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FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION 5
Consumer Advisory Committee Meeting 6
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9:00 a.m. 9
 Friday, March 19, 2010 10
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445 12th Street, S.W. 15
Room TW-C305 16
Washington, D.C. 17
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P R O C E E D I N G S 1
MS. BERLYN:  Good morning, everyone, and 2
welcome. 3
We want to get started.  We have a few 4
people who are still to come, but we want to get 5
started because Commissioner Clyburn is coming down to 6
welcome us in about 10 minutes.  So we want to be 7
ready for her. 8
For those of you who were here yesterday, we 9
had a great afternoon of our working group meetings, 10
and we also had an opportunity to hear from the 11
Consumer Affairs Bureau Chief, Joel Gurin, who will 12
also be joining us in about a half hour. 13
And it was a great opportunity, and we are 14
going to think about trying to do that again in the 15
future to give our working groups a little bit more 16
time to do their work and have discussion.  So we’d 17
like your feedback on that format as to whether or not 18
that’s a productive opportunity to get our work done. 19
First, I’d like to thank NAB for the food 20
that we have this morning and for lunch.  Thank you. 21
[Applause.] 22
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MS. BERLYN:  Excellent.  And then we have a 1
couple of changes and new members and new faces around 2
the table that I’d like to welcome.  First of all, 3
Brenda Pennington, who represents NASUCA on the CAC, 4
was just named the Acting People’s Counsel, which is 5
really very exciting for Brenda.  So she has asked 6
Lawrence Daniels, who works at the People’s Counsel in 7
the District of Columbia, to take her spot.  And 8
NASUCA has appointed him as the representative for 9
NASUCA. 10
So welcome, Lawrence. 11
MR. DANIELS:  Thank you. 12
MS. BERLYN:  You are right here.  And we 13
also want to welcome back -- oh, and she’s just 14
getting coffee.  Not good timing. 15
MS. KEARNEY:  Sorry. 16
MS. BERLYN:  Julie Kearney, who is with --17
there she is. 18
MS. KEARNEY:  Hi, everyone.  It’s nice to be 19
here. 20
MS. BERLYN:  For Consumer Electronics 21
Association, who was here with the CAC and is back.  22
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So welcome.  Thank you. 1
MS. KEARNEY:  Yes.  Third time’s the charm. 2
MS. BERLYN:  Is Alison here?  I don’t think 3
Alison is here yet, with Dish Network.  Alison Minea 4
is the new representative for Dish Network.  So we 5
will welcome her when she arrives.  She was here 6
yesterday. 7
And we have an opportunity to congratulate 8
for the second time Karen Peltz Strauss for your new 9
position working for the FCC as Deputy Bureau Chief in 10
the Consumer Affairs Bureau on disability issues 11
there. 12
[Applause.] 13
MS. BERLYN:  Congratulations, Karen. 14
Also, pitching in for Betty at the FCC, who 15
assists Scott with the CAC, is Carl Simmons, and I16
don’t know if he’s in the room. 17
MR. MARSHALL:  He just left. 18
MS. BERLYN:  But timing, he just left.  So 19
thank you, Carl, for everything you’re doing to help 20
us today. 21
So why don’t we quickly go around -- I don’t 22
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know if we have -- do we have anyone who was not here 1
yesterday?  Anyone who wasn’t here yesterday for our 2
meeting? 3
MS. KEARNEY:  I wasn't. 4
MS. BERLYN:  Just Julie?  Anybody else who 5
was not here yesterday?  Okay. Well, there will be 6
probably some later.  So we don’t need to go around 7
the room, I don’t think, to introduce ourselves.  We 8
won’t take the time to do that. 9
Scott, any announcements? 10
MR. MARSHALL:  We had a very nice dinner 11
last night at the M&S Grill, what, about 10 of us? 12
MS. BERLYN:  Do you want to pull the mike? 13
MR. MARSHALL:  Oh. 14
MS. BERLYN:  And Scott, actually, before you 15
speak, let me just make an announcement, a reminder, 16
and we have a couple -- at least one new person around 17
the room.  When you speak, if you could pull the mike 18
as close to your mouth as possible so that we can 19
record this, as you know.  And also raise your hand so 20
that they know to turn your mike on. 21
So thanks.  Scott? 22
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MR. MARSHALL:  And even I need a reminder.  1
So it’s okay. 2
Good morning, everybody.  We had a very nice 3
dinner, social occasion last night at the M&S Grill.  4
And I think we all had good conversation and good 5
food, and should you choose to do this again and we 6
have another day and a half meeting, I’m sure we could 7
find another equally interesting venue for lunch. 8
For those of you who haven’t been here 9
before, the restrooms are right out to my right, 10
straight down the corridor, and make a left as if you 11
were going outside to the 12th Street exit.  And both 12
men’s and ladies’ rooms are there on your left. 13
If you need anything while you’re here, let 14
me know, and we’ll try to make it happen. 15
And yes, we will be getting the broadband 16
books today sometime.  Not sure exactly when, but we 17
will have copies for everyone, and I’ll mail copies to 18
those who are not here. 19
Thanks. 20
MS. LEECH:  Oh, that's great.  Thank you. 21
MS. BERLYN:  That’s great.  Thank you, 22
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Scott.  That’s fantastic.  Everyone’s printers will 1
greatly appreciate that. 2
MR. MARSHALL:  So will the environment. 3
MS. BERLYN:  A couple other things.  I know 4
it’s a beautiful day, and everybody was probably 5
counting on that lunch break to escape outside for a 6
while.  But we are going to have, actually, a working 7
lunch for the Consumer Protection Working Group. 8
We have the truth-in-billing principles that 9
you all know we worked and did have a conference call 10
to approve provisionally until this meeting.  We have 11
since then had some amendments that were proposed.  12
And yesterday, the working group met and discussed 13
some very brief -- some very simple amendments.  And 14
actually, between then and today, we’ve had some 15
additional amendments suggested. 16
So Scott and I talked, and we thought that 17
it was important that the working group would meet 18
before the CAC meets in the afternoon because, 19
otherwise, it would be too difficult to discuss the 20
amendments and try and amend the document at the same 21
time as we’re trying to approve it. 22
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 So we are going to have a working lunch, and 1
we have a room for that right down the hall for the 2
Consumer Protection Working Group.  We will try and 3
discuss the proposed amendments at that time and then 4
bring that document before the full CAC in the 5
afternoon.  Right? 6
MR. MARSHALL:  Right.  And you just take 7
your lunch down to Hearing Room B, and we’ll direct 8
you there when we adjourn for lunch. 9
MS. BERLYN:  And Commissioner Clyburn, 10
welcome. 11
 MR. MARSHALL:  Welcome. 12
MS. BERLYN:  Perfect timing.  If you would 13
like to join us, welcome to the CAC.  Thank you so 14
much for coming this morning. 15
COMMISSIONER CLYBURN:  Of course.  I 16
wouldn’t miss it. 17
MS. BERLYN:  You are our star today. 18
COMMISSIONER CLYBURN:  I trust not. 19
[Laughter.] 20
MS. BERLYN:  And always, as we said to your 21
staff.  Thank you so much for coming this morning.  We 22
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really appreciate it, and we appreciate all the 1
commissioners’ support of the Consumer Advisory 2
Committee.  So thank you so much, and welcome. 3
COMMISSIONER CLYBURN:  Absolutely, and thank 4
you, Debra. 5
I tell people in private, and I will go 6
public with it today, that you’re one of my favorite 7
people.  And I don’t mean that just because you have -8
 - you volunteer and you've committed yourself ever 9
since I’ve known you to causes and institutions and 10
the people’s business.  I don’t say that just because 11
of that.  I say that, that you not only show it, you 12
live it.  So I appreciate that, and this agency is a 13
beneficiary of that. 14
And I have to say hello to my -- you know, 15
it’s easy to say “former colleague,” but I don’t look 16
at it that way.  Commissioner, when he -- I think his 17
first month or two at the commission, he allowed me to 18
come on one of his panels.  He took a chance on this 19
very verbose person.  I promise I won’t do that to you 20
this morning, though. 21
And so, I want to welcome you back to D.C.  22
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I think it took you a couple of hours to get here.  1
Okay.  Good to see you. 2
Again, thank you for the opportunity to 3
share a few thoughts with you here today. 4
And hello, Claude. 5
MR. STOUT:  Hello. 6
COMMISSIONER CLYBURN:  Another one of my 7
favorite persons.  I am very appreciative of all of 8
the work you do on behalf of those at this agency who 9
we are supposed to protect, and that’s the consumers. 10
Given that we have a lot of items on our 11
plate, from the National Broadband Plan to major 12
mergers affecting the American people, this is an 13
exciting time to be here at the FCC.  More 14
importantly, it is a critical time for American 15
consumers. 16
Obviously, front and center is the National 17
Broadband Plan.  The plan contains many 18
recommendations that will help bring high-speed 19
broadband services to all Americans and help them 20
develop the abilities to maximize its value. 21
One particularly encouraging aspect of the 22
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plan is that it seeks to foster improved broadband 1
accessibility and encourage the development of 2
assistive technologies for the disability community.  3
As the Nation’s communications infrastructure evolves 4
to an IP-based system, people with disabilities should 5
have equal access to these digital services, as well 6
as to media content, advanced devices and equipment, 7
and civic engagement possibilities. 8
 Some of the recommendations, such as 9
updating accessibility laws, rules, and regulations to 10
include IP-based technologies, will require the FCC to 11
work with the Department of Justice and Congress.  12
Other recommendations can be implemented by the 13
commission itself, and we should move expeditiously on 14
those actions that can be taken by this agency alone. 15
I am encouraged by and support fully the 16
plan’s call to create a broadband accessibility 17
working group to coordinate the activities of Federal 18
agencies and the executive branch to remove barriers 19
to accessibility and to fulfill its statutory 20
obligations under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation 21
Act. 22
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There is also great value in the 1
recommendation for an accessibility and innovation 2
forum that would bring together all of the different 3
players in the broadband ecosystem -- from the FiOS 4
manufacturers to application developers -- to share 5
ideas, new applications, and innovative assistive 6
technologies.  Such a forum would enable the private 7
sector and the Federal Government to quickly identify 8
obstacles faced by those with disabilities and also 9
seek out potential solutions. 10
Whether it is using VOIP service to 11
communicate with loved ones or watching television 12
programs on the Internet, people with disabilities 13
should stand on a level playing field in accessing 14
these services that advance our quality of life and 15
improve our productivity.  The idea of digital 16
inclusion, ensuring that all Americans have access to 17
broadband services, is and should be a hallmark of the 18
National Broadband Plan.  To me, fulfilling the 19
commission’s mandate of serving the public interest 20
requires nothing less. 21
Another issue my office has been working 22
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diligently on is the consumers’ experience with the 1
cell phone billing and service areas.  The commission 2
has received numerous complaints in recent years about 3
various aspects of consumers’ interactions with mobile 4
phone service providers. 5
In addition, the GAO issued a recent report 6
that noted these issues, as well as the commission’s 7
challenges in developing appropriate responses to such 8
concerns.  At the forefront of this issue is a valid 9
concern over early termination fees charged by 10
wireless providers.  My office continues to explore 11
the continuing, evolving, and often tenuous rationales 12
for the ETFs imposed on consumers by wireless 13
carriers. 14
There are many questions regarding the 15
financial connection between ETFs and the cost of 16
handset devices.  For example, do ETFs only recoup the 17
handset subsidy, or do they offset regular business 18
costs, such as marketing and consumer or customer 19
service?  What percentage of ETFs recoup these handset 20
discounts? 21
The commission has been looking at ETF 22
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policies for quite some time, but our efforts came 1
back into focus when Verizon decided to double its 2
early termination fees for advanced devices and when 3
Google and T-Mobile had a snafu over exorbitant early 4
termination fees when Google’s Nexus One product was 5
launched. 6
In addition, the FCC’s Consumer Information 7
and Disclosure Proceeding has focused the agency 8
toward the best practices for ensuring that when 9
consumers sign long-term contracts, they do so 10
willingly and knowledgeably. 11
The commission’s continued focus on ETFs and 12
disclosure issues in the wireless marketplace has 13
already resulted in some positive changes for 14
consumers.  For example, last month, Google reduced 15
its ETF on its Nexus One device by $200.  I have met 16
with many wireless providers and device manufacturers, 17
including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Google, 18
and I look forward to continuing to work with the 19
Wireless and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureaus 20
on these issues. 21
These are just two of the many items we have 22
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on our plate here at the commission that have direct 1
impact on consumers.  I look forward to working with 2
you, Debra, and the committee to ensure that consumers 3
remain our focus here at the FCC throughout each stage 4
of the process. 5
Thank you again for the opportunity to greet 6
all of you this morning, and thank you again for all 7
of your efforts. 8
Good morning. 9
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you, Commissioner.  We 10
really appreciate your being here. 11
[Applause.] 12
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you so much.  We look 13
forward to seeing you again at a future meeting.  14
Thanks. 15
Well, Joel, you’re up next.  You’re welcome 16
to sit there or here, and I will --17
MR. GURIN:  My name is here. 18
MS. BERLYN:  Your name is here.  You can --19
you’re welcome to -- I can bring your name anywhere. 20
[Laughter.] 21
MS. BERLYN:  We can put you here, and I'll 22
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get you some water. 1
MR. GURIN:  Thank you. 2
MS. BERLYN:  I don’t think I need to 3
introduce Joel because I think most of you were here 4
yesterday, and we had some opportunity to have time 5
with Joel.  And Joel also joined us for dinner last 6
night, which was so nice of you to do, Joel.  We 7
really appreciated that. 8
MR. GURIN:  Well, it was a pleasure.  Thank 9
you. 10
MS. BERLYN:  But Joel is going to really 11
give us a broader view of what the bureau is up to, 12
and we appreciate that.  So thank you so much, Joel. 13
 MR. GURIN:  Terrific.  And thank you, 14
Commissioner Clyburn.  Your office has been so 15
supportive of our work.  We really appreciate it, and 16
you did give, I think, a very good preview of and good 17
summary of a lot of what we’re working on. 18
 So let me just review a little bit the 19
structure of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs 20
Bureau, CGB, and then talk also about some of the -- a 21
little bit more about some of the major initiatives 22
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that we’re working on right now and also some of the 1
structural developments that are going on in the 2
bureau. 3
So CGB, Consumer and Governmental Affairs, 4
has several major divisions and branches within it.  5
One, of course, is Consumer Policy, which covers 6
everything from things like TCPA to the new 7
initiatives that we’re doing around disclosure and 8
transparency.  The early termination fee issues that 9
the Commissioner mentioned are very much on our radar 10
now, and we founded -- we participated with Wireless11
in writing the letters that have, I think, led to some 12
good dialogue with industry already and, hopefully, 13
more to come on that issue. 14
Closely aligned with that is 15
Intergovernmental Affairs, which is headed by Greg 16
Vadas in our bureau.  Intergovernmental Affairs is one 17
area that is now going to be ramped up because, in the 18
past, it’s been very much an informational function.  19
I think a lot of what IGA has done has been part of 20
our way of communicating to State and local utilities, 21
organizations, governmental bodies about work that’s 22
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going on at the Federal level. 1
Some of the feedback that we’ve gotten has 2
been that we really need much more of a dialogue and 3
that it needs to be a two-way dialogue.  We actually 4
think there is quite a bit we can learn from what’s 5
going on in the States, and we think that dialogue is 6
really going to be necessary to do the kind of 7
coordination between Federal and State and local 8
initiatives that’s going to be most valuable.  So you 9
can look for some development there as well. 10
In outreach, we have an Outreach Division 11
that has done a lot of good work in the past.  The 12
challenge for us now is that outreach has largely been 13
defined as events, with some effort being spent on 14
print publications and also a presence on the Web, but 15
not at a level that matches, for example, what the 16
Federal Trade Commission has done, which I think, in 17
many ways, has set the standard for Government 18
outreach on consumer issues, at least in my view. 19
So my background, as I think you all know by 20
now, is a combination of nonprofit management and 21
publishing.  I spent a significant chunk of my life 22
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working on magazines, Consumer Reports, launching that 1
Web site and some others as well.  So that -- I come 2
here with that interest, but I think it’s also really 3
an agency-wide interest.  And I think that’s part of 4
why I’ve been brought here is to see what we can do to 5
really increase the communication potential of both 6
our bureau and the FCC as a whole. 7
This ties in very much with what I think 8
most of you heard yesterday, a terrific presentation 9
from Steve Van Roekel about what’s happening in new10
media.  We see that as a tremendous area of 11
opportunity. 12
So that area of outreach, we’re now going to 13
differentiate a bit more between the event-oriented 14
work that we’ve done, which also includes workshops, 15
hearings, a lot of work that we’ve already done and 16
will continue to do with the broadband plan.  And what 17
you could think of as state-of-the-art publishing, 18
meaning both print and Web publishing in ways that 19
really can be innovative and get the word out.  So 20
that’s a major agenda for us. 21
Another area is the Disability Rights 22
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Office.  You may know that we’ve been doing a lot of 1
work recently, which I would consider really to be 2
kind of a -- I don’t know if “clean-up” is the right 3
word, but it probably is, on video relay services.  4
And we’ve done that with a lot of, I think, very 5
important and very productive dialogue with several of 6
the people around this table and others, which we’ve 7
really appreciated. 8
Our fundamental goal here is to maintain VRS 9
as a critical service, to be sure that it’s well 10
funded, and to be sure that that industry works in a 11
way that is ultimately going to be above reproach and 12
that will ensure the continuation of the service and13
the soundness of the fund that supports it. 14
And we really do see this -- we’ve taken 15
some steps already that I think have been useful, and 16
future steps, we really see as involving an ongoing 17
dialogue with the community, which we’ve now begun.  18
And I’m very glad we’ve begun. 19
We also -- of course, for disability rights, 20
we have Karen Peltz Strauss joining us as a deputy, 21
which is just a wonderful development, and I think 22
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both shows our commitment to this issue and, Karen, I 1
think shows your commitment to coming back and working 2
with the FCC, which we’re really grateful for. 3
Another area is tribal affairs, tribal 4
issues.  This is an area that actually has come very 5
much into the fore with the National Broadband Plan.  6
One of the most underserved areas in the country, I 7
think, in terms of broadband are in Indian Country.  8
And the statistics are that right now, about 65 9
percent of the country as a whole has active broadband 10
 access.  In Indian Country, that’s the number who 11
actually have telephone service. 12
And if you look at the penetration of 13
broadband, it’s so low that it has not even been 14
accurately measured, but we think it’s somewhere below 15
10 percent.  So there is a major, major piece of the 16
outreach and work that’s going to have to be done to 17
implement the broadband plan is going to be outreach 18
on and connection and the support of tribal issues. 19
What we’re doing there is for the first 20
time, we are actually setting up an Office of Tribal 21
Affairs, although this has not yet been -- gone 22
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through the official stages, but it’s recommended in 1
the broadband plan, and we’re in the process of 2
working on that now.  Tribal affairs in the past has 3
been represented by a single tribal liaison who has 4
been within the Intergovernmental Affairs Bureau.  So 5
it’s been, you know, a level or two down within the 6
bureau. 7
This new Office of Tribal Affairs will 8
report directly to me and will really be set up as an 9
office -- not just as a single person, but as a 10
staffed office that can really work on these issues 11
that are so important. 12
So I’m just thinking if I’ve left anything 13
out.  I think that covers the major areas that we’re 14
working on in terms of structure and I think gives you 15
a little bit of a sense of how we’re developing CGB 16
into what I’m confident is going to be a more and more 17
effective bureau. 18
In terms of major themes and areas for our 19
work, transparency is a huge one, as you know.  And I 20
think the work that you’ll all be able to do in terms 21
of -- and your working group, Debbie, in terms of 22
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giving us input into that process is going to be 1
fantastic, and we can talk about that more if you 2
like. 3
Industry transparency and consumer 4
information are tools that I personally spent a large 5
part of my career developing at Consumer Reports and, 6
actually, in other areas as well.  I think the 7
potential of clear information that allows for 8
comparisons between services, between products, 9
between plans that allows consumers to really see what 10
they’re getting, what they’re paying, and to push for 11
what they need, it’s an incredible tool for market 12
change. 13
And I think, ultimately, it’s a tool that 14
benefits industry as well as consumers.  This is a way 15
of creating a more competitive marketplace, a more 16
level playing field for consumers to compare different 17
products and services, and I think, ultimately, it 18
benefits everybody.  So we are going to be doing a lot 19
of work to facilitate that process.  So we can talk 20
about that a bit. 21
The work on disability rights and the 22
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accessibility of broadband particularly, I think we’re 1
going to be moving very quickly from what has been, as 2
I said, almost a kind of clean-up operation with VRS 3
into a much more positive and proactive mode.  4
Certainly, accessibility is a major part of the 5
broadband plan.  We are going to be working with the 6
Wireless Bureau and with others to hold different 7
kinds of workshops, contests, and so on to encourage 8
people to develop applications that are helpful. 9
Not just the major companies, but any 10
creative inventor in a garage, we really want to hear 11
from anybody who has ideas about how to improve 12
accessibility.  And this will be a major and, I think, 13
very positive development going forward that we really 14
are looking forward to working on. 15
In publishing, we are -- as I said, we’re 16
going to be putting a major emphasis on outreach 17
through publishing, and I think a large part of that 18
is really going to be the work on the Web, where I 19
think we have tremendous opportunity not just to use 20
the Web to get copy and video and images out there, 21
but to really develop interactive decision tools that 22
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help people understand these markets and help them 1
really make choices in a very informed and creative 2
way.  And I think that, ultimately, the Web is so 3
powerful, I think that can be transformational for us. 4
And the work on tribal issues would be 5
another focus.  And I think coming back to the 6
Intergovernmental Affairs Division, I would love to 7
get your feedback on that as well because we do see 8
that as an area that can lead to a much more active 9
dialogue, much more proactive, and much more 10
productive in how we work with all of you in the 11
States. 12
 So I hope that gives you a good overview, 13
and I’d love to answer any questions or hear any 14
thoughts or ideas you have for us.  We are looking 15
forward to an exciting year, and I’m very glad to be 16
here and have a chance to start working with all of 17
you. 18
So, yes? 19
MS. BERLYN:  And you all I think have seen 20
this drill before.  Remember, the cards?  Yes, Ken.  21
Whoa. 22
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MR. MCELDOWNEY:  Sorry, I forgot the tent 1
card. 2
MS. BERLYN:  We have the tent-card system, 3
where if you have a question, put your tent card up, 4
and I will try and recognize those as the cards go up. 5
But I did see your hand go up first, Ken.  So, Ken 6
and then Gloria and then Lise. 7
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  I had sort of one 8
suggestion and then also a question. 9
One of the things that I think that the 10
telecommunication companies have found quite valuable 11
is, in addition to an office that sort of focuses on 12
disability issues, also having an office that focuses 13
on minorities -- whether it’s Native Americans or 14
Latinos or Asians or whoever else -- in terms of being 15
able to get those perspectives.  And I think I could 16
see that as being part of your outreach effort. 17
But I think one of the things that we have 18
found over the years, there are some very special 19
issues there.  And I think adding some folks in some 20
sort of an office that focuses on minority issues, I 21
think, would be a real positive step. 22
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 The second, the question really is that when 1
you were talking about intergovernmental issues, one 2
of the things that popped into my mind as just sort of 3
one issue, and that’s the whole thing in terms of 4
making purchases with your cell phone. And I guess I 5
was talking to someone from the Fed a little bit 6
earlier, and it seems to me that this is one of those 7
issues that sort of falls between departments right 8
now. 9
And I’m sort of wondering if you could 10
expand a little bit just in terms of sort of what you 11
are doing in terms of working with other governmental 12
agencies in terms of issues like cell phone purchases 13
and other things and privacy issues that sort of span 14
jurisdiction of different agencies? 15
 MR. GURIN:  You mean, you’re talking about 16
