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good morning everybody thank you for everyone who's here at vox media headquarters in Washington DC and for all of you who are viewing our livestream at the verge com or FCC gov it's a real honor to be here my name is Jim Bank off and I'm the chairman and CEO of vox media we were publishers of sites like SB Nation the verge and soon polygon it's a great honor for us to host chairman julius genachowski of the FCC this morning who will be making a major policy speech and we're honored to have him here and honored that all of you have attended as well without further ado I'm going to run a quick video that will explain a little bit about vox media I recognize it might we might be a new company in a new face for a lot of you so we're going to show a quick + clip and hopefully get everyone's blood flowing and explain the company a little bit I'm Josh Topolsky welcome to on the verge welcome back to SB Nation Russ rustic here with polygon integrated bluetooth and Wi-Fi looking at the best style I for your iPad this is really cool we're in the Microsoft model shop every year you have a chance to own the New York Yankees in horse racing a bunch of protesters stand behind me I wanted to be here today to document it all we are a couple weeks out from the release of max payne 3 we've been hiring a lot of different people with a lot of different experience from different parts of the industry know you moved hop what do you open it up just don't move your hand we're going to learn how to become driving ninjas the internet is the dream platform for scammers it is the first free-to-play shooter on the console yes indeed that's pretty incredible every game of the World Series are ye trucks it's one of the best feelings ever to walk out on a Sunday thousands of people who scream I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world right so that gives a little thank you that gives a little overview of who we are as vox media and what you can see from the video and if you check out our web sites is that we are a digitally native web native company and that's why it's so appropriate and we're so honored to host this session our company would not exist without broadband it's not just the media that we create but it's the infrastructure that runs our company it enables our 200 plus employees and a thousand plus paid contributors all of which by the way our jobs that were created in the past four years and all of which were created by broadband so we take this issue very seriously and this this address is therefore very appropriate chairman Genachowski and i met in 2007 i had recently left my job at AOL and he was beginning the next chapter of his career following a very successful tenure as an internet executive and investor we were both ready to embark on the next phase of our careers as digital entrepreneurs but we shared a problem that was common to a lot of Lee stagers we didn't have an office the Chairman took matters into his own hands and uh got a place and quickly he became my landlord we sub leased the space down in Chinatown and well well Julius was setting up launch box which is an incubator focused on helping early-stage companies to reach their full potential I started working on what was then SB Nation and has now become vox media as officemates our friendship group we spent many hours talking about the vast potential of consumer and enterprise businesses that were being enabled by broadband and we also talked a lot about baseball sue and Julius had been appointed to lead the FCC those of us who understood the opportunities for the United States brought on by the massive transformation in broadband and communications were thrilled to have a chairman who was not only an accomplished legal scholar public servant and corporate executive but someone who had also innovated and created jobs at the grassroots level as we waited confirmation the den chairman-elect continued to share an office with us of course we were growing as was his staff and it's a proud part of box media's heritage and history that we had to compete for a conference room space with the future FCC leadership fast forward to today SB Nation has morphed into vox media we've grown from one full-time employee or founder Tyler Bleszinski to 200 full-time employees and over 1,000 paid freelancers all within the past four years our media properties like the verge SB Nation and soon to launch polygons reach over 30 million visitors each month and in fact literally just a few minutes ago we launched our most ambitious upgrade in our history with a bold new SBNation platform that is optimized for the post-pc era of smartphones and tablets check it out little plug sbnation.com chairman Genachowski is leading the FCC and america's broadband roadmap and my new york yankees and Julius's washington nationals are both in first place in their respective divisions so not too shabby in the past four years since being sworn in as chairman of the FCC in june 2009 chairman Genachowski has focused the agency on unleashing the opportunities of wired and wireless broadband he has successfully pursued policies to promote investment in job creation drive innovation foster competition and empower consumers during his tenure the FCC developed and is implementing the National Broadband Plan an ambitious strategy to harness the opportunities of high-speed internet promote us global competitiveness and bring the benefits of 21st century communications to all Americans the Commission has worked modernized outdated programs and eliminate barriers to innovation and investment the Commission adopted the landmark connect America fund a once-in-a-generation overhaul of the multi-billion dollar Universal Service Fund and its related rules transforming it from supporting telephone service to broadband the connect American fund replaces legacy programs with new market driven incentive based policies to achieve universal broadband both wired and wireless through the Commission's