardon here I'm standing outside the Federal Communications Commission in Washington DC where I just sat down for a chat with Chairman Ajit PI he's proposing rollback of Obama era net neutrality regulation these rules pass back in 2015 make sure your broadband provider can't block or slow down your access to the net so I've been covering the net neutrality issue for at least a dozen years why do we have to go through this again well I think all of us favor a free and open Internet and the only question for the FCC at this point is what's the best legal framework for securing some of those core values that have given us the digital economy that's the envy of the world and that's the part of the conversation that we'll be kicking off on May 18th okay so I know a big piece of this is this so-called title to regulation that's the utility style legal framework that the last administration built their net neutrality rules around but I also noticed in the proposal that there you're asking the question should the bright-line rules that no blocking the the no throttling should those even be rules I mean what do you think should should there be rules for to protect net neutrality and keep the internet open or should we just let the broadband providers police themselves well I considerably said that I favor a free and open Internet and the clinton-era light-touch approach is the one that I think has produced unparalleled benefits for consumers and so from an administrative perspective when we kick off a conversation we want it to be a robust conversation to tee up all of the different possibilities and let the American people give us their input as to what they think the best framework should be so do you think broadband providers are really capable of of not discriminating against somebody like a Netflix or not even yet developed Netflix well this is precisely why some people say title two is necessary some people say no regulation is necessary I've consistently but said that look the clinton-era light-touch approach is the right one let the marketplace develop and if we see an example of any competitive conduct then you can take targeted action to address that problem but that's part of the approach that we hope to embrace on a bipartisan basis going forward just as it was a braced in 1996 by President Clinton in a Republican Congress so this issue has become so partisan right we've got Republicans and Democrats really entrenched on either side why is that I'm not sure some people speculate that because our politics generally are much more polarized now that is infected communications policy I'm not sure what the answer is but I'm committed to making sure that I do everything I can to lead the agency on a bipartisan basis and when it comes to broadband deployment for instance we've had several votes under my chairmanship that have been unanimous in nature getting more broadband to unserved America and removing some of the regulations that stand in the way of carriers being able to deliver digital opportunity to citizens who are on the wrong side of the digital divide and those are the nuts and bolts that's the nuts and bolts of work that the FCC traditionally is done and I'm proud to say we've done it with Republicans United with Democrats but it does seem that that there are still a lot of issues that our Republican Democrats and nobody seems to be budging I mean are these based on sort of traditional core Republican type values versus core democratic values or where is the divide here I'm not sure where it is it's a I mean partly it might be just because of our politics generally as I said but I continually believe that when it comes to broadband there is no Republican affiliation or Democratic affiliation to a particular idea I met with the senator recently and outside his door it had a poster of JFK where it said let us not search for the Republican answer let us not search for the Democratic answer let us search for the right answer and naive though it might be I continue to believe that at the end of the day Americans want better faster cheaper Internet and the ideas from the FCC that get us there don't knowa partisan affiliation and so that's like spirit with which I'm going to continue to embrace this job so should Congress step in and do something I mean this issue has flip-flopped a couple of times and and that is you know creating uncertainty in the market I would imagine so yeah I mean I think ultimately that's the best long-term solution a part of the problem we've seen over the last seven years is that the agency increasingly is trying to shoehorn the marketplace of 2017 or 2015 or 2010 into this round hole of 1934 legal frameworks or 1986 and ultimately I think it would be great for elected officials on a bipartisan basis to just tell us what you want the roads the rules of the digital road to be that those are the decisions I think that ultimately stand the test of time and gain public support and I'm convinced that people acting in good faith when they sit at the table could be able to reach that kind of consensus Republicans have introduced something but Democrats are a little hesitant they're saying you know this isn't the time do you think we're going to get bipartisan consensus I hope so that's a decision that they will have to make based on their own political calculus but if I can be of assistance in helping to forge that consensus I stand willing and able to do so because as I said ultimately the internet is so important that it's important I think for our elected officials to codify some of these key principles that we can move on to the debates about how do we get more access out there to unserved Americans I mean those are the issues that I think the FCC is squarely empowered to tackle and I'm committed to tackling them if we can okay well thank you so much for letting us come in here and do this interview we really appreciate the conversations maggie has been great okay this is just the beginning of the net neutrality rewrite on May 18th PI's proposal will be open for the public to comment he's promised to have a new set of rules finished by the end of the year but all this could change if Congress decides to push through its own set of rules I'm Maggie Reardon with Sina