like shopping online through your cell phone? 17
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  Yes.  Yes, right. 18
MR. GURIN:  Yes.  That’s a good question, 19
actually.  And I’m sorry, what did you say, Debbie?20
MS. BERLYN:  Parking.  Paying for your 21
parking and things like that, too. 22
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MR. GURIN:  Parking, yes.  Yes.  Well, you 1
know, one of the interesting challenges we have, of 2
course, is that the lines of jurisdiction have been3
drawn in a different world.  And one of the things --4
I had a chance to go to the Consumer Electronics Show 5
for the first time this last year, which was a lot of 6
fun.  When I was at Consumer Reports, we always sent 7
somebody else.  I never got to go.  So I felt like I 8
finally got let into the candy store. 9
But what was really striking to me -- and I 10
actually did a blog post about this, which you can 11
read at fcc.gov.  What was really striking to me is 12
that for, I don’t know, since I won’t tell you how 13
long, but a couple of -- I guess since the dawn of the 14
Web in the mid ‘90s when I was involved with that 15
through my work, for at least 15 years, I’ve been 16
hearing people talk about convergence.  It’s all going 17
to come together.  It’s going to be your cell phone 18
and your TV and everything else. 19
And for years, I’ve been saying, yes, that 20
will happen someday.  And going to CES, I thought this 21
really is now.  This really is now.  A lot of people 22
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at CES, presenters, people I talked to on the floor 1
were talking about there are three screens.  There is 2
the handheld screen.  There is the computer screen, 3
and there is the TV screen. 4
And within I would say 2 years easily, they 5
are all really going to have the same stuff.  That 6
kind of interoperability is that common -- the common 7
content available in different ways, the common 8
applications available in different ways, whether it 9
is Skype coming preinstalled on your new flat-screen 10
TV, or some way of watching, a number of ways being 11
looked at of watching TV on your cell phone or your 12
smart phone.  It’s clearly here. 13
So I think it’s fair to say -- and this 14
really is a question that goes well beyond my bureau, 15
but I think it’s fair to say that these are issues 16
we’re going to have to look at as an agency and work 17
with other agencies and figure out how to coordinate. 18
Our initial outreach has been strongest with 19
the Federal Trade Commission.  I’ve been talking to 20
some people there in the Consumer Bureau, which, as I 21
said, I think is doing, has done terrific work for a 22
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long time.  And we’ll be following up there. 1
But I think this is -- it’s a very good 2
question, Ken, and I don’t think we have an easy 3
answer to it.  But we’re certainly going to have to 4
look at that and all these issues of really -- that 5
come out of convergence. 6
On your first point, we haven’t talked about 7
an office focused on minorities and minority issues.  8
It’s an interesting idea.  We should think about it.  9
But the thing that I think maybe is most immediate and 10
relates to a lot of your work is what we can do in 11
terms of presenting information in different 12
languages, not only Spanish language, but Chinese 13
possibly and others. 14
And we had a good conversation yesterday.  15
I’d love to follow up on that because I think that’s 16
something we’re really going to need and want to deal 17
with right away. 18
So thank you. 19
MS. BERLYN:  Gloria? 20
MS. TRISTANI:  Thank you.  And it’s good to 21
see you again. 22
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MR. GURIN:  Good to see you. 1
MS. TRISTANI:  And appreciate the news of 2
the good work that you’re doing on all sorts of 3
fronts. 4
MR. GURIN:  Thank you. 5
MS. TRISTANI:  But I have two questions.  6
One is process or more procedural, and the other is 7
substantive. 8
First, welcome hearing about the 9
intergovernmental affairs aspect of Consumer Bureau 10
because I think that’s been ignored a little bit or --11
but one question I had there was, is there -- and I’m 12
not sure because I haven’t seen this.  But is there an 13
active Intergovernmental Affairs -- they've changed 14
the names -- Advisory Committee?   So that’s one. 15
MR. GURIN:  Yes.  There is an 16
Intergovernmental Affairs Committee, IAC.  It’s now up 17
for new membership.  So we’re in that process now. 18
 MS. TRISTANI:  So that’s being --19
MR. GURIN:  Oh, yes.  Yes, that’s definitely 20
going to continue. 21
MS. TRISTANI:  Oh, good.  Good.  So that’s 22
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good to hear. 1
The other question I have, and this refers 2
to something that Commissioner Clyburn mentioned, is -3
 - well, let me backtrack.  Wonderful what you’re doing 4
with transparency, and we all applaud that and we all 5
look forward to the day where there’s clear labeling 6
where consumers can compare.  But in the meantime, and 7
even with the clearest and most wonderful transparent 8
labeling, there are constant concerns about consumers 9
at times may be gouged by early termination fees not 10
only in the wireless industry, but across a whole 11
spectrum, including cable modem, the subscription 12
video services. 13
And I guess what I’m asking is are you or is 14
your bureau looking at some kind of proceeding where 15
this will be examined?  As a little bit of background, 16
and you may have heard in the prior commission before 17
the new Chairman, there was much talk about there was 18
going to be a proceeding on this, and then it never 19
happened.  And it kind of kept everybody from doing 20
anything.  But is there going to be a look, at least a 21
factual look at the economics of this? 22
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As Commissioner Clyburn said, there are 1
always questions about are they recovering the real 2
costs, or are they adding other things with the 3
handsets?  And the same with video subscription. So 4
anything you can tell us about that would be welcome 5
because I brought this up yesterday repeatedly with 6
the Consumer Working Group that I think it’s really 7
important for us to look at that for the people we 8
represent. 9
MR. GURIN:  Well, thanks, Gloria. 10
And no, that’s certainly a good question.  I 11
mean, I can tell you what we’ve been doing so far.  I 12
can’t really tell you what the next steps will be, but 13
I can tell you we’re looking at this actively.  This 14
is not an issue that we’re just going to put on the 15
shelf. 16
You all know, of course, that we put out the 17
Notice of Inquiry last fall.  And as you remember, 18
that was a very, very -- that staked out very, very 19
broad territory.  It was truth-in-billing expanded in 20
two major directions. 21
One is going beyond wireless and wireline to 22
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look at all communication services, and the other was 1
saying we’re not just looking at billing.  We’re 2
looking at the issues that consumers need to know 3
about when they choose a provider, when they choose a 4
plan, and when they think about switching their 5
service. 6
You also know that we sent letters initially 7
to Verizon about the advanced devices fees, and we’re 8
very gratified to see that some changes happened 9
already in that.  And also to the four major carriers, 10
where we asked a much more -- we asked everybody the 11
same questions, and it was a list of I think about 15 12
questions, really trying to get at the structure of 13
early termination fees and so on.  For us, all of this 14
is in the context of transparency. 15
And as I said, I can’t tell you what we’ll 16
do next.  We’re still working it out.  But we are 17
really going to continue focusing on transparency as a 18
very important tool for consumers and really a 19
necessity we think for the industry.  And part of that 20
will certainly be looking at early termination fees 21
and with the primary goal of making sure that 22
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everybody understands what they are, what they’re 1
subject to, how they’re structured, and so forth. 2
MS. TRISTANI:  And I appreciate that, but my 3
question went beyond that, looking at whether they’re 4
fair, reasonable, based on cost and -- but that may be 5
beyond your bureau.  So --6
MR. GURIN:  I think that’s certainly a good 7
question.  That’s a question for us to consider.  I 8
can’t tell you where we might go with that, but I take 9
your point that that’s something we need to be looking 10
at.  Yes, fair enough. 11
Yes? 12
MS. BERLYN:  I think Lise was next, yes. 13
MR. GURIN:  Hi. 14
MS. HAMLIN:  This is Lise Hamlin.  Thank 15
you.  Yes, I really actually welcome all your remarks. 16
 They’re really very positive, and we’re really 17
looking forward to working with you on a number of 18
issues. 19
MR. GURIN:  Thank you. 20
MS. HAMLIN:  I had a couple of questions.  21
One, my ears perked up at the intergovernmental 22
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affairs, and I hadn’t been aware of the committee, and 1
I think it’s really good.  And from our perspective, 2
there are issues, for example, telecommunications 3
relay, which has oversight for the public utilities 4
commissions in States.  And sometimes what happens to 5
them obviously impacts consumers. 6
So what -- I don’t know if this is already 7
happening, but if it isn’t, I’d like to see consumers 8
involved in workshops or sit-downs similar to we 9
already have a committee on hearing aid compatibility, 10
where industry sits down with consumers at the behest 11
of and with the oversight of the FCC. 12
That kind of thing working on a State level, 13
I think, can sometimes be useful just to exchange 14
information, ideas, and so that no decisions get made 15
sort of nothing about us without us.  Same thing for 16
consumers on that level.  So, again, it’s a suggestion 17
for that. 18
MR. GURIN:  Well, I would very much like to 19
do that.  You know, we had what I thought was a very, 20
very good first meeting a couple of weeks ago.  And at 21
that meeting, we talked about setting up ongoing 22
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dialogue around these issues.  I very much want to 1
continue doing that.  I think with Karen coming in, in 2
however many days it is -- a very small number, less 3
than 2 weeks -- I think we’ll talk and you’ll really 4
have the opportunity to lead that effort. 5
But we definitely -- we are serious about 6
wanting to establish a real, ongoing dialogue with 7
consumers.  It only makes sense from both sides, and 8
we’ll figure out the right way to do that, but we’ll 9
definitely do it. 10
MS. HAMLIN:  That’s terrific.  And I have a 11
second question.  You also mentioned under 12
disabilities talking about making sure that 13
applications are accessible.  And this has become an 14
issue.  I had always thought, I had presumed that when 15
an application that I can use on my iPhone happens, 16
it’s because there was a licensing agreement, and I 17
could go to Apple and say, hey, you’ve got to make 18
sure. 19
But apparently, that’s not true.  There are 20
mom and pops can do all kinds of things.  So I really 21
am encouraged, and I’d like to see -- I don’t know if 22
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you have ideas already about ways where the commission 1
can ensure that mom and pop companies can go ahead and 2
be encouraged to be inventive and innovative, but 3
still think about disability access to their 4
applications. 5
MR. GURIN:  Absolutely.  I mean, I can’t 6
remember the number of apps that have been developed 7
for the iPhone, but it’s thousands and thousands.  And 8
now with the Android platform available for other 9
kinds of phones on other kinds of carriers, that’s 10
only going to skyrocket. 11
 There are a couple of things we can do.  We 12
are -- at one of our events around the broadband plan 13
last week, the event on digital inclusion, we 14
announced an Apps for Inclusion contest that’s being 15
funded by the Knight Foundation.  That’s a little bit 16
more general, but it’s really geared toward any kind 17
of applications that would help make the Internet more 18
accessible both through fixed services, through 19
wireless, whatever it would be. 20
And that’s something that I think is going 21
to be very interesting, and we really set that up 22
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specifically -- this is like the garage band approach 1
to apps.  It’s anybody in the garage, anybody who has 2
an idea.  I think we’ve also -- we’re also thinking 3
about framing things in some ways that we may open it 4
up just to people who don’t have the technical 5
expertise but can sort of design what something would 6
look like.  And if they have a great idea, we’d like 7
to follow up on that. 8
So Apps for Inclusion, I think, will 9
include, to some extent -- certainly should include 10
accessibility for people with disabilities.  But we’re 11
also going to be looking at more targeted ways of 12
getting at that.  We are planning some major events in 13
July around the 20th anniversary of the ADA, which may 14
 -- I think will also include some work in this area. 15
We’ve been talking with the Wireless Bureau 16
about maybe putting a workshop together that would 17
explore some of these issues.  So we’re definitely --18
it’s definitely on our radar, and we’d love to hear 19
your ideas as we go forward about what would be the 20
most effective way to do this. 21
So thanks, Lise.  Yes? 22
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MS. BERLYN:  Thank you, Lise. 1
Cheryl? 2
MS. HEPPNER:  First, I’d like to thank you 3
very much for all of the work you’ve already done. 4
MR. GURIN:  Thank you. 5
MS. HEPPNER:  Coming into the FCC these 6
days, between all the other things that have happened 7
recently and especially since your appointment, there 8
seems to be a lot more openness to hearing from 9
consumers.  And we know that it's genuine.  It's nice 10
to know that people aren’t afraid to talk to us for 11
fear that they’re going to get in trouble.  And I 12
thank you for your part in that and for the way you 13
encourage our input and try to find ways to make it 14
useful. 15
I'm sure that there is a tremendous backlog 16
of filings and complaints and things like that from 17
 people with disabilities, and I wonder if you have any 18
plan as to how that might be addressed by your bureau? 19
MR. GURIN:  Sure.  Well, my first plan is 20
hiring Karen. 21
[Laughter.] 22
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MS. HEPPNER:  Good one. 1
 MR. GURIN:  Thank you.  I think so, too.  2
And I think that’s actually -- Karen -- going to be 3
one of the things we’ll have to look at together when 4
you’re onboard.  So that’s probably, Cheryl, about all 5
I can say for now. 6
But what I will tell you, I don’t know if 7
people are aware of this.  There is a backlog task 8
force now at the FCC looking at backlog issues not 9
only in this area, but in others as well.  So I know 10
it’s something that from the Chairman on through the11
agency, we’re taking seriously as an agency, and we 12
certainly will be looking at how to deal with these 13
issues when they relate to disability rights. 14
MS. HEPPNER:  Okay.  I have never heard of a 15
backlog task force before.  That is a first.  You have 16
many firsts.  You should probably keep a list. 17
And one last question.  If I could read my 18
notes.  We know that there is a DTV technical working 19
group on trying to resolve captioning and video 20
description issues, and it has been working, but not 21
as fast as it might by a long stretch.  The problems 22
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are continuing.  I haven’t seen a whole lot come from 1
it.  Is that just going to be another thing you're 2
going to hand to Karen? 3
[Laughter.] 4
 MR. GURIN:  Well, sounds like a plan to me. 5
[Laughter.] 6
MR. GURIN:  Actually, well, not to be too 7
glib.  This is an issue more than the backlog issue.  8
This one is one that I have had some involvement in 9
already.  It’s clearly not an easy fix, and you know 10
the Office of Engineering and Technology, which has 11
terrific expertise, has been looking at this along 12
with us, along with the group. 13
It’s a tough one, as I understand it, when 14
I’ve seen diagrams of just the various, the kinds of 15
information flow and the technical ways in which 16
closed-captioning is delivered.  It kind of reminds me 17
when I was a kid, looking at those little Heath Co. 18
diagrams for how to build a transistor radio that I 19
could never quite figure out how to do.  There are 20
lines going everywhere. 21
So we have to sort that out.  And our 22
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experience has been that it’s not -- we’re not even 1
sure whether the cable companies and others involved 2
know what the problem is and just aren’t telling us or 3
really can’t quite figure it out themselves.  So there 4
is a lot of work to be done there.  But we are 5
absolutely not letting this one sit.  We’re working on 6
it. 7
Karen, I’m sure you’ll have -- once you’re 8
onboard, I expect you’ll have more to say about this 9
one.  But we’re looking at it, and despite the 10
technical difficulties, we’re not just going to walk 11
away from it.  We’ll figure out some way to cut 12
through that.13
MS. HEPPNER:  Thanks.  I appreciate your 14
position. 15
And just for the record, I’m not 16
complaining.  If we’re going to dump something like 17
that, Karen would be a good place to send it. 18
MS. STRAUSS:  If I could just comment?  19
After this meeting, I will be going into hibernation. 20
[Laughter.] 21
MR. GURIN:  So that would be your plan.  22
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Thank you. 1
MS. BERLYN:  Well, Joel, I have one 2
question, and then a comment.  Consumer complaints are 3
within your --4
MR. GURIN:  Oh, thank you.  I’m sorry.  I 5
knew I was leaving out something hugely important, and 6
thank you for the reminder.  I don’t know how I missed 7
that, yes. 8
MS. BERLYN:  And before you address that, I 9
just wanted to ask in that whole category, I think one 10
thing and because you do have such a great eye for 11
communicating with the public, I think that that’s one 12
area where we could really use some improvement in 13
working with consumers on how they can carry their 14
complaints to the agency, how to facilitate making it 15
known that they can do that, number one, but then also 16
helping to resolve complaints for consumers.  So that 17
process can --18
MR. GURIN: Well, thanks, Debbie.  And let 19
me talk about that a bit. 20
Yes, the consumer center, the consumer 21
complaint center is part of CGB.  It’s an area we’re 22
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looking at and are working on very actively.  I don’t 1
know if any of you were aware of this.  But actually, 2
my first day here, December 9th, the GAO gave me a 3
welcome present by issuing a report on our complaint 4
handling system for which I actually was on a panel at 5
NARUC with the guy who wrote the report and had a 6
chance to thank him.  But it was actually sincere 7
thanks because it was a spot-on report. 8
And the conclusions were, among other 9
things, they really did not find fault with the people 10
who handle the phone calls, and we have a very large 11
 and I think very experienced staff doing that.  But 12
they found fault with our systems, and I think 13
everybody, beginning with the phone call center, would 14
agree that the systems need improvement.  Steve Van 15
Roekel, who you met yesterday, has been very committed 16
to that.  The Office of the Managing Director is very 17
committed to that. 18
So what we’re doing, just in a nutshell, 19
because I see we’re at 10:00.  But in a very quick 20
overview, we’re looking at ways to do a few things.  21
One is to simplify the systems because, right now, 22
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there are a lot of systems that computer scientists 1
would technically describe as “klugy.” 2
They’ve kind of been built a bit at a time, 3
and they don’t really integrate and work well 4
together.  We need to fix that.  But there is also, I 5
think, a tremendous opportunity that we have not 6
utilized yet, which is to use all of this information 7
to spot consumer trends, and that is actually 8
something that the GAO specifically noted and that we 9
completely agree is a terrific opportunity for us. 10
And then, finally, in terms of complaint 11
handling, our model has been very much based on 12
mediation.  One of the things we’re looking at is that 13
mediation is often necessary, often useful, but really 14
not the only way to address these problems.  I think 15
particularly as we use the Web more and more 16
intelligently, we’ll find ways that we can provide 17
self-help kinds of tools for people, ways that we can 18
really help them help themselves, which can just 19
increase the leverage we have in helping solve these 20
problems. 21
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you.  We have a question 22
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from Mark. 1
MR. GURIN:  Great.  Thank you. 2
Hi, Mark. 3
MR. DEFALCO:  I did not know about your 4
Intergovernmental Affairs Committee.  I need to 5
understand a little bit more about that.  But I do 6
know that before she left NEC, Susan Crawford used to 7
have periodic meetings every week it started, then it 8
went to every other week where it was to just discuss 9
broadband issues in general with all of the Federal 10
agencies. 11
And when Susan left at the end of last year, 12
that was the last meeting.  And I personally thought13
they were very, very beneficial.  It was a chance for 14
the different agencies to get together and really go 15
through a lot of things.  It was also during the 16
period of time when the RUS and NTIA were going 17
through the grant proceedings.  And just soon as she 18
left off, that completely came to a close. 19
MR. GURIN:  You know, Mark, I think that’s a 20
good heads-up for me.  I am conscious that we’re at 21
the end of the time, but I will be back for lunch, 22
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Debbie.  So --1
 MS. BERLYN:  Oh, good. 2
MR. GURIN:  Yes.  So I can follow up with 3
you then.  And I would like to.  Let’s make sure we 4
talk then.  Terrific. 5
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you so much, Joel. 6
MR. GURIN:  Thank you. 7
 MS. BERLYN:  We appreciate your time.  8
Excellent.  Thanks. 9
MR. GURIN:  My pleasure.  Thanks very much. 10
[Applause.] 11
MS. BERLYN:  Well, Blair?  Blair, have you 12
had any sleep?  I think you have now.  But Blair, come 13
up to this end because, Blair, you have brought us 14
some gifts.  I don’t know if you know this. 15
Thank you so much, Joel. 16
MR. GURIN:  Thank you, Debbie.  I’ll see you 17
at noon. 18
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Excellent. 19
MR. LEVIN:  Hi.  How are you? 20
MS. BERLYN:  Hi.  Welcome, Blair Levin.  We 21
don’t have a tent card for you.  We should. 22
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As you all know, this is the architect 1
extraordinaire of the, how many pages, 400 and you 2
know? 3
MR. LEVIN:  Yes, well, it’s actually 4
interesting --5
MS. BERLYN:  We rounded it to 400, I think. 6
MR. LEVIN:  Yes, every news report has 7
gotten a different one.  So it depends --8
[Laughter.] 9
MS. BERLYN:  The cover, the index. 10
MR. LEVIN:  I’ll actually tell you the first 11
draft, which we got from our teams on November 30th, 12
was 2,300 pages. 13
MS. BERLYN:  Twenty-three hundred, okay. 14
MR. LEVIN:  So we decided that actually 15
wouldn’t work.  So we had to reconceptualize.  You 16
should be very grateful.  There will be a lot of 17
technical appendices -- thank you -- coming out over 18
the next month.  But one of the things you’ll note in 19
the plan is that there’s a lot of analytic work behind 20
many things that the full analysis is not there 21
because we wanted to focus on the recommendations and 22
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stuff.  So, anyway. 1
MS. BERLYN:  We appreciate your being here 2
this morning to fill us in on the National Broadband 3
Plan, and I don’t know if any of you saw, but the box 4
is in.  And thanks to Blair and his team, everyone 5
here is going to actually get a covered original copy 6
of the National Broadband Plan, which Blair is going 7
to personally autograph, right? 8
[Laughter.] 9
MS. BERLYN:  I know I want mine personally 10
autographed.  And we really appreciate all the hard 11
work that went into this.  We know that it was a team 12
effort. 13
 MR. LEVIN:  It really was. 14
MS. BERLYN:  And that hours, hundreds, 15
thousands, millions of hours went into this, day, 16
night, weekends, and that you had quite a team that 17
you put together, I know, of people who had 18
extraordinary experience and thoughtful thoughts that 19
went into this.  So it’s really quite a piece that 20
everybody will, I know, spend a lot of time reading 21
over the course of the next couple of weeks and 22
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digesting. 1
But we appreciate your coming in and giving 2
us just the Cliff Notes on, I think, and helping us 3
work through.  So thanks. 4
MR. LEVIN:  First of all, thank you very 5
much.  And thanks, Debra. 6
Debra rescued us in ways that only I know 7
from several mistakes we were going to make in the 8
course of this process.  One of the nice things about 9
the process is there were a number of people who kind 10
of very quietly said to me, "You’re making a mistake," 11
and they were thinking about it. 12
 One of the advantages of an open and 13
transparent process is that you make your mistakes 14
publicly in September and October so that you can 15
actually do the right thing in February.  And 16
personally, I will never reveal how she corrected us 17
because that wouldn’t be useful.  But I’m really 18
grateful for that. 19
Also, as Debra said, it very much was a team 20
effort.  I just saw Elizabeth Lyle came in.  Elizabeth 21
ran -- actually, one of the things that was, I think, 22
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most interesting and from an historic perspective 10 1
years from now may turn out to be one of the more 2
important things was the disabilities workstream.  One 3
of the interesting statistics that is really 4
counterintuitive to me was the high level of 5
nonadopters who have suffered from disabilities. 6
And the reason I say it’s counterintuitive 7
is broadband enables a kind of personalization that 8
you actually might think that folks who have 9
disabilities benefit from broadband more, the value 10
proposition is greater.  But there are a variety of 11
reasons that John Horrigan's fabulous study document 12
for why it’s actually harder, and I think as a 13
country, it’s one of the things we really need to 14
focus on. 15
Elizabeth did some fantastic work.  It’s 16
great that Karen will be joining the FCC to make that 17
vision a reality. 18
I have given so many presentations about the 19
plan.  I often have to get up and do PowerPoints, but 20
I’m delighted to actually be here in what we might 21
think of as an “unplugged” session.  I have no 22
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PowerPoints.  I have no presentation. 1
I thought you folks have read probably a 2
fair amount of press about it, but what I thought I 3
would just do is open it up for questions.  Of course, 4
I’m happy to chat about it.  But I thought it would 5
better.  I will merely say that in the first 24 hours 6
of press, what was most amusing to me was that there 7
were probably 50 or 60 people who were quoted, many of 8
whom very positively, some of whom very negatively.  9
And I felt very confident of this.  None of those 10
people had actually read it on both sides. 11
But people are reading it now and are 12
discovering various things about it.  My favorite, of 13
course, is the blogger who discovered that this is the 14
first FCC report ever to quote Shakespeare.  And I got 15
a lovely note from the head of the Irish equivalent of 16
the FCC this morning noting that and offering another 17