broadband acceleration initiative the chairman has advanced policies that reduce cost and time required to deploy broadband infrastructure including streamlining the process for attaching communications equipment to utility poles and wireless towers the agency has taken strong steps to preserve Internet freedom and openness adopting a framework to protect free enterprise and free speech online incentivizing significant private investment in Internet applications and services as well as broadband networks and infrastructure today chairman Genachowski is going to outline in a major policy address where we as a country can go from here as a company that has been oak that has been built on open access to a fast and secure internet vox media is proud to welcome chairman julius genachowski uh Jim thank you so much for for that great introduction and for reminding me of what was really just such a fun time in our lives and it's great to be back it's great to be back I don't know what you all were doing last night I was watching Monday Night Football and I fell asleep did I miss anything wow I thought the FCC got a lot of complaints about dropped calls very seriously Jim thank you thanks to vox media for for hosting this I know it's a big day you're relaunching SB Nation and that you took the time to host this that so many of you are here listening to some points about policy I appreciate it very much and all of you should know Jim Bangkok has established himself as one of the great innovators in online media seizing the opportunities of the internet SB Nation has grown a network of more than a thousand contributors in 49 states in the public has responded to this localized content making SB Nation the fastest growing sports website in America with more than 28 million monthly visitors now many of those SB Nation contributors started as commenters and ninety-nine percent are paid so SB Nation much like eBay and Amazon Facebook and Google serves as a platform for entrepreneurial people all over America to create value online and make a living so when you think about SB Nation just like when you think about these other companies it's not just the hundreds of jobs that Jim Bank off and his team have created at vox media it's the platform for other work and job creation it's part of the hidden story of what the broadband revolution can do for our economy and one of the reasons I'm really happy to be here is that this company is a perfect example of it of course SB Nation is far from all that that vox media is doing the verge is the country's fastest growing tech news site polygon is taking on gaming and I have a feeling that Jim and the vox media team aren't done yet now about this time of year ago I delivered a speech just down the road at livingsocial a pioneer in the daily deals category that's provided value to consumers and small businesses while in a similar way creating hundreds and hundreds of us jobs I chose to speak therefore basically the same reason that I'm speaking here at vox media to illustrate that broadband high-speed internet wired and wireless is transforming our economy and the way we live for the better I'll speak today about how over the past four years the US has regained global leadership in key areas of the broadband economy and is building a strong foundation for the future but as important I want to talk about how we also face significant challenges some familiar and some new most notably we're in a global bandwidth race this race will help determine who creates jobs and grows GDP in this flat competitive innovation-driven global economy now and over the next decade US leadership will require a strategic bandwidth advantage fast high capacity and ubiquitous broadband to secure this advantage for our country the private and public sectors both have important roles seizing the opportunities of big bandwidth will bring enormous benefits and failure to do so will have real and negative consequences now I'll try to keep my remarks here brief at least brief by policy speech standards a longer version that elaborates on some of the points that I'll make will be available at FCC gov and I encourage you to go to FCC gov anyway and learn about what we're doing so let's start with the good news our increasingly knowledge-based economy is powered by broadband and a broadband economy and its foundation have come a long way in the past four years both in absolute terms and relative to our global competitors it wasn't long ago that Asia and Europe were ahead of the US and broadband powered innovation and infrastructure take Mobile in 2008 Businessweek described America as having been a wireless backwater we were talking then about Europe's lead on 3g and about the vibrant mobile innovation in countries like Japan and South Korea but thanks to innovative American companies software mobile broadband providers and others and to smart government policies the story today is different it's one of comeback and leadership after trailing and key 3g metrics we're now leading the world in deploying the next generation of wireless broadband networks 4g LTE at scale today we have sixty nine percent of the world's LTE subscribers and every expectation to maintain 4G leadership for the foreseeable future the United States has become the global test bed for LTE apps and services America is leading to in the software driven apps and services running on these networks more than eighty percent of smartphones sold today throughout the world run on operating systems developed by US companies that's up from less than twenty-five percent three years ago an amazing shift and US companies of the clear leaders in the tablet sector worldwide accounting for roughly three-quarters of tablets sold and for the operating systems on almost all tablets the explosion of tablet use is just incredible the percentage of american adults using tablets and e-readers has lept from two percent to thirty percent in just three years today's smartphone and tablet powered apps economy