Shakespeare quote kind of in response to the quote 18
that we had, that we used. 19
So all I can say is my mother was happy with 20
the Shakespeare quote.  So that’s good.  But with 21
that, I’m happy to talk.  But I’m mostly here really 22
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out of respect for the work that you guys are doing, 1
and again, in appreciation for what Debra did several 2
times during the planning process.  But I’m happy to 3
answer any questions that you all have. 4
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Well, we have a tent 5
card system.  So tent cards will go up, I’m sure.  As 6
people speak, I’m going to walk around and hand out 7
the books.  So please use this as an opportunity. 8
We did -- Blair, we have a Broadband Working 9
Group.  We did meet yesterday to start to talk.  And 10
as you say, it is difficult to talk without having 11
read every word of the plan.  So we did talk based --12
although some people I think have started to look at 13
it and read parts of it.  So we did start to talk 14
about it, and the discussion will continue. 15
MR. LEVIN:  Great. 16
MS. BERLYN:  But we will entertain 17
questions, starting with Irene.  And if you could, 18
because I don’t think we’ll take time to go around and 19
introduce ourselves because Blair has been here 20
before.  But if you could, before you ask your 21
question, introduce yourself and your affiliation. 22
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So thank you. 1
MS. LEECH:  Good morning.  I’m Irene Leech. 2
And I’m here representing the Consumer Federation of 3
America. And I’m one of the co-chairs of the 4
Broadband Working Group. 5
MR. LEVIN:  Great. 6
MS. LEECH:  I guess one of our questions to 7
you is how can we help with implementation?  What do 8
you anticipate is going to happen from here?  And we 9
also are wondering if some of the materials that were 10
collected in the process are going to be used to kind 11
of jump-start the process of proceedings that might 12
come from here? 13
MR. LEVIN:  Yes. 14
MS. LEECH:  And that data will continue 15
forward versus being lost? 16
MR. LEVIN:  Yes.  During the planning 17
process, there was a process of integrating the 18
planning process with the traditional bureau and 19
office process.  There was a weekly meeting that kind 20
of set forth the agenda.  The bureau chiefs all have 21
known which proceedings the plan would call for, and 22
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in some sense, they were setting their own agenda. 1
I think the document ought to be looked at 2
as both an analytic piece and an agenda-setting piece. 3
So sometime the next couple of weeks, the FCC will 4
release a document, which is a calendar of those 5
proceedings which it will be doing. 6
Obviously, there are some things which are 7
very important and core to the agenda -- universal 8
service, spectrum, rights of way, other things, the 9
transparency agenda that Joel is going to run.  So I 10
would say that, you know, pick your favorite items and 11
support them. 12
I would -- one of the things that’s very 13
clear to me watching Washington operate for a lot of 14
years is it’s pretty easy to kill things.  It’s very 15
hard to get things done.  I think that one of the 16
things that we captured, and there was a lot of work 17
behind the scenes on this, was that there on some 18
issues an actual consensus. 19
And I don’t mean unanimity, but I think 20
there is a greater consensus than people realize about 21
things like universal service reform or comp reform in 22
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part because the market is moving those things --1
we’re moving toward a disaster.  And I think people 2
really don’t want that disaster to occur.  And so, 3
it’s -- but nonetheless, it’s hard to get movement. 4
And so, on a number of issues, and we talked 5
to your folks a lot about the universal service stuff 6
because we wanted to both solve the congressional 7
issue of deploying everywhere without raising the 8
already significant fees on consumers in the rest of 9
the country. 10
So I would just say, yes, all of the 11
information that’s a matter of public record, that 12
came in as part of the broadband planning process will 13
be part of the normal notice and comment period.  And 14
let the proceedings begin and push them forward and 15
 hold the commission’s feet to the fire. 16
MS. BERLYN:  Thanks, Irene. 17
Gloria? 18
MS. TRISTANI:  That answered my question. 19
MS. BERLYN:  Oh.  Who’s next?  Claude? 20
MR. STOUT:  Yes, and hello, Blair. I am 21
Claude Stout, and I’m with the Deaf and Hard of 22
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Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network. 1
On behalf of our deaf and hard of hearing 2
population, I would like to thank you and your team 3
for the wonderful report.  And you involved Elizabeth 4
on your team, and that was great because she knows our 5
issues very well. 6
In terms of putting together a plan, that’s 7
one thing.  But putting it into real practical 8
practice is another thing.  Like I told you in my 9
previous email, it’s one thing to get access, but it’s 10
another thing to maintain and experience that access. 11
And I’m hoping that this plan will give people with 12
disabilities full access, and also with that access, 13
we would experience more opportunities in employment, 14
education, civic participation. 15
So many of us are really left in the dark.  16
And you know, we’re always hungry for equal 17
participation within society.  So I’m hoping that this 18
plan will give us a more level playing field in the 19
future and let us experience -- you know, and not have 20
to experience that digital divide. 21
Thank you for the wonderful work that was 22
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involved in this. 1
MR. LEVIN:  Thank you very much. 2
First, let me again thank Elizabeth, who, 3
both in an inspirational way and a very practical way, 4
drove that workstream, did a fantastic job.  Very, 5
very grateful to her. 6
Second, let me say that one of the abiding 7
principles of the policy process is you can’t get to 8
Act 3 until you go through Act 1.  And this is Act 1. 9
There is -- now we move to Act 2, which is kind of a 10
process, and then Act 3 will be see how it works and 11
then correcting that process. 12
But you have to go through that, and I think 13
that part of what we were attempting to do in terms of 14
the agenda setting was making sure that this issue was 15
front and center on the table.  And I think we were 16
able to do that.  But I’m fully cognizant that that 17
does not mean that Act 2 will, by itself, be a 18
success. 19
So, again, it’s very important.  It’s great, 20
again, that Karen is coming on to make sure that that 21
part, that works. 22
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And then, finally, let me again thank you 1
for your support and your pushing.  I’ll end my answer 2
to this question the same way I ended my answer to the 3
last question.  It’s about holding the commission’s 4
feet to the fire and Congress’s.  But that’s Act 2. 5
MS. BERLYN:  Excellent.  Without having read 6
all the details, but seeing the summary and the press, 7
one question I have that seems clear that there is a 8
need for many -- a collaborative process and bringing 9
together many parties here that the industry, consumer 10
 interests, agency -- Government agencies working 11
together through this. 12
What do you think is the best way to achieve 13
that?  I mean, that’s a tall order, and how is the 14
best way to do that? 15
MR. LEVIN:  Yes.  There are certain kind of 16
meta themes that people haven’t picked up on yet, but 17
maybe somebody will and maybe somebody won’t.  The 18
first is that this institution, as we reported at the 19
August meeting, lacked the basic information necessary 20
to make a number of the judgments that you really need 21
to have a thoughtful policy, particularly in the area 22
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of competition. 1
There are a variety of reasons why this is 2
true.  One of them simply is that broadband is a 3
different animal, and you have to analyze it 4
differently.  And it was one thing to have information 5
about a voice service and switched access rates and 6
all kinds of things, but broadband is a different 7
animal. 8
A second is whenever you have a new 9
technology, you have something called “measurement 10
bias,” which is you’re measuring new technology kind 11
of based on the parameters of the old technology, and 12
it doesn’t really work well.  So one of the things we 13
called for is we need to have new ways of measuring, 14
very specific about some of the data we need.  But one 15
of the things I would say is you all should read that 16
part of it.  Hopefully, we got it right. 17
But I think one of the key challenges for 18
this agency is to measure things more accurately.  So 19
I would urge you to do that. 20
A second thematic element is that we call 21
for a lot of pilot projects.  There is a reason.  22
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There is always a need in Government, I think, as in 1
the private sector for what Franklin Roosevelt called 2
“bold, persistent experimentation.”  It happens in 3
lots of different ways. 4
But, for example, in moving Lifeline and 5
Link-Up to a broadband platform, there are some 6
similarities with the traditional way of doing it, but 7
there are a lot of differences.  Voice is a regulated 8
product in terms of pricing.  Broadband isn’t.  That 9
dramatically changes the way you would do something. 10
With voice, I think it’s pretty simple to 11
understand what the device is.  With broadband, what 12
device should we be supporting?  Is it a device that 13
looks like a BlackBerry, or is it a Netbook, or is it 14
a desktop, or is it whatever?  So we need to run some 15
experiments, and I think it would be very good if you 16
guys, where you both on -- one of the pilots we need 17
to run, and we’ve mentioned a bunch in the plan.  But 18
also what’s the pilot design?  So I would say that. 19
A third meta theme is the understanding that 20
Government -- trying to figure out constantly what’s 21
the appropriate role of Government?  There are some 22
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things, such as the management of spectrum or the 1
management of rights of way, where Government has a 2
very clear role.  And part of what we’re saying in the 3
plan is Government isn’t doing a very good job of 4
that, and you need to do a better job. 5
But there are other parts, such as with 6
adoption, where it’s very clear that Government plays 7
an important role, but is not a sole actor and very 8
much needs to be involved in a partnership with 9
private sector stakeholders, nonprofit stakeholders, 10
community groups, local governments, et cetera.  So, 11
in those areas, I think you play a particular role in 12
making sure that you are a part of those partnerships. 13
MS. BERLYN:  Excellent.  Thanks, Blair. 14
Okay, Ken?  And now, Gloria, do you have a 15
question? 16
MS. TRISTANI:  I do. 17
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Ken and then Gloria. 18
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  This may be covered in the 19
400 pages or the previous 4 million pages, but I 20
wanted to sort of ask a question.  I think that we 21
work a lot on a national basis with thousands of 22
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agencies that serve limited English-speaking consumers 1
and consumers for whom Spanish or Asian languages are 2
their primary language. 3
MR. LEVIN:  Right. 4
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  One of the things that we 5
run into repeatedly and I think is a factor in terms 6
of low penetration rate in those communities is a lack 7
of relevance because materials are not available in 8
their languages.  I think that the Federal Government 9
has lagged way behind both the private sector and also 10
corporations in this regard. 11
It would seem to me that a key element of 12
the broadband plan should be encouraging all Federal 13
agencies and State agencies to make sure that 14
materials are available on their Web sites in a 15
variety of languages, and then also supporting efforts 16
by the nonprofit sector in terms of making sure that 17
they have materials on their Web sites that are in 18
different languages. 19
Again, it’s not that expensive.  Consumer 20
Action has most of its 250 publications available in 21
five different languages. I think it just takes a 22
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commitment on the part of the Federal Government to 1
make sure that this happens.  And I think by doing so, 2
it makes the -- it makes the Internet much more 3
relevant and, I think, provides a real incentive for 4
people in terms of getting broadband. 5
MR. LEVIN:  Yes.  Well, thank you.  I think 6
that’s an important insight. 7
We do in the plan call for just kind of one 8
of the fundamental building blocks of a national 9
broadband policy ought to be a concept that every 10
citizen, regardless of age -- not kids, but at some 11
age and up -- regardless of language, and regardless 12
of income, should have an opportunity to have a 13
digital skills course online that is accessible in a 14
wide variety of languages.  That’s the first thing, 15
and we explicitly call for that. 16
There is also a bunch of stuff on civic 17
engagement, Government performance that I think calls 18
for things like what you’re saying.  Obviously, we’re 19
doing some here.  I do think that that relevance 20
question is a very important one. 21
I think it is partly a matter of language.  22
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Though, interestingly, on the mobile side, the 1
language issue seems much less than on the fixed side, 2
which is kind of interesting.  I think that there are 3
 -- one of the things we’re really pleased by is that 4
the planning process led to a large foundation 5
sponsoring a contest called the Applications for 6
Inclusion, and the idea is that there be a contest to 7
develop applications that would help drive more 8
digital adoption, and I think that that’s kind of in 9
the same spirit. 10
I think there are some developments coming 11
down the road by companies that are going to make this 12
a very, very simple thing because of the power, the 13
computers just get more powerful and more powerful.  14
And the ability to translate into multiple languages 15
with the click of a button is going to continually get 16
better. 17
So I think it’s an important insight.  I 18
also think that over time, that’s one that we, as a 19
country, really ought to be able to address very, very 20
easily.  But it’s important to keep it front and 21
center. 22
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MS. BERLYN:  Gloria? 1
MS. TRISTANI:  More on implementation.  I 2
note that at the end of the report, there is a 3
recommendation that there be a broadband strategy 4
council at the executive level --5
MR. LEVIN:  Yes. 6
MS. TRISTANI:  -- because there are so many 7
other agencies that are tasked with this.  Is this 8
something we can expect fairly soon? 9
MR. LEVIN:  Yes.  That’s right.  About 50 10
plus percent of the recommendations are to the FCC 11
itself.  The bulk of the rest of them actually are not 12
to the Congress, but to the executive agencies.  13
Particularly the National Purposes section is largely 14
directed toward the administration.  And there will 15
be, if my understanding is correct, some kind of 16
coordinating body to monitor and drive implementation 17
of those. 18
MS. BERLYN:  Great.  Lawrence? 19
MR. DANIELS:  Hi, Lawrence Daniels on behalf 20
of NASUCA. 21
Debbie described you as the architect of the 22
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plan, and you’ve described that the next step is 1
process, actually going towards implementation.  2
Broadband has a lot of cross-cutting issues that are 3
going to span this entire commission and Government. 4
Will you be that next architect to kind of 5
keep an eye on all those cross-cutting issues, or will 6
there be an office or another Blair to be the focus 7
who will kind of connect all the dots so that the 8
process is actually implemented in a kind of a 9
seamless way?  So that the ultimate adoption and 10
implementation is smooth. 11
MR. LEVIN:  I have a high level of 12
confidence it will be smooth, but it will not be done 13
by me.  I think there is -- I truly do not know what 14
I’m doing next.  But I ran this thing through the 15
tape, and fortunately, unlike the marathon runner 16
after the victory at Marathon, I did not collapse as I 17
ran through the tape. 18
But it was definitely -- seriously, and 19
Elizabeth knows this.  We had a team.  I’ve worked 20
every day since January 2nd.  I probably have had 3 21
days off since I started this about 250 days ago.  And 22
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the team is working at that kind of pace because that 1
was the only way to get it done. 2
The time is -- it’s really important that 3
the torch be passed to the bureaus and to the offices 4
at the FCC to the agencies.  We did a huge amount of 5
work that people will not see to make sure that that 6
was seamless.  But there was a moment in time when you 7
wanted to have kind of this group doing this thing off 8
on the side, but now it’s time to get it back into the 9
regular processes. 10
MS. BERLYN:  Well, Blair, we really 11
appreciate your coming down and talking to us and 12
answering these questions.  And good luck.  We know 13
whatever is next on the horizon will be fantastic. 14
Yes, here’s my pen. 15
MR. LEVIN:  I will sign this, and then I’ll 16
answer one more question.  And then I’ll leave. 17
MS. BERLYN:  Irene? 18
MS. LEECH:  I think we also need to more 19
fully express what I heard yesterday from people.  We 20
really appreciate the hard work that has gone into 21
this.  And we know can’t fully understand what all was 22
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there, but we know that it’s been a huge effort, and 1
we’re glad you did it.  And thank you for that. 2
MR. LEVIN:  Thank you very much.  Thank you. 3
I really -- I can’t express enough my appreciation to 4
the many, many people.  I mean, we’re not kidding when 5
 -- the authors page or the preface talks about how we 6
put this together, but the author was really America. 7
And it really was.  It was designed that way. 8
And Eddie Lazarus gave this speech 9
yesterday.  In the morning, he emailed us kind of like 10
what were some of the ideas that really came through 11
that public process?  And he said yesterday, within 15 12
minutes, he had gotten 17 ideas from the team.  And 13
that was -- it’s really true.  And so, we’re really 14
grateful to everyone participating. 15
I’m going to focus on signing this, and then 16
I will go.  But thank you very much. 17
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you, Blair. 18
[Applause.] 19
MS. BERLYN:  We now have a break.  We will 20
get back in our seats at 10:45 a.m.  So thank you all. 21
[Break.] 22
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MS. BERLYN:  Thank you.  If everybody could 1
take a seat, we’re going to get started. 2
Can I ask if anyone is on the phone?  Is 3
anyone on --4
COMMISSIONER SANTINI:  [on telephone] Yes.  5
This is Commissioner Santini.  How are you, Debbie? 6
MS. BERLYN:  Nixy, hi.  Thank you so much 7
for joining us by phone, and my apologies for not 8
recognizing you before. 9
COMMISSIONER SANTINI:  That’s all right. 10
MS. BERLYN:  Commissioner Santini from 11
Puerto Rico, thank you so much for joining us. 12
COMMISSIONER SANTINI:  My pleasure. 13
MS. BERLYN:  And representing NARUC.  And 14
please, feel free to jump in at any point if you have 15
questions. 16
COMMISSIONER SANTINI:  Yes.  Thank you, 17
Debbie. 18
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Well, next up, we are so 19
pleased that we know that there is another big event, 20
big issue at the commission that I know we’ve talked a 21
little bit about and the FCC has been looking at, and 22
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that’s the open Internet issue. 1
And so, we thought we would invite someone 2
to come and talk about that with the CAC today.  Zach 3
Katz is Deputy Chief of the Office of Strategic 4
Planning and Policy Analysis at the FCC. 5
MALE SPEAKER:  It’s a mouthful. 6
MS. BERLYN:  It is a mouthful.  And I’m so 7
pleased that he is here to tell us a little bit about 8
what’s going on with the open Internet issue.  Thank 9
you so much. 10
MR. KATZ:  Thank you so much for having me, 11
and it’s nice to meet you all.  This is my first 12
consumer advisory meeting. 13
I thought what I might do is talk for about 14
15 minutes at most about our open Internet proceeding, 15
what it’s about, why we initiated it, how we’re 16
running the process, and where we are.  And then see 17
if folks had questions or wanted to discuss issues 18
that relate to the proceeding. 19
So although we opened this proceeding in 20
October of last year, our focus on the open Internet 21
and open networks more generally goes back, arguably, 22
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five decades.  We, over the past 5 years, have engaged 1
on open Internet issues in more than a dozen 2
proceedings, starting in 2005 with the Internet Policy 3
Statement that you all may be familiar with, the four 4
principles that were articulated by the commission at 5
the time of the Wireline Broadband Order, which 6
changed the regulatory approach to broadband Internet. 7
In various merger proceedings since then, 8
including the SBC/AT&T merger, the Verizon/MCI merger, 9
the AT&T/BellSouth merger, the commission also engaged 10
with these issues around the open Internet, how to 11
ensure that the Internet retained these kind of core 12
characteristics of openness.  And it was really the 13
latest kind of incremental step in this multiyear 14
process that we took in October of last year at the 15
commission meeting. 16
So where do we start in thinking about the 17
open Internet?  I guess there are two core ideas that 18
lie at the beginning of this issue for the commission. 19
The first is the importance of the openness, the idea 20
that the absence of gatekeepers has been integral to 21
the Internet success for consumers, for innovation, 22
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for investment.  And the second idea is that network 1
management, the ability of broadband providers to 2
manage their networks, to provide consumers the 3
experiences the consumers expect, to ensure that the 4
network functions is a core value that has to be 5
protected. 6
So the challenge is to kind of take these 7
two core principles and understand how best to ensure 8
innovation, investment, competition, consumer benefits 9
flow from the Internet.  We look at the world and see 10
potentially three categories of conduct that broadband 11
providers can engage in.  There are those things that 12
almost everyone would agree are unreasonable.  13
Surreptitious blocking of political content or slowing 14
down a competitor’s provision of a VOIP offering over 15
a broadband connection. 16
There is probably a second category of 17
practices that everyone would pretty much agree are 18
reasonable, things like spam filtering or taking 19
certain measures to protect the security of the 20
network. 21
And then there’s a third category where 22
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reasonable people can disagree about whether a given 1
practice is appropriate or not.  And there’s a lot of 2
uncertainty we’ve heard regarding that third category. 3
So the purpose of the proceeding is to 4
provide some clear and a high-level guideline, some 5
rules of the road that make clear that that first 6
category, where everyone would think that conduct is 7
problematic, is, in fact, prohibited, which is not the 8
world we live in today.  And secondly, and equally as 9
important, to provide some greater clarity, some 10
guidelines to understand in that third category, where 11
parties can reasonably disagree about whether conduct 12
is appropriate or not, how broadband providers and how 13
the rest of the Internet ecosystem can understand 14
what’s appropriate and what’s not. 15
To achieve these goals, in October of last 16
year, we -- the commission adopted a Notice of 17
Proposed Rulemaking.  That rulemaking kicked off a 18
several month conversation where we have been 19
soliciting, in a number of ways that we can talk about 20
in a little bit, input from the public on proposed 21
rules. 22
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The commission felt it was important to 1
actually provide the language of the proposed rules 2
that it was considering adopting, and those are out.  3
It’s a page and a half appendix at the end of the NPRM 4
for public comment. 5
We had opening comments come in January 6
14th.  We heard from almost 200,000 people and 7
organizations.  We’re very pleased with the amount of 8
response that we saw.  We’ve also held four staff-9
level workshops.  One in December on broadband network 10
management that pulled together technical experts from11
a variety of stakeholders.  Another also in December 12
on democratic engagement and speech on the open 13
Internet, which tried to draw out some of the non-14
economic considerations that are at the heart of this 15
proceeding. 16
We had two more workshops in January, one on 17
innovation and investment, which we held up in 18
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and had folks from the 19
Boston area participate.  And another on consumers, 20
transparency, and the open Internet. 21
We’ve also been having a series of meetings 22
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coordinated by Julie Knapp, the Chief of our Office of 1
Engineering and Technology, with the Technical 2
Advisory Team, which is a series of engineers here at 3
the FCC across the bureaus and offices that are 4
engaging with a group of engineers outside the agency 5
to make sure that there is a deep technical 6
understanding of the realities relevant to the 7
proceeding. 8
So what the proposal says I thought might be 9
worth summarizing in just a couple of minutes.  There 10
are really six principles at issue here.  The first 11
four, which are essentially those that were adopted by 12
the commission in 2005, would ensure that broadband 13
providers can’t prevent users from accessing the 14
content, application, or services of their choice or 15
depriving them of their entitlement to competition 16
across the broadband ecosystem. 17
The fifth principle is one of 18
nondiscrimination that says that broadband providers 19
must treat lawful content, applications, and services 20
in a nondiscriminatory manner.  That is, they may not 21
favor or disfavor lawful content, applications, or 22
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services or charge content, application, or service 1
providers for prioritized access to users. 2
And the last principle, and one that I think 3
is really at the heart of what we’re trying to do 4
here, is a principle of transparency or disclosure 5
that says that broadband providers must disclose such 6
information concerning their network management 7
practices as is reasonably required for users and 8
content, application, and service providers to enjoy 9
the protection specified in the principles. 10
We also made clear that all principles as 11
proposed would be subject to reasonable network 12
management, including efforts to manage congestion, 13
address things like unlawful content or unlawful 14
transfers of content.  And that there would be clear 15
exceptions for emergency communications and the needs 16
of law enforcement and the public safety national and 17
homeland security communities. 18
The proposal also discussed a category of 19
services that might be provisioned over the same 20
infrastructure as broadband Internet access service, 21
but isn’t Internet access service.  We use the term 22
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“manager specialized service” to describe this 1
category.  And the notice asked a number of questions 2
about how this category should be described, what 3
policies, if any, should apply to the category. 4
We’ve talked a little bit, I guess, about 5
the process.  I think the last thing I’d like to 6
mention is that we’re trying to run as open and as 7
Internet-enabled a process as we can, befitting the 8
open Internet proceeding.  So we have launched a 9
dedicated Web site at openinternet.gov, learning from 10
the tremendous efforts of the broadband team and 11
trying to engage the public with a blog there and with 12
a crowd-sourcing platform from IdeaScale, which has 13
hundreds of comments or hundreds of proposals for 14
policy ideas with thousands of comments. 15
I think we may be up to tens of thousands of 16
votes on those ideas.  It’s been a really impressive 17
outpouring of interest, and our staff has been 18
reviewing those and including those in the record, 19
just as we do the more formally submitted comments 20
that come in through our electronic comment filing 21
system. 22
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I mentioned the technical advisory process 1
and the workshops.  There will be at least one 2
additional workshop.  We have reply comments now due 3
on April 8th, and we strongly encourage participation 4
in those.  And particularly around issues regarding 5
consumer needs, what consumers need to know, what 6
consumers need to be able to control to ensure that 7
they can enjoy the many benefits of the open Internet. 8
I think Joel Gurin may have talked a little 9
bit about the broader transparency initiatives 10
underway at the commission, and the broadband plan, 11
obviously, had some discussion of those.  We view the 12
six principles as part of that effort, but 13
particularly focused on these network management 14
practices which can have potentially pro-consumer or 15
anti-consumer effects, but about which not enough may 16
be known currently. 17
And so, in thinking about this, I guess in 18
particular, I’d say it’s important for us that we 19
think of consumers not just as passive recipients of 20
information over the Internet, but, in fact, as active 21
producers, as two-way communicators.  And so, the 22
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information that a consumer may need to know about 1
their broadband service may be relevant to their 2
ability to act as a content or application creator or 3
distributor over the network, and the NPRM really 4
emphasizes the importance of those issues as well. 5
So I think I’ll stop there and see if there 6
are questions that would be worth discussing. 7
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you very much.  That’s 8
great, Zach.  Questions for Zach? 9
I think everybody is digesting the 10
information. 11
MR. KATZ:  And that’s fine.  And I should 12
also say there is more information available on the 13
Web site.  One thing we tried to do at 14
openinternet.gov is take an issue that can be very 15
difficult to grasp once you get past the level of kind 16
of slogans or high-level points because there are a 17
lot of technical issues, and it can be very detail 18
oriented.  We tried to make some of that more 19
understandable by putting together a summary in kind 20
of plain English of some of the key elements of the 21
proposal. 22
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And I would encourage you and others who 1
might be interested to go there to look through that 2
summary, to look through the frequently asked 3
questions that we put on the site, which really came 4
from a recognition that being accessible, being open, 5
being transparent isn’t just about posting the NPRM on 6
the Web site, but, in fact, trying to make these ideas 7
more easily accessible to those who may not have the 8
jargon or be as familiar with the regulatory 9
intricacies. 10
MS. BERLYN:  Irene? 11
MS. LEECH:  I think it’s exciting that 12
you’re putting this on the Internet.  How are you 13
promoting that site to consumers across the country so 14
that they would know that it’s there and be able to 15
take advantage of it? 16
MR. KATZ:  It’s a great question that we 17
have in communications with nonprofit organizations 18
around the country have been touting the Web site and 19
asking people to spread the word.  At the public 20
workshops we’ve held, all of which people can 21
participate in over the Internet.  In fact, a number 22
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of the questions at a few of these workshops have come 1
in over Twitter, and others have come in through the 2
Web site. 3
We’ve mentioned the fact that the Web site 4
exists and encourage people to go to it.  But we’d 5
certainly like to do more.  And if you have ideas for 6
how we could do more to get the word out, we’d very 7
much like to do that. 8
MS. BERLYN:  Mark and then Joel.  Joel, I’m 9
so sorry.  You don’t have a tent card.  So you do have 10
to use the old-fashioned way of raising your hand.  So 11
let me give it to Joel because I think he did have his 12
hand up there without his tent card.  So, Joel, we’re 13
getting you a tent card. 14
MR. KELSEY:  Okay.  Just one quick question 15
is -- sure, it’s Joel Kelsey.  I’m with Consumers 16
Union. 17
Just one quick question is now that the 18
broadband plan is finished, does the commission 19
foresee having future public workshops after the reply 20
comment cycle and exploring kind of other aspects of 21
the rulemaking?  And if you had any idea of what 22
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aspects those workshops might explore would be, I 1
think, probably I would love to hear it. 2
MR. KATZ:  Absolutely.  So the short answer 3
is yes.  We will be holding at least one additional 4
workshop later in the spring after the reply comments 5
are in.  When we thought about the workshops and what 6
we were hoping to achieve at the beginning of this 7
process, we thought about kind of two phases, a first 8
phase that would focus on understanding what those 9
elements are of the Internet’s openness or what the 10
kind of consequences are of the Internet’s openness 11
that might be relevant to the proceeding. 12
So we focused on speech and democracy, 13
innovation and investment, consumer interests in that 14
first round.  And I think got a lot of good stuff into 15
the record about kind of the benefits, maybe some of 16
the costs of preserving openness. 17
The next phase would be to focus on whether 18
there is a need for additional protections here, kind 19
of beyond those that are already in place.  And if so, 20
what those should be.  So kind of a more direct 21
evaluation of the framework that we’ve put forward, 22
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and I think we’re in the process now of putting 1
together that workshop, and I think we’ll be publicly 2
announcing something in the not-too-distant future. 3
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you.  Mark? 4
MR. DEFALCO:  Mark DeFalco with the 5
Appalachian Regional Commission. 6
Zach, it’s good to see you again.  This is a 7
critical issue.  I think it’s a critical issue in 8
terms of the way the commission determines how they’re 9
going to regulate the Internet, and it ties so well 10
into the broadband plan in terms of what you’re going 11
to do with the Internet and the infrastructure and how 12
it’s going to fit into the plan. 13
I know the plan itself has one page that 14
kind of discusses this, and it’s probably because the 15
proceeding is already underway and well down the road. 16
What could this committee do to help move the ball 17
forward for you? 18
MR. KATZ:  So let me answer that, but before 19
I do, let me just talk briefly about the relationship 20
between the open Internet proceeding and the broadband 21
plan.  I guess the commission sees those as kind of 22
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complementary initiatives.  So the broadband plan, as 1
you mentioned, discusses the open Internet proceeding 2
in small part, but it wasn’t the place for resolution 3
of these issues.  Those are going to be handled 4
separately in this proceeding. 5
As far as what this group could do, I think 6
we would love to hear more about the consumer 7
perspective on many of the questions in the 8
proceeding.  I think I mentioned a couple in 9
particular. 10
This idea of transparency and what consumers 11
 need to know, what they may now know, not just about 12
the speed or other performance characteristics kind of 13
at a high level, but also regarding whether certain 14
applications may work better or worse over their 15
broadband connection.  Or if broadband providers were 16
engaged in favoring certain traffic over others, what 17
that would mean to consumers, what they would need to 18
know to be empowered and make the decisions that they 19
need to be able to make with respect both to 20
subscribing to service, but also using that service.  21
I think those are some of the key issues that we see. 22
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MS. BERLYN:  Excellent.  That’s really 1
helpful.  Thank you. 2
Does anyone have any other questions? 3
[No response.] 4
 MS. BERLYN:  You’ve got us ahead of 5
schedule, Zach. 6
MR. KATZ:  You’re welcome. 7
MS. BERLYN:  That may mean we have to talk 8
amongst ourselves.  Well, thank you so much.  Is there 9
anything else you can tell us about the timing of this 10
proceeding unfolds?  What is your expectation of 11
timing?  There are other influencing factors here, 12
which a court case, anything you want to mention about 13
that or --14
MR. KATZ:  I think we’re looking forward to 15
the comments that are going to come in by April 8th.  16
I mentioned that we’ll be having a workshop at some 17
point after that.  But I can’t say that there’s a date 18
certain by which the commission is planning to have an 19
item ready, other than to say kind of stay tuned.  I 20
don’t know there is much more I can say on timing. 21
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Great.  Well, thank you 22
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very much, Zach.  Appreciate your time.  Excellent. 1
[Applause.] 2
MS. BERLYN:  Scott, we’re a little ahead of 3
schedule here. 4
MR. MARSHALL:  Wow. 5
MS. BERLYN:  Okay, everybody, stay tuned.  6
We have next on our agenda the Deputy Bureau Chief.  7
So Scott and I will see if we can get him down now.  8
Yes, let’s see if we can get him down so we can start 9
that. 10
So don’t go far, please.  We’ll see if we 11
can move, and then we’ll have a little bit more of a 12
lunch break, which would be really great seeing most 13
of us will be doing that work of the Consumer 14
Protection Working Group.  So don’t go far. 15
[Break.] 16
MS. BERLYN:  Is it possible to get the mike 17
on?  Yes, okay.  Good.  Good. 18
Why don’t we just do one quick thing while 19
we’re waiting for Yul to come in the room?  I wanted 20
to get some feedback on what people thought about our 21
adding that half-day working group onto our meeting 22
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and whether people found that of value, if we would 1
like to try and do that again? 2
And it was a little bit of an experiment for 3
us.  But I think that the FCC staff is very supportive 4
of our doing that, I think, in the future.  So did 5
folks find that of value? 6
Claude? 7
MR. STOUT:  Yes, if I may?  Debra, I do 8
think so.  Yesterday afternoon’s time in the working 9
group meetings I think was well spent.  It was very 10
helpful.  We won’t have one today during the CAC 11
meeting, I see, a full-fledged one.  But it was sort 12
of set aside outside of the meeting, and I think it 13
made us productive, especially with the disability 14
access group specifically.  For our purposes, I think 15
it worked very well. 16
I think it would be good if we had working 17
groups meetings on that half-day basis before our full 18
CAC meeting and with an FCC staffer assigned to each 19
group in order to help us be even more productive and 20
allow us greater collaboration with the commission 21
staff. 22
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MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  That’s a great 1
suggestion. 2
So Karen will work on getting someone there 3
for the Disability Working Group.  We did have someone 4
in our Consumer Protection Working Group, which I 5
think was really, really helpful.  So I think that’s a 6
great suggestion, Claude. 7
Irene? 8
MS. LEECH:  I think that it was helpful that 9
we had those meetings, and I know that in Lou’s 10
absence, he would want me to emphasize how important 11
he thinks it is that we have some time to do that.  He 12
was very disappointed not to be here and is very much 13
hoping that we will plan that next time so that he can 14
be a part of it because he thinks that will really 15
help our process. 16
MS. BERLYN:  Good.  Sure, please. 17
MR. MARSHALL:  Am I on here?  Yes, a 18
question for all of you, too.  Is there anything else 19
we can do to help support additional working group 20
meetings between regular plenary meetings of the CAC? 21
I know we have the option of conference calls.  We 22
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have the option of meetings here. I realize that all 1
of us are not in Washington, but we do have the email 2
discussion group set up. 3
Are there any other mechanisms that would be 4
helpful to you in order to be able to meet more 5
regularly and to be able to use your time more 6
effectively? 7
MS. BERLYN:  Good question.  Cheryl? 8
MS. HEPPNER:  A little crowded here.  There 9
is one thing that I would like to know if we can have 10
support for, and that is our working group meeting 11
yesterday, I wasn't really sure who would be coming.  12
It’s a new format.  So I didn’t know if we were going 13
to have -- I thought we were going to have breakouts. 14
And I thank Scott for providing that information. 15
And I just wanted to know who would be at 16
that meeting and what I would have to work with.  So 17
it would be helpful if we could have a system.  And I 18
know for the next time I will poll the people who are 19
on my working group ahead of time, along with Eric, 20
and we will work to find that out. 21
And the other thing that I found difficult 22
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is that it’s really a challenge for me -- Eric may be 1
way better at this than I am, but it’s hard for me to 2
run a meeting with the CART and be able to take notes. 3
I've got notes, but I'm not sure that after a day and 4
a half of this, I'm going to go back and remember what 5
it all means.   So if we could have a note-taker 6
specifically for that, it would be a big help. 7
MR. MARSHALL:  Question, a follow-up8
question, if I may?  Would the -- if we were able to 9
provide the CART transcript, is that what you are --10
would that be helpful in terms of notes? 11
MS. HEPPNER:  Scott, it's helpful.  But 12
that's a full transcript, and I don’t need chapter and 13
verse so much as something condensed and quick, the 14
kind of issues we're discussing, any of the actions we 15
decided on. 16
How about you, Eric? 17
MR. BRIDGES:  It would be nice.  The CART 18
transcript, though, would be a useful first step, 19
though, I think, Scott. 20
MS. BERLYN:  Okay, thanks, Cheryl.  That’s a 21
good suggestion. 22
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Any other thoughts on the process of having 1
that half day?  Yes, Mark? 2
MR. DEFALCO:  Yes, I guess I would -- just 3
to kind of agree with what Cheryl said, I think maybe 4
a little more structure in advance to what the working 5
group is going to do, and then you could maybe do some 6
more preparation so that it would be more productive 7
time when everybody was together. 8
MS. BERLYN:  And that’s a good suggestion, 9
Mark.  We probably do most certainly need that, and 10
we’ll talk a little bit more about that in the 11
afternoon. 12
Yes, Lise? 13
MS. HAMLIN:  Just to back that up also, I 14
felt that we could have used a little more time in our 15
work group, but some people wanted to go, get into the 16
broadband workshop as well.  So it made it a little 17
bit of a conflict.  If we know how much time we have 18
 in advance, then we could set this up so if there’s a 19
conflict we know in advance. 20
There's a little green card on top of his 21
name.  Oh, is that --22
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MS. BERLYN:  Thank you. 1
Yes, we’ll work out those sorts of 2
logistical issues next time a little bit better, and 3
one thing that’s helpful is this time we really were 4
not -- Scott and I really weren’t sure until very 5
close to our meeting which working groups were 6
actually going to meet. 7
So we need to really get a sense of that 8
information further in advance and have our working 9
groups and, as Mark mentioned, a better sense of that. 10
Could we now hold --11
MS. TRISTANI:  Can I ask one question? 12
MS. BERLYN:  Yes. 13
MS. TRISTANI:  Because you just said which -14
 - are there other working groups in addition to the 15
three? 16
MS. BERLYN:  There is one other working 17
group that Charles Benton chairs. 18
MS. TRISTANI:  Which one is that? 19
MS. BERLYN:  Consumer Information and 20
Participation Working Group. 21
MS. TRISTANI:  Okay.  Okay, because that’s 22
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what I thought, but I couldn’t remember. 1
MS. BERLYN:  Yes, there are actually four 2
working groups. 3
MS. TRISTANI:  Consumer, would that cover 4
public interest and all those things? 5
MS. BERLYN:  Let’s hold on that because we 6
do have a further discussion about the working groups 7
this afternoon.  So let’s hold that because that 8
requires further discussion, and I’d like to now that 9
we have our speaker here next to us, I’d like to move 10
back to our agenda. 11
But, yes, thank you, Gloria.  That’s a good 12
question. 13
Okay.  I thought it might be helpful to 14
highlight a couple of distinct areas of the broadband 15
plan, and for those of you who may have seen some of 16
the announcements and events before the actual release 17
of the broadband plan, there were some really great 18
events that happened before March 16th, when the plan 19
was actually released. 20
One of them was a wonderful event, which I 21
wish I could have been at.  But one of my favorite, 22
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favorite -- hmm, what do we call them -- characters, 1
Elmo actually appeared.  Is that correct?  Yul was 2
there to talk about the broadband plan and children 3
and families, and I thought it would be really helpful 4
for us to hear a little bit about that. 5
We’re also going to have Elizabeth Lyle talk 6
about another focus of the broadband plan on 7
disability issues, and there was a special event on 8
that as well during the rollout week.  So I invited 9
Yul, and Scott invited him as well, the Deputy Bureau 10
Chief of Consumer and Government Affairs, to come and 11
share with us a little bit about the broadband plan 12
and children and families.  So thank you so much, Yul. 13
MR. KWON:  Thank you, Debra, for that 14
introduction. 15
My name is Yul Kwon.  I’d like to welcome 16
all of you to the commission today.  I’m relatively 17
new.  I’ve been here for all of 4 months, 5 months.  18
And I have kind of a checkered past, which is how 19
you’d call it. 20
I used to be an attorney.  Then I worked --21
spent some time at Google.  Before coming here, I had 22
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actually been recruited to go onto a reality show, 1
Survivor, about 3 years ago, which I ended up winning. 2
And then after that, I was doing a lot of work 3
helping defend nonprofits, working with a lot of 4
minority communities.  And I met Senator Obama at the 5
time, and I was just really blown away. 6
So I started working on the campaign.  I got 7
to know the Chairman, Julius Genachowski, and I just 8
thought he had a very vibrant vision of how this 9
country could leverage technology to help consumers 10
and communities.  So I bought into that vision, and he 11
asked me if I wanted to come work for him, and I 12
decided to come here. 13
When I asked him where I should go work, I 14
asked him what he saw in terms of a vision for the 15
commission.  And one thing he said was that, you know, 16
he really wanted to make the commission much more of a 17
pro-consumer agency.  That in the past, the agency 18
historically had not been as inclusive of different 19
voices as it should have been in the past, that the 20
commission often reached out primarily to people who 21
had the connections into the commission. 22
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And he really thought that this bureau, the 1
Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau had been 2
underleveraged.  So one of the things that he wanted 3
to do was reinvigorate this bureau to make it much 4
more inclusive of consumers, different constituencies, 5
minority communities, people with disabilities, tribal 6
communities, and he wanted to bring in a new group of 7
leadership to really make this happen. 8
So as you met this morning Joel Gurin, who 9
is the chief, we’re basically all new.  And none of us 10
have actually spent a whole long time working in 11
Government, and we’re hoping that’s a good thing.  We 12
all come with consumer backgrounds, and we all come in 13
with a passion for making consumer issues at the 14
forefront of the commission’s agenda. 15
So that’s sort of the broad view.  I’ve been 16
working on a number of different issues.  I’ve been 17
working with the broadband team specifically on two 18
different projects. 19
One is to help tribal communities, Native 20
American communities which have historically been 21
among the most digitally excluded communities in the 22
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country.  And so, I worked with the broadband team to 1
come up with a set of recommendations to help those 2
communities specifically. 3
The other area that I have been focusing on 4
are children and families.  So the Chairman’s agenda 5
for children and families is one that extends beyond 6
just broadband, but obviously, broadband is a critical 7
component of this. 8
In a few minutes, I’ve invited the adoption 9
director for the broadband team, Elise Cohen, to come 10
and actually speak more specifically on broadband, and 11
she can tell you a little bit about that.  But I'm 12
happy to share with you the Chairman’s agenda for 13
children and families.  Basically, his view is that we 14
need to get every child and every family connected. 15
So he gave a speech with Elmo, which, if you 16
haven’t seen, I highly recommend that you go to 17
YouTube and check it out.  It was hilarious.  But 18
basically, Elmo was complaining about the fact that he 19
didn’t have fast broadband, and the Chairman made some 20
commitments to Elmo. 21
But essentially, the Chairman’s agenda 22
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really focuses around four key pillars, and the idea 1
and the general theme of his agenda is providing 2
digital opportunity to children and families all 3
throughout the country.  The four pillars are 4
basically digital access.  The first thing we have to 5
do is make sure that every child and every family is 6
connected. 7
The second is digital literacy, which 8
includes media literacy.  We have to get kids and 9
families the know-how to actually use technology, and 10
it’s not just a matter of using technology and getting 11
on the Internet, but giving them the critical thinking 12
skills that they’ll need to understand technology, 13
find the content that they need and understand things 14
like advertising or persuasion.  There are a lot of 15
studies that have been coming out and showing that 16
young kids don’t understand persuasive intent in 17
advertising. 18
Another critical issue that’s become a big 19
deal right now is childhood obesity.  The first lady 20
has launched a national campaign against childhood 21
obesity, and there are some very concrete links 22
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between advertising of unhealthy foods and childhood 1
obesity.  So, again, these are all skills that we need 2
to teach our children. 3
The third pillar is digital citizenship, 4
which is a relatively new and evolving concept.  But 5
it’s a notion that communities, in order for them to 6
function, have to have social norms.  They have to 7
have values, and these don’t change just because you 8
go online. 9
So the question facing a lot of parents and 10
families is how do you translate values in the offline 11
world to the online world?  And how do we develop 12
these notions of digital citizenship so that we can 13
prepare our children to become engaged members of a 14
vibrant digital democracy and a digital economy? 15
 Now the fourth pillar is digital safety.  So 16
the conversation on safety has evolved quite a bit 17
over the last 10 years.  Initially, the conversation 18
focused around predators and things that made the 19
Internet something to be feared.  And we’re finding 20
that, one, that’s not true from a research standpoint, 21
and second, it’s doing a disservice to a lot of 22
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families because they’re not really understanding 1
technology and understanding that the best way to 2
protect a child is to use a safety software between 3
his or her ears, right?  We have to teach our kids to 4
behave responsibly because we can filter out media 5
content. 6
The Kaiser Family Foundation recently came 7
out with a very remarkable study, showing that kids 8
today spend approximately 7.5 hours watching media.  9
And if you account for the fact that they’re 10
multitasking, they effectively consume 10 hours and 45 11
minutes of media content every single day. 12
It’s more than they spend in school.  It’s 13
more than they sleep.  And they’re getting it not just 14
from TVs, but they’re getting it from their iPhones, 15
from their laptops, from their iPods.  It’s 16
ubiquitous. 17
So trying to shield children from this isn’t 18
going to work, but what we have to do is give them the 19
set of values and the training and the skills that 20
they need to understand it and use it responsibly. 21
So that’s the Chairman’s agenda, and I can 22
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highlight, if you would like, some of the 1
 recommendations in the broadband plan that will help 2
achieve these four pillars.  For digital access, we’re 3
going to make reforms to USFF.  Obviously, that will 4
help lower income children get connected.  We’ll 5
update and upgrade the E-Rate program so that more 6
schools can help children get connected. 7
There are a number of recommendations to 8
improve digital literacy.  So we’re creating a digital 9
literacy program that will consist of an online 10
digital literacy portal so that anyone who wants to 11
take lessons on digital literacy can go online. 12
We’re creating a digital literacy corps, 13
which will mobilize thousands of youth and technically 14
trained people to go out to different communities and 15
give hands-on training on how to get connected and use 16
technology.  For myself, this is something that I’m 17
really excited about. 18
One of the reasons I came to the commission 19
was I had a very interesting experience with my 20
mother, who immigrated from South Korea, didn’t speak 21
English, and didn’t really know how to use technology. 22
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And one day, I decided I needed to teach my mom how 1
to use email because there is a history of Alzheimer’s 2
in my family, and I had read studies showing that if 3
you’re socially engaged and connected as you get 4
older, it helps you stay mentally acute. 5
So I sat down with my mom one day, and I was 6
trying to teach her how to turn on the computer and 7
all that kind of stuff.  And I told her to move the 8
mouse up.  So she reaches over, and she literally 9
picks the mouse up off the table.  I was like, “No, 10
no.  Mom, that’s not what I’m talking about.”  I told 11
her to close a window on the screen, and she literally 12
reaches over and closes a window. 13
And it occurred to me that people like her, 14
you know, people in immigrant communities, people with 15
disabilities, they stand to benefit most from these 16
broadband technologies.  My mother, whenever she 17
wanted to get news about what happened in Korea, 18