already massive but still in the early innings is fundamentally a made in the USA phenomenon a very recent one in june two thousand eight there was no app store in june 2012 the apple and android app stores alone had collective 3 billion downloads it's a hundred million apps a day on wired broadband infrastructure we've made major progress too at the beginning of 2009 broadband networks capable of 100 megabits per second past less than twenty percent of us homes that number is over eighty percent today putting the US for the moment near the top of the world and deployment of high-speed broadband infrastructure and according to akamai latest state of the internet report the average speeds actually used in the US are up almost thirty percent in just one year from twenty eleven to twenty twelve now smartphones and tablets require both wireless and wired infrastructure without Wi-Fi smartphones and tablets would have far less value and Wi-Fi wouldn't have been possible without a and Wi-Fi wouldn't be possible without a wired broadband infrastructure as well as FCC policies that enabled Wi-Fi use on unlicensed bactrim Wi-Fi now drives over forty percent of mobile internet connections and over ninety two percent of tablet internet connections in the US but some people call heterogenous net heterogeneous networks wired and wireless broadband or powering other key growth industries like cloud computing with firms like Amazon Apple Google Rackspace box and others the u.s. pioneered and continues to lead the fast-growing cloud computing industry delivering real benefits to businesses and consumers so broadband is an essential platform for job creation and investment and we can see that in what's happened over the last several years mobile innovation is estimated to have created 1.6 million US jobs over the past five years and the nascent apps economy has already created nearly 500,000 us jobs companies delivering cloud services added eighty thousand new jobs in twenty ten not counting the many jobs they helped create by boosting productivity and lowering costs for businesses large and small from 2009 to 2011 annual investment and why and wireless networks increased about thirty percent to more than sixty billion dollars even in this challenging economy this wave of broadband related investment and innovation in the US over the past few years it's just the beginning the benefits for education for health care energy and public safety are all proving themselves out right now through amazing inventors and entrepreneurs now I'm pleased that a reinvigorated FCC has been part of this positive story the FCC has helped lay a foundation for success by modernizing rules for the broadband age and ensuring climate for investment and innovation throughout the broadband ecosystem we developed America's First National Broadband Plan transformed an outdated universal service program that was telephone oriented into the connect America fund the largest US broadband infrastructure program ever we've Unleashed licensed and unlicensed spectrum for mobile innovation removed regulatory barriers to lower the cost of broadband deployment enacted a strong common sense framework to preserve Internet freedom and openness and taken strong steps to protect competition of course the country's work is not done progress in broadband over the past four years is real and significant but we shouldn't declare victory not in this fast-moving and globally competitive sector challenges to US leadership are real some of these challenges are consequence of our own success the internet is an American invention and whether it's Google or Facebook Netflix or Hulu Amazon or Ebay Twitter or Dropbox the examples are endless American innovators have driven dramatic increases in demand for broadband whether mobile or at home work or school this rush of demand is creating real challenges real challenges to the broadband infrastructure and to other broadband policies well bring it on these are the kinds of challenges America wants to have too much demand is much better than too little and these are the kinds of challenges we can meet and overcome now in general the challenges to us leadership in the broadband economy come from technology powered developments this is a flat world where capital can flow and innovators can work anywhere and in this 24-7 information world it's no secret anywhere that broadband is a ticket to a country's economic success I've met with senior government officials and business leaders throughout the world and I can tell you that they are all focused on the broadband opportunity whether it's griha China the EU Australia on and on all have plans to deploy ultra high-speed broadband on a wide scale to become a magnet for innovators and capital we are in a global bandwidth race a nation's future economic security is tied to frictionless and speedy access to information the faster we can connect our citizens the faster our economy can grow the more people of all walks of life that have access to bandwidth the more opportunity we spread for all and much like the space race in the 20th century success in this race will unleash waves of innovation that will go a long way toward determining who leads our global economy in the 21st century now US leadership in internet innovation wired and wireless starts with our remarkable innovators and entrepreneurs that's why it's so important that we have world-class education in the United States and smart immigration policies like Senator Schumer's new bill to make more green cards available to foreign graduates of us universities with advanced math science and engineering degrees world-leading talent in the u.s. is necessary but it's not sufficient we also need world leading digital infrastructure our Channel and just to ensure that the US has a strategic bandwidth advantage this is a point first made by the architect of our National Broadband Plan Blair Levin and Tom Friedman has written persuasively on this as well what do I see is the elements of