whenever she wanted to see a Korean video, would have 19
to wait weeks for something to arrive in the mail.  20
But if she could get connected on broadband, she could 21
watch these instantaneously. 22
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So it took a while for my mom to develop 1
these skills, but once she got online, it completely 2
transformed her life.  My mom communicates with her 3
friends all over the world instantaneously.  She can 4
watch whatever it is she wants.  She’s taking English 5
lessons online, and at her church, she's helping other 6
immigrant families gain the digital literacy skills 7
they need to get connected.  And hopefully, for them, 8
it won’t take 40 years like it did for my mother. 9
These are the kinds of things that we need 10
to do.  I mean, we need to provide online lessons, but 11
we also need to provide people who can go out to these 12
hard-to-reach communities that are inaccessible 13
because of distance, because of linguistic or cultural 14
barriers, and this is one of the ways that we’re going 15
to try to achieve this.  So we’re really excited about 16
this digital literacy program. 17
Beyond the broadband, the Chairman has 18
announced an agenda to have a number of roundtables 19
 with key stakeholders and different media groups, 20
different industries.  And the idea is how do we 21
galvanize actions?  How do we generate accountability 22
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and get commitments from different media companies, 1
from other stakeholders, technology companies on what 2
they can do to advance this agenda? 3
And at the end of the year, we’re going to 4
have a children’s summit, where we invite all the key 5
stakeholders to evaluate what progress we’ve made and 6
also understand what sort of areas should we be 7
looking at.  Do we need to update our rules on the 8
Children Television Act?  Do we need to take a hard 9
look at advertising aimed at children? 10
There is a study that came out from Children 11
Now, which had some incredible statistics.  A child 12
would have to watch 10 hours of television to see an 13
ad for one healthy food product.  In that period of 14
time, he or she would have seen 55 ads for unhealthy 15
foods.  Is that right? 16
I mean, is this what we should be doing for 17
our kids, and should we be taking a role here?  Those 18
are the kind of questions we want to take a look at 19
because if you look at things right now, it’s not 20
clear that our children are being adequately served. 21
So, anyway, we’re really excited about the 22
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Chairman’s agenda.  He is very passionate about these 1
issues.  And we’d love to work with you going forward 2
as we roll out this agenda and get your feedback and 3
your insight and your comments.  I know that the CAC 4
is something that all of us are really excited about 5
in terms of building the partnership and leveraging 6
your expertise and your guidance and your input to a 7
far greater extent than had been the case in the past. 8
Any questions? 9
MS. BERLYN:  Wow, that was fantastic.  10
Really exciting.  I know I have one.  But I guess I 11
will defer to my -- well, can I jump in? 12
Please, I just want to add something to 13
everything that you said, and particularly when you 14
mentioned the children’s summit, I was so excited when 15
you talked about your mom and the -- bringing in the 16
families, connecting families to children.  Because I 17
think one of the very key elements is the role that 18
the older population plays in this not only from the 19
perspective of as a separate generation, but also the 20
connection to kids.  Because one of the things in the 21
work that I’ve done is the fact that 12 percent of our 22
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kids are being brought up by older caretakers, 1
grandparents and others.  So the role that they play 2
in all the issues that you’ve mentioned is critical. 3
So you’re doing a children’s summit.  That’s 4
excellent.  But you might want to also consider what 5
you do with the older population.  So I want to talk 6
to you about an older adult summit.  So --7
MR. KWON:  I think that point is extremely 8
well taken.  I think one thing that we’ve been finding 9
the course of investigating this area is the critical 10
role that caretakers and parents and educators 11
generally play. 12
If you’re looking at online safety, online 13
digital literacy, there is no substitute for adult 14
supervision and guidance.  And the problem is that a 15
lot of times, older people, parents, caretakers, sort 16
of throw their hands up and abdicate the role and 17
responsibility that they have. 18
What we’re finding is that the most 19
effective way to protect your children is to engage 20
with them, to talk to them about technology, to go 21
online with them to see what they’re actually using, 22
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and to have conversations and using any online moments 1
as teachable moments to talk with their kids. 2
So one thing that we’ve been doing to try to 3
promote this is that there’s a great coalition of 4
Federal agencies called OnGuard Online that’s led by 5
the FTC.  We worked with the FTC and the Secretary of 6
Education to produce a booklet called "Net Cetera," 7
which you can just download from the OnGuard Online8
Web site.  It’s basically a great booklet for parents 9
on how to talk to your kids about technology, and it 10
explains things like cyber bullying, which currently 11
is the biggest risk that kids face online. 12
A lot of risk that kids face online are not 13
from predators, as it turns out, but from peer-to-peer 14
relationships.  So cyber bullying.  Sexting has become 15
a major issue. 16
So, again, the way to deal with these issues 17
is to talk to your kids, and there is no substitute 18
for that.  Government can’t step in and play this 19
role.  It’s really the caretakers and the older 20
adults.  And so, I think, Debra, your point is 21
extremely well taken. 22
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MS. BERLYN:  Thank you.  I saw Gloria’s card 1
go up and then Ken and then Irene. 2
And Elise, do you want to join us up here? 3
MR. KWON:  Yes, why don’t I take a question? 4
I know Elise is short on time as well.  So I’ll take 5
a question and then turn it over to Elise.  And then 6
if she has to go, she can go.  But then we can take 7
questions together. 8
But please, go ahead.  I think someone had a 9
question. 10
MS. TRISTANI:  Very glad that you’re here.  11
Just full disclosure.  I’m a board member of Children 12
Now, which produced that study, and I’ve been involved 13
in many of the children’s issues for many, many years 14
wearing other hats. 15
But I think it’s terrific what the 16
commission is doing, going forward, the four 17
principles -- digital access, digital literacy, 18
digital citizenship, digital safety.  And as a mother 19
of a 17-year-old, I know that there’s no way you can 20
shield your kids from what’s going on.  But there is a 21
reality that up to age 7 or 8, no amount of digital 22
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literacy or teaching can teach a child how to 1
differentiate between an ad that’s on media that’s 2
unhealthy and healthy.  I mean, that’s just a reality 3
because kids -- maybe even older than that, kids' 4
brains are not programmed.  They don’t even know 5
what’s real and what’s not. 6
So I applaud the focus on education, but I 7
think the Commissioner really has to keep in mind that 8
we need to look at are our kids, particularly our 9
younger kids, being bombarded with unhealthy food 10
messages, unhealthy violence messages, and what can we 11
do within the constraints of the First Amendment to 12
protect them in this world where they’re going to --13
they’re 24-7 with this stuff. 14
And you get on airplanes, there are moms 15
putting videos in front of their 2-year-olds or even 16
younger, even though the American Academy of 17
Pediatrics has said no TV before 2.  So these are 18
complex issues, but I think it’s being a little bit 19
naive to say we can solve it all with education. 20
And one last plug.  Every parent tries to do 21
what they can to sit with their children.  There’s a 22
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reality of children that don’t have caretakers who can 1
be there, for many different reasons, to guide them 2
through this.  So it’s a real issue.  We need to put 3
in, aside from those four principles, a fifth 4
principle of what can we do to shield the vulnerable, 5
particularly the very young population for which there 6
are studies and studies that this media has a 7
tremendous influence. 8
MR. KWON:  I think you are absolutely spot 9
on, and your points are extremely well taken.  We’ve 10
spoken extensively with Children Now, and I just want 11
to reiterate and clarify that the children’s agenda is 12
not limited to the broadband agenda.  This is 13
obviously topical.  This is a big part of how we’re 14
going to get kids connected and teach them skills. 15
But you’re absolutely right.  Especially for 16
young children, they’re not going to be able to learn 17
to distinguish.  Their brains just aren’t mature 18
enough, and we need to take a hard look at these.  So 19
I just want to clarify that all these issues are on 20
the table, and these are all things that we want to 21
look at. 22
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 And one thing that we’re actually planning 1
on doing is getting together children’s advocacy 2
groups like Children Now and actually having a meeting 3
with the Chairman so they can honestly air what their 4
concerns are, and we can help develop this agenda 5
together. 6
Okay.  So let me turn this over to --7
MS. BERLYN:  Could I just remind folks to 8
introduce yourself and your affiliation as you ask 9
your question?  Thank you. 10
MS. COHEN:  Thanks.  As Yul said, I’m Elise 11
Cohen.  I am the adoption director for the broadband 12
team. 13
And picking up a little bit on what Yul 14
said, the broadband adoption agenda is obviously not 15
limited to children.  As we started out, we started 16
gathering the data, luckily had John Horrigan from the 17
Pew Foundation who had come over, and not 18
surprisingly, as many of us in this room already knew, 19
America is behind.  Approximately a third of our 20
population has not adopted broadband at home. 21
 And also not surprisingly, vulnerable 22
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populations are even further behind, whether that is 1
older Americans, low income, Native Americans, rural, 2
people with disabilities.  And as we came up with our 3
recommendations, John had done a lot of research into 4
the barriers and reasons for why people don’t adopt.  5
And so, as we developed the recommendations, one of 6
our -- we wanted to attack those barriers, but we also 7
wanted to empower people and groups and communities 8
who are able to interact more directly with 9
nonadopters. 10
Some of John’s research and a lot of other 11
research in this area points to the importance of 12
building up a social infrastructure, and this goes to 13
something, Debra, that you said in terms of the role, 14
when we were talking about children, that older 15
Americans can play in pulling them online.  Similarly, 16
they can have a role in pulling each other online. 17
And as we talked about the digital literacy 18
corps, which Yul discussed, a lot of times that gets 19
thought of as this generation of young Americans going 20
out on the streets.  But the vision is actually much 21
broader in that that could be peer-to-peer digital 22
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literacy, whether that’s seniors teaching seniors or 1
persons with disabilities helping other persons with 2
disabilities, whether it’s youth helping youth. 3
So that is a key part of the strategy as a 4
whole.  And I’m happy to walk through all of the 5
recommendations.  I’m not sure if that’s the best use 6
of time here because I’m sure many of you have 7
questions, I know, for Yul, some for me. 8
But I just wanted to highlight in terms of 9
attacking the barriers, we do see a role, obviously, 10
for the Federal Government in helping particularly 11
with affordability, in terms of making sure our laws 12
are up to date on accessibility, in terms of kind of 13
coordinating different groups within the Federal 14
Government and, again, empowering and continuing some 15
funding for State and local efforts. 16
And then really again also using certain 17
Federal channels.  For instance, HUD communities where 18
you have a large concentration of nonadopters, that’s 19
someplace where the Federal Government can come in and 20
have a role in coordinating private-public 21
partnerships to really target those communities.  But 22
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it’s certainly not solely the Federal Government 1
there.  Whether that is people in the private 2
nonprofit sector or local housing authorities, we want 3
to make sure that we are building up systems to reach 4
nonadopters where they are, and we also want to 5
continue to collect data. 6
Data was a big part of what got us to where 7
we are in this process.  Unfortunately, what we found 8
 when we started this process was there’s not a lot of 9
data out there about what works.  There is 15 years or 10
so of trying to attack the digital divide, but 11
historically, there is not funding to support research 12
and evaluation of those efforts. And so, that’s 13
something that makes it very difficult to say what 14
works best. 15
And in addition to encouraging funding for 16
data, as we develop Federal programs like as we expand 17
Lifeline and Link-Up to cover broadband, we want to do18
it in a way that we are continuing to actually collect 19
data and figure out, for instance, what is the right 20
level of subsidy, and what is the best way to 21
structure subsidies between monthly service or 22
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installation fees? 1
And these are things that continuing with 2
some of the points that Yul made about how this 3
commission wants to run processes going forward and 4
how we try to do things on the broadband plan, this is 5
an area where we are going to continue to seek input, 6
but I don’t want people to confuse that with delay 7
either.  While we are going to continue to try to make 8
sure that there is an open process, we are also very 9
committed to moving forward quickly on these things 10
and making sure that they get up and running.  We just 11
want to do it in an intelligent way. 12
With that, I’m not going to go through the 13
recommendations unless you’d like me to.  But I’d 14
rather open it up to some questions. 15
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Great.  So we have Yul 16
and Elise here.  And Joel, do you have a card yet?  Do 17
you have a question? 18
MR. KELSEY:  No. 19
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  You know, I have a card 20
for you.  Actually, would you like to be the chairman? 21
I have a card.  I’m going to make the Joel the 22
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chairman because he doesn’t have a card.  Oh, wait.  1
I’m sorry.  I don’t have -- oh, yes, I do.  Here.  2
Pass this down to Joel.  Huh?  Oh, goodness gracious. 3
In case he comes. 4
Okay.  So, here, Mark, if you could pass 5
that down to Joel.  Thank you.  Oh, well, sorry.  You 6
can choose who you want to be, Joel. 7
FEMALE SPEAKER:  He’s been demoted. 8
[Laughter.] 9
MS. BERLYN:  We won’t get into that.  Okay. 10
 Let's see.  I have Ken, Irene -- Ken, Irene, 11
Cheryl, Mark, Claude?  Okay.  There we go.  Ken? 12
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  Yes, for some of you, it’s 13
going to be like a broken record.  But sort of each 14
time new people come in from the commission, I play 15
the record again.  I was glad to hear about your 16
experience with your mother.  I think that that 17
experience is very typical of poorer folks who 18
immigrated to the United States. 19
I am with Consumer Action.  We work with a 20
national network of some 8,000 community groups, 21
thousands of which reach recent immigrants.  I like 22
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the fact that you’re doing a summit on children.  I 1
would also urge you to do a summit for people of 2
color, or, particularly, limited English-speaking 3
consumers.  I think there are some unique issues there 4
that need to be addressed. 5
Failing that, Consumer Action was able to 6
set up two conference calls for the GAO with 7
representatives from our network.  We did one for 8
groups that were serving Latinos, another serving 9
Asian Americans and also Pacific Islanders.  This was 10
on financial literacy, but my guess is that in the 11
absence of a summit, that a conference call like that 12
could be very valuable in terms of getting unique 13
issues involved, in terms of reaching people of color 14
and also limited English-speaking consumers. 15
MR. KWON:  Absolutely.  One of the reasons I 16
came was because I wanted to make sure that 17
communities of color had their interests adequately 18
represented and had a voice within the commission.  19
That’s something I would be absolutely delighted to 20
pursue. 21
MS. BERLYN:  Irene? 22
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MS. LEECH:  I’m going to be speaking about 1
your mother as well.  My mother experience is that we 2
haven’t been able to get her to accept the technology. 3
And in fact, we should bring our laptops to be used 4
on occasion, but we darned well better take them with 5
us when we leave. 6
And even though she’s a person who has typed 7
all her life and done lots of writing and so forth, 8
and she’s a rural person.  So that brings up really 9
two points for me, and one is I think we really need 10
to talk about those who are nonadopters or slow 11
 adopters.  12
My sister has followed my mother’s lead, and 13
when she had an accident and needed to be sitting 14
around for a long time recovering, I suggested that 15
she learned to use the electronic -- the computer and 16
the Internet and so forth, and she told me flat out 17
no.  And now I will say that in the last year, she 18
started doing some things, but I think we still have a 19
population that is operating that way.  And so, I 20
think we need to come up with special strategies to 21
 try to help them understand. 22
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Then the other piece is the folks who were 1
in rural areas and are not close to one another and so 2
forth, and also some of the challenges that some kind 3
of terrain provide.  So need to think about those 4
 special situations, I believe, as you go forward. 5
MR. KWON:  Absolutely.  My parents are like 6
Luddites.  My dad still does not use a telephone or 7
cell phone.  He doesn’t keep it on.  He only keeps it 8
for emergencies, and so we can’t get a hold of him. 9
What worked with my mom, surprisingly, was 10
two things, and I’m sure this is probably the case for 11
a lot of other people.  Once her friends started using 12
it, then it made a huge difference. 13
MS. LEECH:  I even tried that.  Her friends 14
do it, and she loves to be in contact with her 15
friends.  But that one didn’t work. 16
MR. KWON:  The other thing that I’ve heard 17
is true for a lot of parents and certainly happened 18
with mine is that once they realize that the way to 19
keep in contact with their kids is through texting, 20
through email, then parents become much more engaged. 21
And I’ve heard from many parents that said, "My kids 22
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would not talk to me.  We had no communication channel 1
until I started texting, and now we text each other 2
every day." 3
But I’ll let Elise talk about this a little 4
bit more because these are some of the structural 5
issues that she and her team have been digging 6
through. 7
MS. COHEN:  Right.  And I think the most 8
important point is there is no one-size-fits-all 9
solution.  I mean, for people where the barrier is 10
affordability and they’re all ready to go, you can say 11
that’s a relatively easy thing to solve.  But when 12
someone doesn’t understand why they should or want to 13
adopt, there is absolutely no one-size-fits-all. 14
But everything that we have seen and heard 15
through our own experiences, through research, it is 16
the importance of building up the social network 17
because whether that is because her friends are online 18
or just because there is going to be -- it increases 19
the chances that she will hear of some kind of 20
application that is interesting to her.  And for that, 21
aside from the digital literacy corps, that’s one of 22
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the reasons that we are also going to try to build up 1
infrastructure at libraries.  But with rural 2
communities, not everybody is that close to a library. 3
That’s another reason why we’re kind of4
trying to emphasize that some of the money that goes 5
towards libraries is thought of more broadly as public 6
access points because you need to find the right 7
community.  One of the grants that got issued in the 8
BTOP funding right now actually is building, using 9
fire stations in West Virginia.  So you never know 10
where the best community public access point is, and 11
we won’t want to limit it to libraries.  We want it to 12
be more open. 13
And for rural Americans, you know, a lot of 14
the country has access.  Not all of rural America 15
does.  So part of that also has to do with some real 16
deployment and the USF reforms and making sure that 17
the infrastructure is out there, and that is I think 18
rural communities are I think it’s more than twice as 19
likely to say access is an issue. 20
And again, getting the funding to States and 21
local governments and communities so that they can 22
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figure out what is the best way to make it relevant in 1
their communities.2
MS. LEECH:  And from what I’ve seen, 3
mountainous areas are another real challenge and added 4
to the rural. 5
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  So now we’re running 6
behind, of course.  This happens, but that’s because 7
this is such a great opportunity for so many good 8
consumer issues.  And so, we do have a number of 9
questions still to come. 10
So if we could move quickly, those who are 11
asking, left to ask questions.  Cheryl and then Mark? 12
MS. HEPPNER:  My name is Cheryl Heppner.  I 13
represent the Northern Virginia Resource Center for 14
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Persons, and I'll try to move 15
this along. 16
In relation with what you said about trying 17
to keep the kids safe while making things accessible 18
and how important it is that the parents be engaged, I 19
wanted to be sure that you know that we traditionally 20
have had a lot of difficulties because the content of 21
the Web is not captioned in many cases.  And we’ve 22
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gone through this big growth since the time when 1
captioning first began. 2
I believe a lot of the funding came from the 3
Department of Education, and one of the shows that was 4
selected for captioning was [indiscernible], I 5
believe.  [Indiscernible] on that show that was being 6
captioned, was very upset and wanted to pull funding 7
for it.  But that’s exactly why we needed the 8
captioning, so that the parents can monitor what it is 9
that their kids are watching and hearing.  So that’s 10
the first thing. 11
The second is that I really love the whole 12
concept of peer-to-peer texting because years ago, we 13
got a small grant in my center to try to help people 14
who are deaf and hard of hearing learn to use their 15
computers.  They have them, but they just weren’t 16
using them.  They didn’t know how. 17
And through different classes you go to, you 18
have an instructor who is in front of you or behind 19
you and tells you what to do.  But if you are deaf or 20
hard of hearing, you have to see them and the computer 21
at the same time because you're looking for 22
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instructions and then you're having to do it.  You 1
can’t do both together. 2
So we set it up to have peer-to-instructor 3
communication concept, and it was very successful.  As 4
a matter of fact, we had one-on-one or one-on-two.  5
They could proceed at their own pace.  We would find 6
that [indiscernible] do that, one teacher for one 7
person.  I still think that's the way to go, the best 8
way. So good luck. 9
MS. BERLYN:  Thanks, Cheryl. 10
Mark? 11
MR. DEFALCO:  Hi.  I’m Mark DeFalco with the 12
Appalachian Regional Commission. 13
We do economic development in Appalachia.  14
So we have distressed areas.  We have lots of rural 15
population.  We have the mountains, like Irene brought 16
up, which does make it all very challenging. 17
So much of this is related to a money issue, 18
money for the access to go out into these rural areas, 19
and then it doesn’t do any good to get the access out 20
there if people can’t afford the computers to make it 21
work, too.  But I wanted to just -- you had mentioned 22
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the adoption and that being such a big part of this, 1
and the education to get people to understand how they 2
could use the broadband and to just help in all the 3
different ways of life that it could be used. 4
And I know from -- I think we have a maybe -5
 - I know from reading the plan and the work that the 6
commission has done, and Mary and I were talking about 7
this over the break, the digital connector policy that 8
one economy has where they’re teaching youth to go out 9
into the community and do things.  And it seems to me 10
that one of the very underutilized things that are in 11
our region and many across the country is the 12
community colleges that are everywhere. 13
And maybe if the commission could work with 14
the Department of Education or whatever to put 15
together a training package, which could then be 16
released to the community colleges, you could create a 17
process to at least get people who don’t know how to 18
do this onboard with what they could do to make it 19
work for them. 20
Now you still have the issue of getting the 21
people to come to the college and things like that, 22
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but coupled in that could be the outreach something 1
like what they’re doing at One Economy with the 2
digital connector program to take the most adaptable 3
kids who want to do this, give them the right 4
training, and then turn them loose in the communities 5
to make it happen for those communities. 6
MS. COHEN:  The way we looked at the digital 7
literacy recommendations is that they are three 8
recommendations that are very closely tied together.  9
So the online portal that Yul mentioned is -- part of 10
the goal of that and putting the content online is to 11
make it accessible to community colleges anywhere, to 12
anyone, anywhere 24-7.  But recognizing that not 13
everyone can get online, so you need to make sure that 14
there is infrastructure at the libraries and the other 15
public access points, which could include community 16
colleges. 17
And then also provide some funding through 18
the Federal Government to kind of go out and build the 19
connector model, essentially, but again, not just 20
youth.  But focus on empowering individuals to go out 21
and train other individuals.  But certainly, you know 22
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that whatever funding we provide is not going to reach 1
all corners of America, which is why we want to have 2
the material online so that people can access it and 3
make sure that there’s resources to answer questions 4
and build exactly the model that you’re talking about. 5
MR. KWON:  I just wanted to add one comment. 6
And as we’re looking toward implementing the digital 7
literacy corps and other programs like it, I think one 8
thing that we want to do is leverage existing 9
resources, partner with industry.  I used to work at 10
Google, and one of the things that we did was partner 11
with a local nonprofit. 12
And Google would actually bus kids onto 13