developing a strategic bandwidth advantage I see three key pieces broadband speed capacity and ubiquity we need people to have the bandwidth they need when and where they need it whether you're a high tech innovator large or small business or a consumer at home around the go now let me describe what i mean by speed capacity and ubiquity and why each is important and let me suggest what a broadband ecosystem with these three elements will require so start with faster speeds speed matters because innovators need next-generation speed for next generation innovations genetic sequencing for cancer patients immersive and creative software to help children learn ways for small businesses to take advantage of big data and speed and capacity heavy innovations we can't even imagine businesses and consumers need high speeds to take advantage of services like cloud computing every day these can make every smartphone tablet and laptop capable of harnessing the power of the world's largest supercomputers and capable of accessing the petabytes of vast data centers as President Obama has said to lead the world to a new future of productivity and prosperity we have to connect all of America at a 21st century infrastructure and raise the standards for broadband speed more capacity we're experiencing a revolution and how we consume and generate data the internet used to be a text heavy website on a computer screen today is streaming video on your TV set your smartphone your tablet video conferencing telework cloud storage and more look at SB Nation most of its content when it got off the ground I remember this very well was static text a few pictures on a network of blogs that was that today more and more SB Nation is creating high bandwidth valuable video content across all of vox media sites the number of videos being posted is up one thousand two hundred percent over the past year this explosion of online video and other high band applications and services leading internet users to consume more and more data every month to maximize the opportunities of broadband for our economy consumers need sufficient monthly broadband capacity to make ecommerce routine and unconstrained to maximize the opportunities of broadband for education healthcare and other important national priorities consumers need sufficient monthly broadband capacity so that families with school-age children won't have to fight over who gets to use the internet for homework a distance learner can take a full course load online a senior with diabetes can have regular online video consultations with a doctor in another town ubiquity by ubiquity I mean this broadband should be available to everyone anywhere anytime this means that our fastest latest wireless broadband networks should cover at least ninety eight percent of the country as the president set as a goal that no American should be without a broadband option and that we must change the fact that nearly one in three Americans remain unconnected at home the phrase universal broadband is often used to cover these concepts and it's a good phrase i'm using ubiquity today to emphasize the increasing importance of mobile broadband what's the goal and focusing on speed capacity and ubiquity the goal is removing bandwidth and location as constraints on innovation let me be more concrete on the vision first as we said in our national broadband plan we need innovation hubs in the US with ultra-fast broadband the speed measured in gigabits not megabits there have been some positive developments on this front in Kansas City google has now launched the first large-scale commercial effort to bring one gigabit per second service to a residential market in Chattanooga Tennessee the community owned utility installed a hundred percent fibre-to-the-premises network making speeds up to 1 gigabit per second available to all residences business and institutions and the gig you initiative led by Blair Levin has already catalyzed over 200 million dollars in private investment to build ultra high speed hubs in the communities of many leading research universities these efforts provide essential test beds for developing and testing the data rich technologies of our future but we need more innovation hubs than we can count on one hand we need a critical mass of communities that have the most robust bandwidth in the world where broadband abundance is a fact of life so that private-sector innovators and the research community can invent and test tomorrow's essential services with a meaningful number of potential users now second we need to ensure that truly high-speed high capacity broadband plans are the norm widely not the exception in the National Broadband Plan we set a goal of affordable hundred megabit per second service to 100 million Americans 200 million households by 2020 we set this goal so that America in 2020 would have the largest market in the world for high-speed broadband now we've made significant progress toward that goal but we need to get faster sooner many of today's services already depend or thrive at those speeds videoconferencing and cloud services for example particularly when there are multiple users in a home or business without a mass market to consume those services in the u.s. we risk innovators startups and established companies looking elsewhere now third we need to make sure that even the hardest to reach areas of our country in the least advantaged among us share in the benefits of broadband as each new wave of applications moves from novelty to necessity all Americans should have access to a network that provides a baseline of service sufficient to connect them to our modern economy and to education healthcare and public safety resources and forth we need to build on our global lead and the deployment of 4G wireless networks and keep pushing to make sure we're the first in 5g and beyond not only is this vital to meet the nation's exploding mobile broadband demand but it's the only way we'll remain a world leader in mobile innovation we have our work cut out for us and despite America's broadband resurgence here are a few key reasons we can't let up consider the evolution of competition driven upgrades to our wireline networks over the past two decades we've gone from docsis to DSL and more we need the upgrade cycle to continue which raises important questions who will push the next round of upgrades and when how can we ensure that we see the network upgrades our innovation economy needs now despite the significant improvements in US broadband infrastructure the average speeds that Americans actually use appear to lag those in some other countries including Korea and Japan so whether it's because higher speed services here are more expensive or for other reasons Americans aren't adopting high-speed services as fast as some of our global competitors and roughly thirty percent of Americans are still not connected to home broadband at all in mobile we face additional challenges us mobile data traffic grew almost three hundred percent last year and driven by 4G LTE smartphones and tablets traffic is projected to grow an additional 16 fold by 2016 with this exponential growth demand for our wireless capacity is on pace to exceed supply even with significant new spectrum coming online congested networks are slower networks so what can our country due to meet these challenges to have a strategic broad bandwidth advantage we must drive massive private investment in both networks and applications a virtuous cycle where innovative applications drive user demand for bandwidth which generates returns and incentives for network providers to invest in speed capacity in ubiquity which in turn enables further innovation more demand more network investment non we go some say government has no role to play here government should just eliminate existing rules and policies on its way out the door now someone who spent more than a decade in the private sector and believes fundamental in the power of the free market I disagree with that view we don't have to choose between having broadband policies that drive global leadership and believing in a free market it's a false choice a smart broadband policy puts a well-functioning free market with healthy competition as a core objective government has a role to play limited but vital light touch not no touch when it comes to promoting fast high-capacity and ubiquitous broadband networks there are three key areas where the FCC should act first we need to keep driving improvements in broadband infrastructure and accessibility we need to continue removing barriers to broadband build-out lowering the cost of infrastructure deployment spectrum which the FCC manages is our invisible infrastructure and we need to address the spectrum crunch both by unleashing more airwaves for broadband and significantly increasing the efficiency of spectrum use by moving forward on sharing and small cell technologies we're also moving forward with a major policy innovation called incentive options to move spectrum from over the air broadcasting to mobile broadband these are all parts of the solution and parts of what government needs to do and we need to continue to implement programs like the connect America fund and broadband adoption efforts for low-income Americans that will help ensure that no one is cut off from the broadband economy wherever they live second we need to protect and promote competition competition is the lifeblood of our free market economy driving private investment innovation and consumer value the more competition the less need for regulation we know from decades of experience that when it comes to competition in the communications sector the FCC needs to be a cop on the beat this means continuing to fairly and rigorously review all transactions that come before us distinguishing between efficiency enhancing deals that serve the public interest and should be approved without issue and those that threaten harm to competition and consumers it means an obligation to consider all options divestitures blocking deals and imposing conditions and it means vigorously enforcing can Shinzon transaction so companies can't flout or work around their obligations it means that when the data shows that our rules no longer reflect the competitive landscape or art serving their intended purpose we need to be willing to take a fresh look based on the best data about the state of the market and act to preserve competition promoting competition also means we need to keep a close eye on developments and places like Kansas City to see what additional steps federal state and local governments can take to encourage game-changing investments by disruptive new broadband competitors we need to increase transparency which helps make markets work more efficiently and although there isn't unanimous agreement on this point another as I've mentioned at the FCC protecting competitions sometimes means putting rules in place to prevent anti-competitive practices rules we adopted last year by majority vote to ensure broadband data roaming is one example now of course government bodies including state and local agencies must do their part to encouraging competition and innovation and certainly not erecting roadblocks there's a debate right now in the news here in Washington DC on rules that could discourage the innovative on-demand carves car service company uber not hard to guess which side I'm on I'm on the side of innovation to be clear competition is vital throughout the broadband economy not just for communications networks but the Commission focuses primarily on these networks that's where I focused my remarks and third and related we need to preserve open platforms it's the Internet's openness and freedom the ability to speak innovate and engage in commerce and free enterprise without having to ask for anyone's permission that's enabled it's unparalleled success it's why we adopted common-sense rules of the road to preserve a free and open Internet and to foster the virtuous cycle of