campus.  These are poor, disadvantaged kids who were 14
at risk.  And we had Google volunteers, engineers come 15
in and teach these kids how to use computers, how to 16
build computers, and it was incredibly successful. 17
Those are the kind of things that we want to 18
leverage as part of this program.  So it’s not just 19
going to be the Federal Government doing this, but 20
trying to find other partners that we can work with to 21
train.  And community colleges would be a great 22
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platform.  Other large technology companies or just 1
any large company that has an interest in doing 2
something like this are all partners we could 3
leverage. 4
MS. COHEN:  And we have -- I should add that 5
with the online portal, we have already talked to 6
people in the private industry, as well as at the 7
Department of Education.  So that is exactly the 8
vision. 9
 MS. BERLYN:  Great.  Claude? 10
MS. TRISTANI:  Could I -- I put up my --11
MS. BERLYN:  I know.  I think Claude had his 12
up for a while. 13
MR. STOUT:  Thank you for recognizing me, 14
Madam Chair.  Yes, is it my turn?  Am I on? 15
MS. BERLYN:  Yes.  And then, Gloria, we’ll 16
get to you, and then we will close this out. 17
MR. STOUT:  Claude Stout.  I’m with --18
MS. BERLYN:  Use the other mike. 19
MR. STOUT:  Hello.  This is Claude Stout, 20
and I’m with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer 21
Advocacy Network today. 22
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I’m very excited to hear that there are 1
plans afoot for the children’s summit, and I would 2
encourage you to involve parents who also have 3
 children with disabilities, reason being parents can 4
best indicate where the gaps are, where the lack is 5
when they’re surfing the Internet, and how they can 6
develop that with their children, be they blind or 7
deaf or hard of hearing kids. 8
 Some parents sign in the home with their 9
children.  Some parents choose not to, prefer instead 10
to use oral augmentation and speech therapy, which is 11
an individual decision.  But my point is that you 12
should involve the parents of children with 13
disabilities in your summit. 14
There are two ideas or examples, children --15
parents of kids to give you feedback on how you can 16
support them in the role of parenting.  For example, 17
parents can teach their children to learn to use the 18
relay service at 2, 3, and 4 years old. 19
For example, when I was born until when I 20
was 5 years old, I knew five words, right?  But now, 21
today, these days children with disabilities who are 22
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deaf and hard of hearing like me in the future are 1
going to have a vocabulary base that far outpaces what 2
I had.  So you need to start from birth and toddler 3
age, when they’re infants and when they’re very, very 4
small. 5
When they learn to sign, of course, they 6
receive even more vocabulary.  When they learn to 7
write, then their literacy skills go up.  When they’re 8
ready to surf the Internet on the computer, it’s just 9
vital that that education begin -- the basis for which 10
that education should begin when they are so very 11
small, in the infant range.  It shouldn’t start by the 12
time they go to school.  That shouldn’t be the first 13
time they sit in front of the computer.  It needs to 14
start when they’re babies. 15
MR. KWON:  That’s a terrific suggestion, and 16
I absolutely will. 17
Thank you. 18
MS. BERLYN:  Okay, Gloria, you’re going to 19
close this out. 20
MS. TRISTANI:  Yes.  Irene’s comment on her 21
mother, your comment on your mother reminded me of my 22
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 mother, who is 84.  And we tried many years ago to get 1
her on the Internet, and the main problem she had was 2
dexterity, which is something I’m not sure if that’s -3
 - if there have been studies on how many older seniors 4
can’t get on.  And she can’t see real well either.  So 5
if anything’s small, she can’t see it even with her 6
glasses. 7
So I was thinking if the commission has 8
looked, and I haven’t read that -- I’ve read some 9
portions of the report, but I haven’t looked at the10
barriers to adoption, where they’ve looked at 11
particular problems seniors have.  Because they’re 12
older and as they become older, we all become a little 13
bit -- we hear less and we see less, and also we can’t 14
 -- the mouse isn’t the easiest thing for those who --15
it’s not easy for me, and I won’t say my age. 16
So that’s something that I think you ought 17
to think about, and I think we also should think about 18
in this committee as part of because, I guess, it’s a 19
disability of sorts if you can’t handle a computer.  20
And that goes to equipment manufacturers to what 21
extent -- not require, but start working with industry 22
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of making certain things universally available so that 1
my mother can not have to shop -- I mean, can find a 2
computer easily that’s not very expensive that would 3
work for her Internet adoption.  I think that’s 4
something we need. 5
You know, I took her to physical therapy, 6
actually to her first orthopedic visit, and the doctor 7
 -- you know what they require now, that you sign in at 8
the computer.  If I hadn’t been with my mother, there 9
is no way my mother could have signed in.  They would 10
have had to come help her.  But it’s -- you know where 11
we’re at with that.  So we need to really make sure 12
that we have -- we do everything we can for our 13
seniors. 14
MS. COHEN:  Absolutely.  I mean, seniors are 15
30 percent below in terms of adoption.  So that’s 16
something we’re very focused on.  And in terms of 17
research that’s out there, there is some.  But one of 18
the recommendations actually is to do more research in 19
the area and also try to work with the private sector 20
to develop solutions aimed specifically at seniors. 21
The other thing on that is there is a lot of 22
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overlap between seniors and persons with disabilities. 1
So we do expect -- and one of the recommendations 2
that we talked about with respect to accessibility is 3
an accessibility and innovation for where we would be 4
working with private industry and the public sector to 5
try to encourage innovation and universal design that 6
we expect to benefit all Americans.  Even though it’s 7
most commonly thought of accessibility as an issue for 8
people with disability, just like captioning, it will 9
benefit many Americans for several reasons. 10
So we are focused on both those issues, and 11
also I think that probably the most helpful thing we -12
 - the plan can’t take credit for, but the commission 13
can is hiring Karen Peltz Strauss to come in and lead 14
up the disability initiatives.  So I think that we 15
know that there will be a voice within the commission 16
to make sure that the recommendations there get 17
carried forward.  And again, we expect those to 18
benefit older Americans and other Americans as well. 19
MS. BERLYN:  Well, thank you both.  This has 20
been great, a perfect session to give us this level of 21
detail.  So thank you both very, very much. 22
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MR. KATZ:  Thank you very much. 1
MS. COHEN:  Thank you. 2
[Applause.] 3
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  We have a lunch break.  4
We have the box lunches over here behind us and 5
drinks.  And if you could remember -- let’s give 6
ourselves a little bit of a break.  I know we all need 7
it. 8
The Consumer Protection Working Group is 9
going to Hearing Room B.  And Scott, that is? 10
MR. MARSHALL:  That is out to my right, 11
straight ahead across the intersecting hallway, going 12
to the restrooms, keep going straight, and it will be 13
on your left-hand side with a big sign overhead that 14
says Hearing Room B. 15
MS. BERLYN:  And it’s about -- let’s see, it 16
is 12:10 p.m.  Let’s plan on meeting there, if we 17
could, in 15 minutes.  That will give us a little bit 18
over a half hour for our discussion.  So 12:25 p.m., 19
if we could, meet in Hearing Room B. 20
Anyone who is not in the Consumer Protection 21
Working Group, we’re meeting back here at 1:00 p.m. 22
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 MR. MARSHALL:  With a speaker. 1
MS. BERLYN:  With a speaker.  Yes. 2
MR. MARSHALL:  At 1:00 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.  3
So --4
MS. BERLYN:  And we do have a couple 5
speakers in a row.  So let’s try and be --6
 [Break.] 7
MS. BERLYN:  All right, everyone, if you 8
could be seated? 9
Okay.  Thank you, everybody.  We’ll get back 10
to our afternoon schedule.  We have a lot of great 11
things that we’re going to be doing today and people 12
that we’re going to be hearing from. 13
And our next speaker on the agenda is 14
Elizabeth Lyle, and I’m really pleased to welcome 15
Elizabeth.  She is going to talk about the broadband 16
plan and people with disabilities. 17
And as I mentioned when Yul came this 18
morning, as the broadband plan was rolled out, 19
previous to its unveiling last week, there were some 20
events related to the broadband plan.  And there was a 21
disability event, and I thought it would be helpful to22
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have Elizabeth come and talk to us. 1
She has worked on the Omnibus Broadband 2
Initiative, and I thought it would be helpful for her 3
to just highlight some of the things in the broadband 4
plan that we all want to hear about and just take a 5
few minutes to do that. 6
So thank you so much, Elizabeth, for joining 7
us. 8
MS. LYLE:  Sure.  Thanks very much, Debra. 9
I’m really happy to be here and look forward 10
to engaging with you and answering any questions that 11
you might have.  And I’m glad to have the opportunity 12
to discuss the broadband plan.  I think it’s a very 13
ambitious blueprint.  It wouldn’t have happened 14
without the work of advocates like you, both in the 15
record and the years leading up to the broadband plan. 16
And I’m delighted that the broadband plan 17
could be a vehicle to express a lot of these ideas, 18
and that’s because of the support of people like Blair 19
and the Chairman that it could be this kind of 20
vehicle. 21
And I just have to say that who could be a 22
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better person to lead the implementation efforts for 1
this than Karen?  I am so thrilled that she will be 2
coming back to the commission and doing all this.  And 3
I just want to say personally just how happy I am that 4
she is coming and just delighted.  And I look forward 5
to helping her out in any way that I can.  And it’s 6
just a thrill. 7
[Laughter.] 8
MS. BERLYN:  Today is being renamed “Karen 9
Peltz Strauss Day.” 10
MS. STRAUSS:  I just have to keep telling 11
myself that as I’m working at 3:00 in the morning in a 12
couple of weeks, day after day. 13
MS. LYLE:  Well, Karen is a true public 14
servant, looking forward to that. 15
 So, and I’m not going to do a detailed 16
recitation of the recommendations like I did last 17
week, which I think it’s always more interesting for 18
people before something comes out than after.  And so, 19
I mean, I will certainly kind of cover the major 20
points and welcome to -- I’m happy to engage in a 21
deeper level as you wish, but I won’t sit up here for 22
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20 minutes and drone on and on for all of our sakes. 1
But I think I will mention that if you do a 2
search online for disability accessibility, you’ll see 3
that it crops up about 20 times in the report, 4
references, and it might be about Government 5
performance or R&D or public safety or education.  And 6
within the adoption chapter, we also took that 7
approach to -- I mean, obviously, when you do reforms 8
to universal service that helps all low-income people, 9
including people with disabilities. 10
But we also thought really specifically when 11
we do a digital literacy program, how can we make sure 12
that that’s inclusive of people with disabilities?  If 13
you do outreach programs, how can you make sure that’s 14
inclusive with people with disabilities?  And so, I 15
think that it’s important that the message is 16
permeated throughout the plan. 17
 With respect to the accessibility 18
recommendations, there are really three broad 19
umbrellas of recommendations.  One is to set up a 20
Broadband Accessibility Working Group within the 21
executive branch.  One is to set up an accessibility 22
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 and innovation forum here at the FCC.  And then we 1
have about seven or eight specific recommendations, 2
action items that we think need to be taken. 3
With respect to the Broadband Accessibility 4
Working Group, the way this is conceived, it would 5
probably be about 15 agencies.  One of the first 6
things on the top of their list is to make sure that 7
Section 508 is implemented, that the Government itself 8
is a model of accessibility. 9
There is also a need for cross-cutting and 10
deep thought about different policy issues and 11
different spending priorities within the executive 12
branch, and there’s a need to have that kind of 13
coordination.  The plan also recommends a biannual 14
report coming out about the state of accessibility 15
that would focus on broadband adoption of people with 16
disabilities because I think what we know is we don’t 17
have enough information about these issues and the 18
barriers and the different communities within the 19
disability community. 20
We don’t know enough about assistive 21
technologies and where the gaps still are.  And so, 22
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this would be a vehicle where these issues could be 1
explored in depth and look at the root causes of the 2
problems. 3
The accessibility and innovation forum is 4
something that we’re very excited about.  While we 5
recognize the importance of updating regulation, and 6
we clearly recommend that and we build upon H.R. 3101 7
as a vehicle for doing that, the broadband -- the 8
accessibility and innovation forum recognizes the 9
importance of technology is moving so quickly.  There 10
are so many diverse stakeholders, and that there is an 11
importance for ongoing work in this area. 12
And we actually also see this forum 13
coordinating with existing groups such as yours as 14
well.  But this would be a way to have some ongoing 15
workshops on key issues.  We would have an annual 16
award that the Chairman would give for accessibility 17
and innovation. 18
We would have an online presence, a 19
clearinghouse, and a way to have collaborative 20
problem-solving and bring people that have certain 21
barriers that they want to bring to the table and have 22
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certain people that are able to solve those problems 1
and reach out to groups that aren’t necessarily part 2
of the FCC normally so they could be the inventors, 3
the students, the application providers, and device 4
manufacturers, and just all kinds of people that might 5
be able to solve some problems. 6
 And then there is a big agenda as far as the 7
different proceedings that we have on tap for the FCC 8
to do.  There are three things with respect to 9
services and equipment.  One is to update the Section 10
255 rules.  Another is to update the hearing aid 11
compatibility rules.  Another thing that we need to be 12
involved, engaged in is any time there is VOIP, we 13
should have real-time text. 14
And then we have content recommendations as 15
well.  This also mirrors the Markey bill.  We want to 16
open up a proceeding that looks at the technical 17
issues and technical studies that deal with 18
programming and the devices that play those 19
programming, as well as the related user guides and 20
menus. 21
And we also recommend that the Department of 22
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Justice open up a proceeding on the ADA and its 1
applicability to commercial Web sites.  We say that we 2
need to go back to Congress to get our video 3
description authority.  That’s one of the 4
recommendations under the content.  And then we also 5
look at how can we update our own subsidy regulations, 6
and that looks at both universal service as a 7
mechanism to do that.  We recommend a $10 million fund 8
for developers of innovative devices that can be used 9
 to solve accessibility problems. 10
We also, in a way that mirrors the Markey 11
bill, set up a $10 million fund for consumers who are 12
deaf/blind.  I have to admit there is a typo.  If you 13
haven’t caught it, it’s not deaf or blind, it’s 14
 deaf/blind, just for people who -- and that’s going to 15
be corrected.  We need an allotment for that.  And so, 16
that got done at the very last moment, and but that’s 17
 -- anyway just wanted to clarify that publicly that 18
that is for deaf/blind. 19
 Telecommunications relay service.   We also, 20
as part of the ongoing reform there, looked at does it 21
make sense to use the telecommunication relay services 22
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funds for both for subsidies for broadband, for low-1
income users, for people with disabilities, and also 2
for assistive devices that could be used in the 3
service. 4
So that’s sort of the overall rundown, the 5
5-minute version instead of the 20-minute version.  So 6
I’m happy to take any questions that you might have. 7
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you so much.  I’m sure we 8
will have some questions.  Eric has a question and 9
then Claude.  Eric, your mike is right to your left 10
there. 11
MR. BRIDGES:  Hi, Elizabeth.  It’s Eric 12
Bridges.  I’m with the American Council of the Blind. 13
MS. LYLE:  Hi, Eric. 14
MR. BRIDGES:  Hi, again.  The reason -- I 15
guess not really a question so much as a comment and 16
just to let the commission know how pleased my 17
organization is with the recommendations that are 18
contained in the plan.  For many years, there have 19
been several issues that in particular the blindness 20
community has been battling and has been falling 21
behind, due to the advancement of technology. 22
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And as a founding member of COAT and a huge, 1
obviously, gigantic supporter of H.R. 3101, it does my 2
organization’s heart good to see that many of these 3
provisions have found their way into the plan.  It’s 4
been a little bit like Christmas over the last week.  5
Actually hearing a Federal agency talk about these 6
issues, issues pertaining to televised emergency 7
information, user interfaces, being able to use one’s 8
home theater system at some point in the future to the 9
fullest extent, having access to accessible wireless 10
devices. 11
Those issues mean an incredible amount to my 12
members and, personally, to me because when I go home 13
at night, I’m still blind.  So these issues are huge, 14
along with updating 255. 15
And last, but not least, the issue that you 16
raised dealing with the ADA’s applicability to 17
commercial Web sites and asking the Department of 18
Justice to look at this.  This is a gigantic 19
frustration and growing frustration within the 20
blindness and visually impaired community. 21
Just a couple of nights ago, as a matter of 22
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fact, I was on an eCommerce site, a commercial Web 1
site, and had all my stuff in my shopping cart.  And 2
then what happened?  The “buy” button?  Couldn’t find3
it.  So $80 worth of stuff, and I can’t find the buy 4
button.  Anyway, that’s just a personal story that’s 5
rather irrelevant to all of this.  But it does sort of 6
highlight the need for this, for commercial sites to 7
be accessible. 8
 And I guess last, but not least, I just 9
wanted to thank you for your work on the broadband 10
plan and the really close attention that you and 11
others in the commission have paid to the disability 12
community and its wants and its needs. 13
 Thank you. 14
MS. LYLE:  Thank you. 15
MS. BERLYN:  Thanks, Eric. 16
Claude and then Lise. 17
MR. STOUT:  Yes.  Hello, I’m Claude Stout 18
with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy 19
Network.  Thank you for your wonderful work with this 20
report. 21
And I would like to ask you -- well, first 22
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of all, I haven’t read the entire report. 1
MS. LYLE:  Neither have I. 2
MR. STOUT:  But have you included Dr. 3
Vanderheiden’s idea?  I think it’s called public 4
infrastructure?  I can’t -- what is it?  Oh, it’s 5
NPII, National Public Inclusive Infrastructure.  Is 6
that included within the report?  Yes, and also could 7
you explain that concept to all of us here because I 8
think that people would find it very valuable. 9
MS. LYLE:  Wow.  I’ll answer the first part, 10
and then I’ll try for the second part, if I may?  The 11
answer is yes to the first question.  It is discussed 12
in the report.  We weren’t given a lot of space in the 13
report, and to that end, we will have a working paper 14
coming out in the next near future -- the next near 15
future. 16
And that will go into that in a little more 17
depth, but how it is mentioned in the report is as18
follows.  I mentioned the Broadband Accessibility 19
Working Group, which is an executive branch group that 20
will try to coordinate policy.  And one of the 21
examples of a policy that should be coordinated is 22
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that they should consider Dr. Vanderheiden’s proposal 1
and give that more thought, that this is worthy of 2
more consideration. 3
Now, let’s see, without any notes, can I 4
describe this?  This is a real test here.  What it is, 5
the proposal is for a public-private partnership --6
MR. STOUT:  Okay.  Yes, I’m not going to 7
tell people your grade, you know?  Well, I won’t 8
announce it to the full group.  But I’ll give you a 9
grade on this afterwards, okay, one-on-one. 10
MS. LYLE:  Sure that’s fair enough.  And now 11
let’s have a lawyer talk about one of Gregg 12
Vanderheiden’s proposals.  But it’s really a neat 13
idea, and the bottom line is that it says that we can 14
have a platform.  And cloud computing is one of the 15
platforms in which we could have this, and it would be 16
a public-private partnership. 17
And the public partnership piece of it would 18
fund things such as the infrastructure and real 19
security, but then there would be a role for the 20
private sector as well, where you could have 21
commercial software involved in it.  You could have 22
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open source software.  And the idea is this, that you 1
should be able -- a user can go to a public computing 2
station and with their own devices pull down the 3
accessibility features that they need.  And so, this 4
would be a way of making assistive technologies more 5
affordable because we would have an infrastructure to 6
support it. 7
That’s sort of my first take in sort of 8
laymen’s terms, lay people’s terms. Is that 9
sufficient?  Do I get a B-minus maybe?  If I had to 10
grade myself, that’s what I would say. 11
MR. STOUT:  Oh, no.  You deserve an A for 12
that. 13
MS. BERLYN:  Thanks. 14
Lise, I want to get to your question, and I 15
just want to also tell folks that we will have -- our 16
next speaker is going to be on the phone.  So we want 17
to try and move quickly to -- I don’t know if he’s on. 18
Is our speaker on the phone yet? 19
DR. HOLLADAY:  [on telephone] Yes, I’m here. 20
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Great.  Just a few more 21
minutes, and then we’ll get to you.  So thanks. 22
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DR. HOLLADAY:  Great. 1
MS. BERLYN:  Lise? 2
MS. HAMLIN:  Lise Hamlin from Hearing Loss 3
Association.  And I also want to add my thanks for all 4
the work you did to pull this together.  And I feel 5
like Eric.  It felt like Christmas this past week when 6
we learned about this.  So thank you. 7
I did have a question about 508 regs, which 8
 -- I’m happy to see all of this.  But the 508 was of 9
concern to me recently because as consumers, looking 10
at 508 is looking at each department, if I had a 11
complaint, a 508 complaint, I have to go to that 12
department.  There is not a consolidated place. 13
So if I have questions across the board, 14
like I’d like all of the videos to be captioned, no 15
matter what department it is, it’s hard for me as a 16
consumer to send out to that word. 17
And then more on another level, recently we 18
learned that a consumer was trying to call with help 19
the Social Security Administration, and they refused a 20
captioned telephone call.  Now I’m trying to find the 21
right person to talk to also for that consumer.  How 22
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do they find --1
So there are two issues.  First, there is 2
the one of let’s try and let everybody know what all 3
the rules are, and also making sure that when 4
consumers need to talk to a particular agency, how do 5
they find those people?  Is that something you see as 6
being a part of this? 7
MS. LYLE:  Yes.  I think the executive 8
branch understands the importance of having a more 9
centralized process to deal with Section 508 issues, 10
and we kind of suggest very broadly that this is an 11
issue that needs to be addressed, and we are meeting 12
and coordinating with them. 13
They agree that there was a need to move 14
forward on Section 508 and come up with a way that 15
there could be a more centralized approach, both to 16
people understanding what the rights were and who to 17
contact and those sorts of things, but also a public 18
and ongoing assessment of how each agency was doing 19
and making sure that somebody was in charge of that. 20
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Well, thank you so much 21
for giving us this great description.  We appreciate 22
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it.  I’m sure we’ll be talking again at a future CAC 1
meeting. 2
MS. LYLE:  Great.  Well, thank you for 3
having me. 4
MS. BERLYN:  Thanks, Elizabeth.  Great. 5
[Applause.] 6
MS. BERLYN:  Well, our next guest speaker is 7
actually on the phone, and I want to introduce him and 8
the topic that he’s going to be speaking about. 9
Dr. Scott Holladay -- there’s a typo on your 10
program.  Dr. Scott Holladay is a fellow in economics 11
with NYU School of Law.  And we thought it might be of 12
interest as we look at our working group and our task 13
force, which I’ll explain later, and our CAC as a 14
whole is going to be looking at issues about consumer 15
information, what consumers need to know about their 16
communication services and how to disclose that 17
information.  We thought it might be interesting to 18
hear about this a little bit more broadly. 19
 Dr. Holladay is going to talk about the 20
impact of meaningful information disclosure on markets 21
and consumer choices, issues that he has been looking 22
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at and studying.  And he’s joining us today by phone. 1
We greatly appreciate your jumping in and doing that 2
at the 11th hour. 3
Perhaps we’ll get to meet in person some 4
day, but we appreciate your talking to us today.  So 5
welcome. 6
DR. HOLLADAY:  Great.  Thanks so much for 7
having me. 8
Now, can you guys hear me? 9
MS. BERLYN:  Yes, we can. 10
DR. HOLLADAY:  Okay.  Excellent.  Yes, so I 11
wanted to talk -- well, first, I wanted to thank you 12
for the opportunity to address the CAC.  It sounds 13
like there are some exciting things going on there. 14
And today, I want to talk a little bit about 15
the impact of information on markets and consumers.  16
And I guess, to be honest, I don’t have a ton of 17
prepared remarks.  I wanted to save some time for 18
questions and get a sense of exactly what you were 19
thinking. 20
But I thought I might start talking just a 21
little bit about why economists are interested in this 22
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topic, and it’s basically because information has a 1
lot of value, and we’ve developed a lot of markets in 2
recent years to kind of try to quantify that value.  3
But basically, the benefit is additional information 4
tends to let consumers make choices that yield higher 5
expected payouts, higher expected utilities in 6
economic terms than choices that would be made under 7
uncertainty. 8
So, basically, when we give consumers more 9
information, they tend to make choices that make them 10
happier.  And for a lot of reasons, that tends to lead 11
to better market-wide outcomes.12
So the basic problem we run into here is 13
what they call an information asymmetry, and that’s 14
what happens when one party in a transaction has 15
significantly more information about, say, the quality 16
of the product or service or the cost than the other 17
party.  And when we get that, we can sometimes get, 18
from an economic perspective, suboptimal outcomes. 19
And so, you might have heard terms like 20
“adverse selection” or “moral hazard,” and those are 21
concepts that come into play when we have an 22
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information asymmetry.  The party that has more 1
information can take advantage of that advantage of 2
the additional information they have and kind of 3
dictate the terms of an agreement. 4
That tends to be good for the party with the 5
information advantage and bad for the party at the 6
disadvantage.  But then also it tends to be bad for 7
the economy as a whole.  We like to argue that markets 8
are the best tool for allocating capital and labor 9
efficiently.  When there is an information asymmetry, 10
and we’re getting these outcomes, the market is not 11
able to do its job. 12
So then the question becomes can we fix this 13
information asymmetry easily and at a low cost?  If 14
so, then I think it makes sense to do that.  If we 15
can’t fix that information asymmetry at a low cost, 16
then we need to come up with another way to kind of 17
get around that problem. 18
Let’s see, so the information externality is 19
another issue that kind of comes into play here.  20
Information is a funny good in a way because buying 21
and selling information isn’t like buying and selling 22
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Internet service, for example, or most other goods.  1
It’s what they call nonrivalrous, which means that 2
when you consume information, it doesn’t affect other 3
people who might be interested in consuming that 4
information, unlike, say -- I can’t think of an 5
example off the top of my head -- a cup of coffee. 6
When you purchase a cup of coffee, it means 7
no one else can purchase it.  When you purchase a 8
piece of information, it gives you the ability to 9
share it, and you can replicate that information at a 10
very low cost. 11
And so, for that reason, information is kind 12
of a funny concept, and that externality is a classic 13
market failure.  And so, if you leave the free market 14
kind of to its own devices, it’s going to tend to 15
under provide information.  And again, that’s a 16
situation we’re going to try to correct, if possible, 17
without affecting the functioning of the market. 18
So let’s think a little bit about what 19
increasing the availability of information does to 20
markets first.  And I guess maybe the best thing to 21
think about here might be the airline industry.  The 22
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airline industry, you can see the impacts of changes 1
in technology on information, on competition. 2
So in the fairly distant past, if you wanted 3
to purchase an airline ticket, you used to have to 4
call up each airline and ask them the price of the 5
flight from New York to Atlanta, say.  You used to 6
have to call up.  You would get a list of times, and 7
you’d get that information.  The more airlines you 8
wanted to check, the more time consuming that process 9
was. 10
In the Internet era, obviously, we’ve been 11
able to go to a Web site and get a list of every 12
airline that flies a particular route and the price of 13
flying that route.  So that’s led to a huge increase 14
in competition in the airline markets.  Obviously, a 15
lot of other changes have happened there, but we’ve 16
got some nice empirical studies that show us that this 17
new kind of pricing openness has led to a huge 18
increase in competition. 19
It’s led to a significant decrease in fares. 20
It’s also led to a significant decrease in certain 21
types of services.  So certainly, and not all positive 22
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there. 1
And recently, you see the airlines have been 2
pulling back from that by adding additional fees that 3
don’t come on top of the ticket price so that when you 4
go to a travel Web site, you’re not going to see the 5
full price of the flight anymore.  You’ll have to take 6
into account baggage fees and other things, and that 7
information can be hard to acquire.  So you can see 8
that the airlines are trying to kind of pull back from 9
this intense competition that’s been partially 10
enhanced by making information more available to 11
consumers. 12
So, basically, the general consensus among 13
economists is that increasing information in the 14
marketplace is going to lead to increased competition. 15
And there are a couple of things that kind of 16
economic heterodoxy rest on.  The first is that the 17
information really has to be comparable. 18
So, for example, if different airlines are 19
releasing different types of information, such as one 20
airline releasing the price of a flight without taxes 21
and fees and another including taxes and fees, it 22
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makes the comparison harder.  And anything that makes 1
comparison shopping harder is going to reduce the 2
intensity of competition a little bit. 3
And the market also has to be what we call 4
liquid, which means, basically, you have to be able to 5
buy and sell easily.  In the airline market, that 6
happens relatively quickly.  After you take a trip, 7
you can buy another ticket.  You can evaluate your 8
experience on a particular airline and decide whether 9
you want to fly with them again or fly a different 10
airline. 11
In the Internet, the service market, 12
obviously, that’s a little bit different.  There are 13
some contracts and some switching costs that can 14
sometimes make it difficult to change after you’ve 15
made a decision.  And so, it just -- in that 16
situation, I’d suggest that information could be even 17
more valuable. 18
Let’s see, so that’s pretty much it in terms 19
of my comments on impact to competition on the market. 20
I’ll just say a little bit about the impacts of 21
information on consumers and then be glad to listen to 22
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any questions you guys had. 1
For the most part, information for consumers 2
is, at least among economists, generally considered to 3
be a win-win thing.  And it’s because of those 4
information externalities I touched on earlier.  So by 5
providing information to one consumer, you’re going to 6
allow them to look at -- to make an informed decision 7
and presumably reach a more efficient outcome, which 8
is a good thing. 9
But then also, it’s relatively costless for 10
that original consumer to share that information with 11
other people, and we find that’s a big advantage 12
because once the information is out there, it’s low 13
cost to share.  That means that other people, even 14
those who haven’t been given the initial information, 15
can kind of take advantage of that low cost of sharing 16
information and reach an efficient outcome as well. 17
And so, because of that, getting information 18
 into the market has what we call “multiplier effects.” 19
The people who initially receive the information 20
benefit, but then additional people, potentially even 21
those who didn’t receive the information, also are 22
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able to benefit from that initial dose of information 1
into the market. 2
So from an economic perspective, we like for 3
consumers to have as much information as possible, and 4
we like for that information to make comparisons 5
across products very easy.  The easier it is, the more 6
of these efficiency gains you’re going to see. 7
All right?  So that’s kind of it for my 8
outline.  I’d be glad to listen to any questions you 9
guys have. 10
MS. BERLYN:  Great.  Thank you so much.  11
That was really interesting and good food for thought 12
for us.  As we look at this in the communication 13
sector, some of these same questions are ones that we 14
are contemplating. 15
So I’m not sure, as I look around the room, 16
does anyone have any follow-up questions or even 17
comments that you would like to make?  Okay.  And if 18
you could, for Dr. Holladay, if you could identify 19
name and affiliation as we go. 20
Mary? 21
MS. CRESPY:  Hi.  This is Mary Crespy.  I’m 22
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with Verizon. 1
You made a good point about making sure that 2
information to be useful must be comparable.  Do you 3
have any input on when there is too much information 4
and the consumers have information overload? 5
DR. HOLLADAY:  Oh, yes, absolutely.  That’s 6
certainly an issue.  So consumers need easy to 7
understand information to make a comparison.  So what 8
we see is in a lot of markets, consumers can be 9
swamped with information.  So there is certainly a 10
tradeoff. 11
 What we find from an efficiency standpoint 12
is consumers like to have the comparison made 13
straightforward and easy.  And the airline Web site is 14
another example, where you can look at pricing 15
information, and it’s very straightforward to compare 16
the price of a flight on two different airlines. 17
But there is also advantages to making more 18
detailed information available.  Some consumers like 19
and find advantage in that information, but we also 20
find that other companies can often sprout up and take 21
advantage of that information and help consumers make 22
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decisions.  And again, in the airline industry, you 1
see that a lot with Web sites that track fares over 2
time and track additional fees. 3
And we’ve seen the same thing in the 4
investment industry as well.  You get information 5
disclosure for mutual funds.  We find that consumers 6
can quickly become overburdened by information.  They 7
tend to look at certain pieces of information, 8
particularly the 1-year return, which is certainly not 9
the best thing to look at when choosing retirement 10
options, for example. 11
So you can find consumers being overburdened 12
by information.  But you also find, particularly if 13
the additional information is machine readable, that 14
other companies can come in, take advantage of that 15
additional information, use that to help guide 16
consumers. 17
So you’re absolutely right.  There’s a 18
tradeoff.  And I guess in an ideal kind of efficient 19
market world, you would have one level of very high-20
level information that makes comparison extremely easy 21
for consumers and then another level of more detailed 22
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information that’s machine readable that the majority 1
of consumers, frankly, will disregard, but that other 2
organizations -- a small number of consumers might 3
take advantage of that, but then also other 4
organizations might be able to step in and potentially 5
help guide consumers there. 6
MS. BERLYN:  Thanks. Irene? 7
MS. LEECH:  I’m Irene Leech, and I am --8
MS. BERLYN:  You’ve got to keep your hand 9
up.  Could you repeat it again now that your mike’s 10
on? 11
MS. LEECH:  I’m Irene Leech, representing 12
the Consumer Federation of America. 13
What information might you have about 14
situations where consumers get information that’s so 15
simplistic that it’s really not complete and then 16
misunderstand what’s there? 17
DR. HOLLADAY:  Yes.  No, that’s a good 18
question.  So I don’t have any economic research I can 19
point to.  I can just tell you that the kind of 20
results I’ve been discussing about how efficiency --21
information can improve efficiencies in markets.  22
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That’s conditional on that information being 1
sufficient to make the right decision for that 2
consumer, right? 3
So there needs to be sufficient information. 4
It’s certainly a balancing act because to get this 5
kind of efficient result I’ve been talking about, you 6
need sufficient information for the consumer to make 7
the correct decision, but not so much information that 8
the consumer is overburdened and ignores the 9
information or uses incorrect or misleading 10
information. 11
And so, it’s certainly a balancing act.  But 12
in terms of what is too simplistic?  Unfortunately, I 13
don’t have a great answer for you other than in 14
economists’ minds, the correct amount of information 15
is the amount of information that allows consumers to 16
make the right choice or the most efficient choice for 17
them.  And that’s the choice that leads to their 18
highest utility, which in this case would be highest 19
satisfaction with the service at a given price. 20
How they get to that information, 21
unfortunately, I’m afraid I don’t have a ton of 22
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guidance.  But I believe that’s why you guys are 1
meeting and optimistic that you guys can come up with 2
something. 3
[Laughter.] 4
MS. BERLYN:  Lawrence?  Raise your hand, 5
Lawrence, so you get the mike on. 6
MR. DANIELS:  Lawrence Daniels with NASUCA. 7
I was wondering did you have perhaps a 8
research paper on this topic or if you are aware of 9
any that you could forward to us? 10
DR. HOLLADAY:  Yes, absolutely.  I have a 11
research paper that’s not on this exact topic, but 12
that’s on Internet neutrality rules that kind of 13
touches on this economics of information issue that 14
we’ve been talking a little bit about that I’d be glad 15
to send to you guys.  And also there is kind of a rich 16
literature here on information economics, and I’d be 17
glad -- I think I can respond to the email here from 18
Scott Marshall with a set of suggested readings 19
perhaps, and I think Scott could probably forward that 20
around to everybody. 21
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you.  Does anyone else 22
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have any questions? 1
[No response.] 2
MS. BERLYN:  Gloria?  I think that’s an old 3
lifting of the card there. 4
Okay.  Well, great.  Well, thank you so 5
much, Dr. Holladay.  We very much appreciate your 6
joining us today and taking time to talk about this 7
topic.  We are going to be doing some work on this 8
issue, and we’ll keep you posted. 9
DR. HOLLADAY:  Great.  It was my pleasure, 10
and thanks for all the excellent questions.  It’s 11
definitely got me thinking.  Thanks a lot. 12
MS. BERLYN:  Great.  Thank you. 13
Okay.  Well, we have -- we’re a few minutes 14
ahead now.  I love this when we go back and forth on 15
our agenda here.  We’re a few minutes ahead. 16
That concludes our speakers for the day.  So 17
now we get to the work of the day, and we have our 18
working group reports, and then we also have our 19
ratification of and our discussion of our truth-in-20
billing principles, and then just a wrap-up and 21
discussion.  So we’ll proceed. 22
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And our public comment period as well.  So 1
that’s our working afternoon that’s ahead of us.  And 2
so, why don’t we start -- I’m sorry, Scott?  And maybe 3
a break, although I feel like we just got back from 4
our break. 5
So let’s start with our working group 6
reports based on our meetings yesterday, and we have 7
three working groups that met yesterday.  If we could, 8
let’s start with our Disability Working Group.  So, 9
Cheryl, do you want to kick things off, if you’re 10
ready, or do you want to take a pass?  She has to find 11
her notes. 12
Okay, how about our Broadband Working Group? 13
Irene, do you want to just summarize the activity 14
discussions? 15
MS. LEECH:  Okay.  Has it got my mike on 16
now? 17
All right.  We were talking about what we’ll 18
do next really, and I think the conclusion that we 19
came to is that what we want to do is focus on 20
implementation, that we all need to thoroughly study 21
the plan that we received this week and that none of 22
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us have had time to fully study.  So we didn’t have 1
any real specific things to come out with today, but 2
we plan to continue working and anticipate that there 3
will be some things in the future. 4
Anyone like to add anything to that? 5
MS. BERLYN:  Anyone want to add anything 6
from the Broadband Working Group?  Lawrence? 7
MR. DANIELS:  Just one thing, I guess --8
MS. BERLYN:  Raise your hand there. 9
MR. DANIELS:  I guess we haven’t decided yet 10
as a body whether or not we’re going to do a 11
statement.  Or is that part of our discussion, a CAC 12
statement on the plan? 13
MS. BERLYN:  I think we concluded that we 14
were not going to do a statement.  That was my sense 15
of it. 16
MR. DANIELS:  Okay.  All right. 17
MS. BERLYN:  Yes.  I know I also carry a 18
 message from Charles Benton, who was sorry that he 19
couldn’t make this meeting, and I think that was in my 20
notes, actually, wasn’t it, Scott?  Yes, Charles, 21
unfortunately, couldn’t make this meeting. 22
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But he has expressed an interest in working 1
with the Broadband Working Group as well on the Benton 2
Foundation, who has done quite a bit of work on 3
looking at the broadband plan and is going to be doing 4
quite a bit of analysis on it as well.  And so, 5
Charles has said he wants to help with that working 6
group and that process as well. 7
So now turning to Cheryl. 8
MS. HEPPNER:  Lise is letting me look at her 9
notes.  I can tell you that we basically, Eric and I, 10
have worked with Claude and Lise and Karen, and we 11
were basically trying to identify what should be the 12
priority for us now because there are tons of 13
proceedings and issues that haven’t been addressed for 14
the last maybe as many as 8 years that's just been 15
sitting in places about the FCC. 16
[Laughter.] 17
MS. HEPPNER:  Some of the issues, but this 18
is not a complete list, we talked about -- well, there 19
still were a few that have come up that we have about 20
the [indiscernible].  I’m not going to do it with any 21
kind of separation.  Just to give you some idea of the 22
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breadth, one is that we really would like to have some 1
input into the role of the Disability Rights Office 2
and have disability as sort of internalized as 3
something that everybody throughout the agency is 4
aware of and has an understanding of the different 5
issues. 6
We talked about the Technical Working Group 7
that’s currently working on problems of captioning and 8
video description and trying to resolve them and how 9
it's been very slow going, and we haven't accomplished 10
a whole lot despite all of the time involved. 11
We talked about a new issue that has 12
concerned the deaf and hard of hearing community and 13
hasn’t been addressed before, and that is the original 14
rule said that only the top 25 markets, TV stations in 15
what they call the top 25 markets have to provide 16
real-time captioning.  And this has resulted in 17
throughout the rest of the country people in the 18
smaller, more rural areas are not getting captions of 19
good quality and sometimes not at all because they are 20
only usually providing whatever is on the teleprompter 21
that they know.  And there are many things like live 22
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interviews and breaking news that are never run 1
through teleprompters. 2
We talked about captioned telephone issues 3
like some of the ones that Lise mentioned today.  4
Captioned telephones are something that we addressed 5
last time, at our last meeting that we’d like to see 6
the commission take a look at mandating. 7
We talked about the current legislation, 8
H.R. 3101, that thankfully have been incorporated into 9
the broadband plan to a very high degree.  And we're 10
very pleased, but we want to be sure that it stays 11
now.  We also talked about hearing aid compatibility 12
issues and that we’ve never gotten a response to I 13
think the hearing aid compatibility. 14
MS. HAMLIN:  Right.  VOIP.  There are still 15
issues related to VOIP in terms of compatibility 16
issues.  There are still issues out there with a phone 17
like Apple, which is really accessible on -- the 18
iPhone is really accessible on some levels, but 19
because they only have two handsets, they believe they 20
don’t reach the de minimis. They are protected under 21
de minimis, and we don’t agree with them.  That’s 22
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never been ruled on. 1
And the ongoing needs of ensuring that the 2
number of handsets that are offered, which we had 3
settled on negotiations and had agreed to increase the 4
number of hearing aid compatible handsets that are 5
available through providers, and we need to take a 6
look to see that that’s actually enforced, that there 7
are the numbers that we had agreed to reach at 8
different stages.  So there is an HAC committee.  It’s 9
ongoing, but it hasn’t met recently.  We need to bump 10
that up and make it something that we’re all paying 11
attention to again. 12
MS. HEPPNER:  Thank you, Lise. 13
And we talked about not really being sure 14
what the FCC [indiscernible] in the whole experience 15
of consumer electronics, and truly, we're glad to see 16
you back because Scott and Eric and I were talking 17
about how we felt the meetings that we had 2 years ago 18
at the CEA were very helpful because now we’re 19
starting to see manufacturers come out with a caption 20
button on the remote control just like we asked them 21
to, some of them anyway.  And smart buttons, we feel 22
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very good about that. 1
But a bigger issue with that, it is not in a 2
standard place, and the menus aren't standard.  And 3
so, every time, if you’re Eric or me or Lise or Claude 4
and you’re traveling and you need to turn the captions 5
on on your TV, you have to learn for every single new 6
television and remote control, and it can make you 7
crazy sometimes.  But [indiscernible] aren't getting 8
it set up.  We feel we should [indiscernible] about 9
electronics engineering. 10
MS. BERLYN:  You're hired. 11
MS. HEPPNER:  Anyway, you know, we would 12
like to talk with the CEA again to see what we can do 13
to put our heads together on this. 14
We talked about a wide range of 15
telecommunication relay service issues.  We also 16
talked many of the things that others at the FCC have 17
talked about today, like updating the 255 and 508 18
rules.  And I will let Eric and any other things you 19
remember.  The only other thing I have is that we had 20
raised a question about whether it was anything we 21
could recommend or could be considered under the 22
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charter, but it would be very good to have someone 1
back on the Consumer Advisory Committee who can 2
represent the speech-impaired community and the 3
deaf/blind community. 4
Eric? 5
MR. BRIDGES:  Well, as Cheryl said, there is 6
really only one or two things that we’re concerned 7
with.  The one thing that I would add is that -- and 8
this just sort of echoes what other people have been 9
saying throughout the day is that I think having a 10
representative of the Disability Rights Office 11
participate in our work group meetings to the extent 12
that they are available, I think, would help to guide 13
our work group. 14
As you heard, there is a litany of issues 15
that, obviously, the disability community is concerned 16
with.  And to the extent that the DRO or others could 17
be involved in these working groups leading up to CAC 18
meetings, I think that that would be tremendously 19
helpful, and I think that that was agreed to yesterday 20
in our work group. 21
The other aspect is also adding a deaf/blind 22
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organization and quite possibly with a reach out to 1
maybe one more blindness organization.  I am the voice 2
of the blind, at least in this committee, which is3
great.  It is a challenge.  I think that’s about it. 4
Cheryl, if you had anything else? 5
MS. HAMLIN:  I just want to -- this is Lise 6
Hamlin.  I just wanted to add one more thing. 7
We had looked through -- Cheryl was looking 8
through a pile.  One of the things we wanted to do was 9
look at what have our recommendations been as a 10
committee that we’ve already done, and where are they? 11
So one of the things we were talking about is perhaps 12
we need reports back periodically on where are we with 13
some of the recommendations that we’ve made, and we 14
know there’s a backlog. 15
Instead of us looking through and trying to 16
figure out where we are, can we get reports back? 17
MS. BERLYN:  That is a great point.  Oh, how 18
many times have we addressed that, and we probably 19
have to revisit that.  We’ve had a honeymoon period 20
here with the new commission.  So understandably, 21
we’ve got all new folks here, but it’s an excellent 22
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point that we have had recommendations from this CAC, 1
and there is no reason to revisit what the status of 2
all of our recommendations that we’ve made are. 3
So that’s a very good point.  And I know 4
we’ve pushed that in previous years.  So good 5
reminder, and let’s see what we can do about that.  6
Not only from your working group, but from all the 7
outstanding recommendations that we have that are 8
still relevant.  If they are still relevant to do --9
yes, Gloria? 10
MS. TRISTANI:  I would push to going back to 11
prior CACs because there are some going back at least 12
to two that are still relevant, and I think they’ve 13
never been responded to.  And I’m thinking some of 14
which Charles Benton put in, when I wasn’t on and he 15
was on, on public interests which are just still 16
sitting there. 17
And I mean, you know, I don’t want to create 18
more work for the commission, but the least the 19
commission can do is issue some kind of report back to 20
a committee made up of volunteers who devote a lot of 21
time, sometimes to have -- I mean we know -- we love 22
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what we do.  But this is time consuming, and we don’t 1
do it just to come sit here.  We want to see what 2
happens.  So I would urge that it go back at least two 3
or three. 4
MS. BERLYN:  Before Cheryl brings up a 5
point, I would like to respond to that.  And I think 6
that if we do want to go beyond this CAC, what I think 7
we would need to have a motion with that regard 8
because I’m not sure that this CAC should direct 9
previous actions, direct anything back without making 10
that a recommendation of this CAC. 11
So we can do that, but I would think we 12
would want to have that be a recommendation of the 13
CAC. 14
 MS. TRISTANI:  And maybe --15
MS. BERLYN:  I’m just saying as a formal 16
recommendation. 17
MS. TRISTANI:  You may be correct on that, 18
but I think it would inform this committee a lot, 19
without making value judgments even on prior CACs, to 20
know what happens and what’s the status.  I mean, a 21
lot of -- some committee members that are relatively 22
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new to this may have no clue as to what are the things 1
that were discussed 2, 3 years ago. 2
MS. BERLYN:  Yes. I just --3
MS. TRISTANI:  I’m happy to do in whichever 4
way, form, you want, and if there are objections I’m 5
happy to let it go. 6
MS. BERLYN:  Just we are this CAC, and I 7
don’t know -- maybe, Scott, correct me.  And I was 8
probably on that CAC.  So I feel comfortable, but 9
there may be people here who were not a part of that 10
CAC who might say, "Oh, gee, I wonder what that 11
recommendation was?"  And so, they might want to at 12
least be knowledgeable about former recommendations 13
without saying, "Yes, oh, yes.  Let’s follow it up." 14
MS. TRISTANI:  Well, could I amend my 15
request to find out for two prior CACs what 16
recommendations were made and if we could get copies 17
of those? 18
MS. BERLYN:  Absolutely. 19
MS. TRISTANI:  And then perhaps we can see 20
whether we want --21