massive investment in both edge and the core of broadband networks these rules which we adopted two years ago had increased certainty and predictability for innovators and investors throughout the space and in fact in the two years since the FCC adopted our open internet framework investment has increased innovation has increased throughout the broadband economy at the edge and at the core we're also fighting to protect the Internet as an engine of innovation and free expression internationally in the context of un negotiations which will come to a head at the end of this year some countries are proposing to fundamentally change the way the internet works and impose a new layer of international control on the free flow of information and data online these kinds of growth killing proposals must be rejected so yes we've made a ton of progress in the United States but the threats and challenges are very real we can't be satisfied with where we are we have to keep focusing on speed capacity and ubiquity and take the necessary steps to ensure a strategic bandwidth advantage for the u.s. in the 21st century we have to keep looking over our shoulders at what other parts of the world are doing and keep asking ourselves the big questions like is our broadband infrastructure providing a strategic bandwidth advantage are we winning the global bandwidth race are we delivering to the country broadband performance that's the envy of the world if we keep the pedal to the floor including through smart government policies we can ensure we have the innovation infrastructure we need to preserve and extend US leadership in the global broadband economy in that world we all win broadband applications and service companies broadband network companies our economy and all consumers working together we can do this thang this is the transition this is the transition so for those of you who are watching the livestream bear with us for probably no more than 90 seconds or so while we make a quick stage transition here and we'll be right back welcome the live stream so we only have a short period of time but we wanted to make sure that we got to some questions I'll ask something and then nila is going to ask questions that came directly from the audience at the verge the WV verge calm if you want to follow along chairman thank you your speech and vision for broadband and our policy in America is inspired and as I think you know coming here you're you're preaching not only to the converted but to the rapidly converted and so we want to help and I think most of the people who are watching on the stream want to help as well it's an election year it's one of those few opportunities that we as citizens have to make a big difference with our vote and our other actions what what we're trying to figure out is at least from my perspective I hear what you're saying and I think gosh it's great for all Americans and you know whether you're a Republican or a Democrat your interest is growing our economy and putting people to work and taking a leadership position in a growth area so my question is for you is who's against it and and and what do we do that helped persuade those who are against it I'll call them the bad people to Brandon to frame it in a negative but what what can we do as citizens who believe in this to to advance this agenda well let me the first point I'd make is that I think the largest enemy is indifference it's not believing that issues around our broadband infrastructure really matter to our economy to education to healthcare and indifference is an insidious enemy how do you combat indifference don't be indifferent and what does that mean I mean it what it means get engaged one of the things that I'm proud that we did at the FCC was we really opened it up to input from people wherever they are right in the old days if you wanted to have input at the FCC yet to hire a lawyer have them write down some stuff on a filing file it and someone would read it maybe everything we do now is live online every one on the outside can have input into our proceedings people can have input as individuals whether they're innovators whether there are people at universities etc they can do it as individuals or they can band together as people do and say hey we have a view that stuff matters the other thing I'd say is ideas matter and we've got some great ideas over the last few years from people on the outside who use the channel to say hey listen you've been talking about this problem you know you want to see more innovation hubs in the US well why don't you think about this so be engaged and combat in difference is I think my main message yeah as some questions from our audience yeah and I know they another didn't pull any punches they did not like the the the the number one question we've gotten and you know the iphone 5 just came out it's big deal along with that Apple released iOS 6 which the first time enables you to make facetime calls over cellular now the only major restriction on mobile carriers with your open Internet rules is that they're not allowed to block other voice and video calling services but 18t has blocked FaceTime on iOS 6 based on over cellular in Iowa sex unless you get a new plan and the readers they all want to know I mean do you think this is a violation of your opening that rules is they found a loophole what's your take well this is you know we're going to continue to have disputes and issues that arise under open Internet framework this is one that could very well come before us in a formal way so I shouldn't comment on specifically I think there are reports that there may be a formal complaint filed but let me let me make a couple of general points one is the best way to resolve disputes over how the internet should continue to roll out is through discussion and multi-stakeholder forums and trying to do the thing that the Internet has done many times many very successfully we adopted the open rules because that doesn't always lead to success and sometimes good faith efforts don't resolve things many times they do sometimes they don't I encourage that process if it doesn't lead to a resolution and a complaint is filed we will exercise their responsibilities and we will act does that mean do you are you okay with a teensy blocking as I said it may come before us is something we have to make a decision we have obligations to make decisions on a record based on input on all the facts so so I just can't comment on a specific on a specific thing but we're going to do our job as we proven in the past and other situations where complaints have come before us and we've resolved them and we've made the tough decisions sure okay so the next few questions for our readers it's actually two questions I think it is really one question I think it's really interesting so this one is from see West fuh this is let me ask the questions first does the FCC intend to start making progress and requiring network interoperability seamless roaming and devices it can be in lot to work in any carrier the second part of the question is from greasy taco aficionado who is one of our one of our best commenters actually how our apples competitor is supposed to compete when competitors don't allow them to sell the same phone design on multiple carriers there by not getting the brand recognition and economies of scale that go along with selling more of a single phone so a a couple points one is you know what we've seen in the mobile marketplace in the last four years is probably unlike any business revolution any consumer and business revolution that we've ever seen you know in four years to go from a world of the feature phones we used to have two iphones and android phones and two tablets like it's just amazing making sure that you know in this world we also keep our eye on a couple of balls competition and consumers is important and so issues like interoperability are issues that we look at there is an issue with some competing mobile carriers not being able to to access devices now that issue is less of an issue than it was when the iphone was first introduced and you can get the iphone on more and more carriers now another issue that we certainly pay attention to and that we acted on is broadband data roaming so just a very quick story here you know we've there was a an issue that came up in the preborn in the voice era about whether consumers had a right to expect that their phones would be able to roam on other networks this is really important for competition because consumers don't want phones that only work some places and not other places and there are many challenges to having multiple providers build out infrastructure everywhere so voice roaming rules were in place but when I got to the FCC data roaming rules were not and we took that up and we looked at it as any online it's really the same issue consumers expect national roaming not all competitors can have the infrastructure and we need to adopt these rules to make sure there's broadband data roaming for competitors and consumers I don't understand to this day why that wasn't a unanimous vote but it wasn't and we have to keep on working hard to explain why it's needed why it's an appropriate role for government how it fosters competition protects consumers and ultimately drives the innovation and investment that comes from a competitive market so just to follow up on this from my perspective it seems like having slightly more regulation on the network side of things enables an enormous amount of competition on the devices and services side and that's our company that's this device do you share that for you I mean do you think there's a room for kind of more regulation the interoperability standards setting side sort of on the network layer well you know we've been very focused on exactly the point that you're raising which is how do we ensure this vibrant internet-based innovation that we've seen and there's just no question it's really not disputable that the open nature of the internet has just played a critical role like you know I watched this company as it was founded and so so yes you know sometimes government has to act to preserve platforms for innovation that's what the open Internet net neutrality debate was all about doing it in a smart market-oriented way that recognizes the realities of the marketplace the fact that we really want an open platform for innovators and we also really want robust fast networks that require capital investment it drives you to policy solutions that recognize the importance of both one of the things I'm proud of is that we were able to do the open Internet rules in a way that and you know the facts just proved this out over the last two years have contributed to this virtual cycle more innovation more demand for consumers more incentive for network companies to invest in wired and wireless infrastructure faster speeds more innovation part of what I'm saying today is that's a great cycle we need to speed it up even more we need more speed more capacity and we need to get to ubiquity well I think our time is unfortunately coming to a close but thank you thank you for your leadership thank you for your service thank you for coming here today to share this plan with us and I think we all hear the message loud and clear that we have to become active if this vision is really going to continue and we can't take for granted foundation that companies like vox media and so many other great american companies have been built upon so we will fight we'll work together to get it done for those of you who are watching the livestream obviously go to FCC gov to get involved to learn more about what chairman Genachowski is working on and how you can become informed and part of the broadband initiatives here and of course please come to the verge calm where Neil I and his Merry group of commenters will lo so engaged in a lively discussion thank you everyone who attended thank you everyone who is on the stream have a great debt thanks graduations on the