MS. BERLYN:  Maybe what we should do is do a 22
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history check and look at, if we could, see what has 1
been resolved, what has not been resolved, take a look 2
at what has not been resolved that still might be 3
relevant, and then take a look in June at what has not 4
been resolved, what is still relevant.  Have the CAC 5
look at it and then determine what we want to ask this 6
FCC to still address. 7
MS. TRISTANI:  And that’s what I was asking 8
for.  I wasn’t asking for commission action.  I was 9
asking for precisely that. 10
MS. BERLYN:  Okay. 11
MS. TRISTANI:  What has happened.  So that’s 12
why I was, without passing value, what happened to 13
these?  You know, maybe even a pie chart, this is what 14
happened.  But I don’t think we should have to do it. 15
I think the FCC should do that. 16
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Perhaps we’re agreeing. 17
 MS. TRISTANI:  I don’t know if others would 18
want to comment on that. 19
MS. BERLYN:  I’m not sure we’re agreeing, 20
but maybe we’re agreeing. 21
MS. TRISTANI:  I’d love to hear input from 22
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others because maybe you don’t care.  I mean, I don’t 1
know. 2
MS. BERLYN:  Cheryl? 3
MS. HEPPNER:  Yes, just a quick comment that 4
I really want to thank Scott for putting together the 5
Web site.  It was invaluable because I was able to go 6
through and pull up, I hope, all the disability-7
related stuff and recommendations going back to 2002, 8
was it?  Terrific job, Scott.  Thank you. 9
MS. BERLYN:  Yes? 10
MS. LEECH:  As one who was not here for the 11
previous ones, I would be very interesting in seeing 12
what those recommendations were, and we maybe don’t 13
need to re-create the wheel. 14
MS. BERLYN:  Exactly, and I think, Gloria --15
well, Scott, do you want to respond? 16
MR. MARSHALL:  Am I on here?  I guess I am. 17
All of the past recommendations are on the 18
Web site, and maybe a possible approach would be for a 19
group of this committee to look at them and see which 20
ones you continue to be particularly interested in or 21
that are particularly still current.  And then I can 22
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take those back and try to obtain an update on where 1
those particular recommendations are in any 2
rulemakings, that kind of thing. 3
I think it would be useful to have at least 4
a threshold indication from you as to which of the 5
recommendations -- and, obviously, some of them are 6
probably way outdated by now -- are particularly of 7
interest and which ones aren’t. 8
MS. BERLYN:  Thanks, Scott. 9
I guess I’m just sitting here trying to 10
figure out what’s the easiest way to facilitate this 11
process and whose time and who is easiest to kind of 12
start this.  And I hear Gloria saying is it worth our 13
time to go back and figure out what we’re interested 14
in if, perhaps, an issue is already no longer active 15
at the FCC? 16
The staff is probably best equipped to make 17
that determination, and I think that’s -- is that what 18
you’re thinking, Gloria? 19
MS. TRISTANI:  I thought so.  I mean, like I 20
can think of most of the DTV ones.  I’m not saying all 21
of them, not all of them because some of them were the 22
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captioning and all that.  But there are a whole lot of 1
them about the actual transition that, obviously, are 2
not relevant. 3
MS. BERLYN:  But I think the point that’s 4
being raised is an excellent one, which is if there 5
are issues that have been recommended that are still 6
unresolved, I think the point is we still want -- we 7
may, as the CAC, even if it goes back before this CAC, 8
we still may want to look at those issues and say what 9
is going on? 10
At the very least for this CAC, if there are 11
issues that we have recommended that precede this 12
commission, which is the case, we want this commission 13
to follow up on those.  So I think that’s sort of step 14
one.  And then step two is perhaps to look a little 15
bit back at the history. 16
So I think we have a two-step process.  The 17
first one is a lot easier for us to look at 18
recommendations that we have made since the charter of 19
this CAC and follow up on those issues.  And then we 20
need to go a little bit into history and let Scott and 21
I get together and figure out the second task, which I 22
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think is just a little more detailed of how we get to 1
that. 2
Scott?  I’m sorry.  Claude? 3
MR. STOUT:  Yes, this is Claude with the 4
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network. 5
It’s up to us here to advise well.  It boils 6
down to accountability. We have to remember what the 7
function of the CAC is.  We are here to advise the FCC 8
on a variety of issues.  We make recommendations, and 9
we count on the FCC to report back on the status of 10
our recommendations. 11
So if we go by this CAC, if we look at the 12
history, we’ve asked them to give us status reports on 13
each recommendation, and now we -- well, let’s set the 14
tone so they know that they have to act on future 15
recommendations that we make.  Many of us will be more 16
willing to come to the meetings and make more 17
recommendations knowing that we’ll be given a report 18
on them.  I think that it has to be two-way 19
communication, and that has to happen here between us 20
and the FCC. 21
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you.  I think we all 22
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agree. 1
Okay.  Back on track to reports.  Okay, the 2
Consumer Protection Working Group.  As I mentioned, 3
yesterday, Brenda Pennington, who chairs the Consumer 4
Protection Working Group has a new job, and her 5
replacement on the CAC is Lawrence Daniels from 6
NASUCA.  Lawrence is going to take over the co-7
chairing with Dan Isett, who could not make this 8
meeting either. 9
He’s going to take over the Consumer 10
Protection Working Group, but because this was sort of 11
more first day at the CAC office, I offered to chair 12
the working group.  So, Lawrence, jump in, and I’ll 13
give you a chance to add to our report of yesterday’s 14
working group. 15
We talked about the NOI on truth-in-billing 16
and disclosure issues, and we had an FCC staff person, 17
Julie Solier?  Yes, thank you.  Cannot get her 18
pronunciation right.  But she was very helpful in 19
going through the NOI with us, and we had a discussion 20
about it. 21
I also discussed the fact that we’re going 22
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to have a task force that is going to be meeting on a 1
regular basis to address two issues, two questions 2
that Joel Gurin has brought up when he addressed us as 3
well yesterday and today.  The two issues of what --4
The Chairman is here.  Oh, my goodness.  The 5
Chairman is here. 6
Chairman!  Oh, my goodness.  Did you come to 7
see us? 8
[Laughter.] 9
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  I'm so happy to be 10
here.  Are you talking about the broadband plan? 11
MS. BERLYN:  We’re giving our reports, and 12
we’re so happy you’re here. 13
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  I’m happy to be here, 14
too.  But now that I’m here, I thank you all for being 15
here.  This is just so important.  And I hope, as you 16
continue to move forward, that you look at all of the 17
different consumer-related initiatives in the 18
broadband plan. 19
MS. BERLYN:  Can you talk into the mike, 20
just for our -- just so our people who are on the --21
We are so excited to see you.  We are so 22
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excited to see you. 1
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  I’m very happy to be 2
here. 3
MS. BERLYN:  Well, thank you so much.  I 4
know you have nothing else going on right now. 5
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  No, I’m actually --6
I’m literally supposed to be in a different room.  If 7
I had been given the choice, I would have --8
MS. BERLYN:  You got lost, and all of a 9
sudden, you saw the Consumer Advisory Committee. 10
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  But it’s terrific to 11
see everyone here, and it’s a group of increasingly 12
familiar faces, and I think that’s great.  I don’t 13
want to interrupt the important work that you’re 14
doing. 15
MS. BERLYN:  No, please. 16
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  But I will suggest, 17
this is probably happening anyway, that there are a 18
whole series of initiatives and topics in the 19
broadband plan that I would hope this group can take 20
up. 21
 There are consumer information, disclosure, 22
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transparency issues that we’re very excited about as 1
an important way to help fuel a healthy broadband 2
future.  There is an important section and a series of 3
initiatives with respect to disabled Americans and 4
making sure that Americans with disabilities aren’t 5
left behind in a broadband future, and I think --6
well, let me ask.  Is broadband on your agenda? 7
MS. BERLYN:  Yes.  Actually, we spent a good 8
time in the morning. 9
 CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  Good.  Oh, great. 10
MS. BERLYN:  Blair was here.  Yul was here 11
and told us about children and families, and Elizabeth 12
Lyle told us about disabilities.  So we’ve been 13
talking quite a bit about it, and we’re going to talk 14
more about it.  Absolutely. 15
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  Good.  Well, it’s 16
really important.  And I think since the last time 17
we’ve met, there have really been a number of 18
important developments.  So people like Joel Gurin and 19
Yul and now Karen Peltz Strauss were not on staff a 20
few months ago that are on staff now.  I think Karen 21
will be here as of March 31st. 22
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The broadband plan was a work in progress, 1
and now we have a plan that’s a real agenda for 2
action.  And I just -- the work that this committee is 3
doing is so important, and keep going.  And it’s a 4
pleasure to come by and say hi.  Are there any 5
questions?  I could take a couple of questions while 6
I’m here if anyone has any? 7
 MS. TRISTANI:  I won’t be shy.  We have 8
heard from Blair that in less than a couple of weeks, 9
we’re going to have a calendar with the different FCC 10
proceedings that are going to be initiated to 11
implement the broadband plan, and is that so?  And 12
anything else you can tell us about what we can expect 13
fairly soon? 14
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  Absolutely.  So, yes. 15
It took a tremendous amount of work by the full staff 16
of the FCC to get the plan done.  I really -- I don’t 17
see copies here, which makes me --18
MS. BERLYN:  We all got them. 19
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  All right.  There we 20
go.  Good. 21
MS. BERLYN:  We got bound copies. 22
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CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  You know, I’m very 1
proud of it on behalf of the FCC because, you know, 2
technically, I guess, it was an option for the FCC to 3
say, oh, Congress wants a plan on broadband.  We’ll 4
whip up some numbers and some ideas and send it to 5
Congress.  And of course, the decision that we made, 6
and I owe this all to the team that worked so hard on 7
this, was to take the challenge seriously and to 8
really try to push the ball forward on the opportunity 9
issues and the global competitiveness issues. 10
And it’s a real plan, and there is a lot of 11
meat in this plan for the FCC and for all of our 12
advisory committees to take up.  And now that the plan 13
is out, the next step is to move to implementation.  14
There are a lot of rulemakings.  There is a lot of 15
work for us to do.  So we’re going to take that on 16
energetically. 17
MS. BERLYN:  I know you really don’t have a 18
lot of time.  So 10 seconds, 10 seconds.  So, Irene, 19
quick.  Quick, quick, quick. 20
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  Two questions, and 21
then I’ve got to go. 22
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MS. LEECH:  Okay.  Irene Leech, representing 1
the Consumer Federation of America. 2
We also talked with him about the data, all 3
the information that was collected in the process, and 4
we’re pleased to hear that it’s going to move forward 5
with the proceedings that occur.  And I think that’s 6
an important piece since you really did involve so 7
many people in that process as you were putting it 8
together. 9
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  Great.  No, thank you 10
for that.  And it was a very healthy part of the 11
process.  The input, the data that we got I think we 12
both were able to gather a tremendous amount of 13
helpful information and data and also identify areas 14
where the data that we have is incomplete, where we 15
need to do more work and where we need to 16
institutionalize, focus on facts and data as part of 17
our processes. 18
And you also know -- I assume someone has 19
told you this, but we’re experimenting with new 20
mechanisms for gathering data.  So if you haven’t seen 21
our new speed apps, which you can get on your smart 22
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phone or you can get on the Internet.  We’ve had --1
this is an application that lets the consumer go and 2
just measure their speed.  We didn’t invent this 3
application -- they were out there -- but we are 4
deploying it. 5
We’ve gotten already almost 400,000 speed 6
tests, 80,000 smart phone application downloads 7
already just in a few days.  And it tells you a few 8
interesting things.  It tells you that consumers are 9
really interested.  They want to understand better the 10
services that they’re receiving.  And I think it, in a 11
very preliminary way, confirms one of the theses of 12
the plan, which is that empowering consumers with more 13
information, more knowledge about the products and 14
services can help make the market work and lead to 15
better speeds, better services at lower prices. 16
One more question. 17
MS. BERLYN:  Good.  Lise, quick. 18
MS. HAMLIN:  Lise Hamlin, Hearing Loss 19
Association. 20
I just wanted to say quickly that we’re 21
thrilled with a lot of -- obviously haven’t read the 22
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whole thing.  But Elizabeth Lyle came in today, and 1
she’s done a fantabulous, terrific job on including 2
people with disabilities.  And she mentioned it was 3
within the whole plan, and the whole change of seeing 4
disabilities noted at the commission is just 5
wonderful. 6
I also wanted to mention that we’re also 7
really thrilled with the blogs because consumers find 8
it really difficult to file comments individually.  9
They’re very intimidated, especially people with 10
disabilities who feel the process is intimidating.  11
The blogs, I think, is a huge asset for the commission 12
to get information from people, and I want to thank 13
you for both -- leading the way on both of those 14
things. 15
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  I appreciate it.  16
Just two hat tips before I go.  One is to our new 17
media team, which has just worked so hard to deliver a 18
series of cutting-edge, path-breaking techniques, 19
applications around information technology and their 20
use in Government. 21
And really, I couldn’t be prouder of them.  22
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This is not a big team.  We have a SWAT team, average 1
age 22. 2
[Laughter.] 3
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  And they’re doing 4
just incredible work and literally had at least one, 5
if not more, all-nighters trying to get those parts of 6
the plan done. 7
The second hat tip goes to our general 8
counsel’s office because all of these issues of using 9
new information technologies to generate more consumer 10
citizen input, they all raise legal issues.  And can 11
you do this under the Administrative Procedures Act?  12
And how is it counted as a formal comment?  And those 13
are all hard issues. 14
And I give a lot of credit to our general 15
counsel’s office to adopting "how can we make this 16
work" perspective.  And when you think about -- some 17
of you have done this, and so you know the amount of 18
legal work that has to happen behind getting these 19
applications launched, actually including citizen 20
comments, consumer comments as part of the record if 21
they’re delivered through a blog or through an online 22
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comment that’s delivered at an open workshop. 1
It’s interesting.  When I look at it, I look 2
at it and say, well, that doesn’t look so hard.  But 3
when I talk to the new media team and I talk to our 4
legal team, I just know how hard it is to make it look 5
easy.  And so, to our new media team, our general 6
counsel’s team, and the broadband team as a whole, as 7
well as the rest of the staff of the FCC, I’m just 8
really proud at how many hard things they’ve been 9
doing over the last few months and making it look easy 10
from the outside.  But it’s not. 11
And so, we continue to need your input and 12
your help.  What you’re doing is very important, and 13
it’s really -- it’s two ways.  I hope you can help us 14
spread the word and the ideas and the applications and 15
the kinds of things that we’re working on to a broader 16
community.  And then I really hope you can continue to 17
channel input into us so that can be included as part 18
of what we’re doing and really inform our activities. 19
MS. BERLYN:  Excellent.  Thank you so much 20
for stopping by. 21
CHAIRMAN GENACHOWSKI:  Thank you, everyone. 22
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Take care.  Have a nice day. 1
 [Applause.] 2
MS. BERLYN:  Great.  Well, thank you so 3
much, Chairman. 4
Thank you, Mary, for noticing him in the 5
door. 6
Okay.  Well, back to our reports.  Okay.  7
Let’s see, where were we?  Consumer Protection Working 8
Group, I was telling you about the task force that 9
we’ve set up. 10
So we’ve set up a task force.  And actually, 11
this might be a model for other working groups to 12
consider as well because we have these working groups 13
that are very large because we want to be as inclusive 14
as possible, but it is, as we know, difficult to 15
really roll up our sleeves and get to very specific 16
work products. 17
So whatever we call them -- subcommittees, 18
whatever -- we have a task force that we set up for 19
the Consumer Protection Working Group that will 20
address specific questions related to the NOI.  And 21
the questions that we’re looking at are what 22
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information do consumers need when they are getting 1
their communication services?  And then what is the 2
best way to communicate that information to consumers? 3
So this task force will be addressing those 4
questions.  We’ll be meeting at a minimum once every 2 5
weeks, and we will be developing our ideas and then 6
communicating those to the working group.  And then 7
the working group will be presenting that to the CAC 8
at our next meeting.  We’ll be talking about that, but 9
our next meeting we hope to have in June. 10
So that’s the plan.  And our task force will 11
bring in others that from time to time, hopefully, FCC 12
staff, representatives from the industry, and others 13
as advisors when we need that kind of expertise.  But 14
hopefully, this will be a way to get quicker work 15
products through our CAC process because we only meet 16
once every few months. 17
So it is difficult to get through, to slog 18
through issues.  And particularly this, the FCC is 19
really looking to us for our expertise and help.  So 20
we want to be able to provide that. 21
So that’s what happening with the Consumer 22
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Protection Working Group.  In addition to that --1
MS. TRISTANI:  Can I ask a question, please? 2
MS. BERLYN:  Sure. 3
MS. TRISTANI:  Because it’s still not clear 4
to me, and you’ve decided on the task force on the one 5
issue. 6
MS. BERLYN:  Yes. 7
MS. TRISTANI:  But there are other issues 8
that the Consumer Advisory --9
MS. BERLYN:  Working group. 10
 MS. TRISTANI:  So are we precluded from 11
working on other issues? 12
MS. BERLYN:  Not at all, no.  I mean, there 13
is a working group Lawrence is chairing, and I just --14
Lawrence and I just talked offline very quickly, and I 15
told Lawrence to try and convene the working group in 16
the next few weeks.  So --17
MS. TRISTANI:  And I guess my other question 18
is when will we know who’s going to be on the task 19
force? 20
MS. BERLYN:  In the next week.  Is that --21
I’ll send out a memo, email. 22
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MS. TRISTANI:  Thank you. 1
MS. BERLYN:  Yes.  But, no, Lawrence is 2
convening the working group in the next few weeks for 3
everybody to be able to participate in the working 4
group.  And no, I mean, this is not to preclude other 5
issues. 6
MS. TRISTANI:  Do we know how many members 7
there are going to be on the task force? 8
MS. BERLYN:  We're keeping it as small as 9
possible.  So seven or eight members.  And some people 10
we’ve already talked to about being on it. 11
And to be honest with you, the idea of the 12
task force in this case is to draw on the history of 13
experience of consumer organizations that are best 14
able to answer those questions --15
MS. TRISTANI:  No, I understand that.  But 16
it seems a little not transparent, to be frank.  I 17
mean, at least to me. 18
MS. BERLYN:  Scott and I have looked at the 19
working group, and we’ve tried to identify consumer 20
organizations that are members of the working group.  21
So I’m only hesitating because I don’t have a list, 22
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but Consumers Union, CFA.  We’ve asked Eric for the 1
American Council on the Blind.  Help me, Scott.  I’m 2
having a senior moment.  NASUCA, thank you.  Lawrence 3
Daniels. 4
MR. MARSHALL:  AARP. 5
MS. BERLYN:  AARP.  Call for Action.  Ken 6
McEldowney. 7
MS. TRISTANI:  Is AARP here today or --8
MS. BERLYN:  No.  Marti had some medical 9
issues and was unable to make it today. 10
MS. TRISTANI:  Okay.  I just wanted to have 11
a sense of what was going on. 12
MS. BERLYN:  Is there anyone else that we 13
talked to?  I’m sorry.  It’s not to be nontransparent. 14
It’s just that we have not talked to -- we have not 15
been able to put the task force together before this 16
meeting completely.  Joel Kelsey, CU.  I think I 17
mentioned CFA. 18
MR. MARSHALL:  That’s it at the moment. 19
MS. BERLYN:  I think that’s it.  So a total 20
of seven or eight organizations. 21
MS. TRISTANI:  Thank you. 22
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MS. BERLYN:  I think we asked Lise -- did we 1
ask Lise? 2
MR. MARSHALL:  Yes.  Lise is unable to do 3
it. 4
MS. BERLYN:  Unable to do it, but we’ll find 5
someone else from the community.  And we’ll get the 6
list out as soon as all the spots -- as soon as we’ve 7
completed putting the task force together, we’ll send 8
that out to the working group and to the full CAC. 9
Is there anything else that I’ve missed, 10
Lawrence, from the working group?  Any working group 11
members from yesterday’s discussion have anything to 12
add? 13
[No response.] 14
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  We are now at a break.  15
Do we need a break?  Yes, I think we’re going to skip 16
it. 17
Comments from the public? 18
MR. MARSHALL:  We've got one written one. 19
MS. BERLYN:  Hold on one second.  Scott 20
informs me we have a written comment.  So hold on one 21
second.  I shall find it.  Yes, I saw it in my notes. 22
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MR. MARSHALL:  These two pages with a 1
paperclip. 2
MS. BERLYN:  It’s Matthew Elvey.  Okay, do 3
you want me to just read it? 4
Okay.  We have one comment from Matthew 5
Elvey. 6
“Hello, Scott.  Please make the committee 7
aware of and/or consider putting on a future meeting 8
agenda for discussion my proposal below. 9
"U.S. mobile phone carriers should block the 10
INEIs of phones that are reported stolen and have 11
INEIs as is already mandated in, for example, 12
Australia.  I’d like to ask the committee membership 13
to consider filing a petition for rulemaking proposing 14
that the FCC propose rules to mandate this. 15
“A couple of weeks ago, I was witness to a 16
young woman punched in the face and kicked when she 17
tried to chase down someone who had stolen her phone. 18
Millions of dollars worth of phones and information 19
on them are lost when owners never get their phones 20
back.  Thousands of assaults are motivated by the 21
street value of a stolen phone. 22
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“INEI blocking will ensure that stolen 1
phones have no street value, thereby causing activity 2
in great economic and other benefits.  Carriers are 3
unresponsive to consumer requests that they do this.  4
So regulatory action is needed.  I guess I could file 5
a petition for rulemaking myself, but I think the 6
committee is in a better position to do so. 7
“Again, I’d like to propose that the FCC 8
consider mandating that mobile phone carriers block 9
phones that are reported stolen from being used on 10
their network.  If the agenda for the next meeting has 11
been finalized” -- that’s this meeting -- “then I ask 12
that this be considered for the meeting after that.  I 13
am unable to travel to comment in the meeting.  14
Perhaps my proposal could be read.  Please let me 15
know.  Thanks.” 16
Do you want to have any discussion? 17
I’m asking Scott about our steps with 18
something like this.  We could refer it to the 19
Consumer Protection Working Group for further action. 20
Yes, Mark? 21
MR. DEFALCO:  Is that, in fact, true?  22
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Because, yes, it seems to me that about 2 years ago or 1
3 years ago, I lost my phone, my cell phone, and it 2
actually fell down between the seat in the car, and I 3
thought, "Oh, boy, I’m in trouble."  So I called my 4
provider, and they said, "No problem, we’ll deactivate 5
it." 6
And then about 3 hours later, I found it, 7
and I called back, and I said, “Could you un-8
deactivate it?”  And they were able to do it.  So I 9
guess I’m just -- I’m not saying it’s not true.  But 10
it seems to me that you can get -- if your phone is 11
stolen, you can get it shut down real quick. 12
MS. BERLYN:  Raise your hand. 13
MS. CRESPY:  I had the exact same thing 14
happen to me.  The same thing happened with my 15
daughter.  I don’t know all the rules, and I should, 16
but I don’t.  But our provider did the same thing, 17
canceled it on the spot.  When she found her phone, 18
they reactivated it.  So --19
MS. BERLYN:  Ed? 20
MR. BARTHOLME:  Obviously, I’m not part of 21
the industry.  So I’m not an expert on this 22
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technically.  But I think the distinction to be made 1
is the cancellation of service and the ability to rack 2
up charges on your plan and your account versus the 3
inability to use the device in the future. 4
So, for instance, your phone, had you never 5
found it and it was your service was cut off, someone 6
else could have then found your phone and gone to 7
whoever and said, “I have this cell phone.  I’d like 8
to get service on it.” 9
So, basically, if someone was to steal like 10
an iPhone, I can call and say, "Okay, cut off my 11
service for that phone," and I won’t be charged 12
anymore.  But they could then take my iPhone into an 13
AT&T or an Apple store and get it activated with their 14
own line of service.  So that’s where the street value 15
comes in, the ability to steal and then resell the 16
device. 17
MR. DEFALCO:  The device itself. 18
MR. BARTHOLME:  Right. 19
MS. BERLYN:  Not the content.  Not the 20
content. 21
MS. TRISTANI: On an issue like that, I 22
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mean, I know it’s been assigned to the Consumer 1
Protection.  But could we get some advice from the FCC 2
on whether there is any FCC rule that applies to that, 3
or do we have to do the research? 4
MR. MARSHALL: I could certainly make that 5
inquiry. 6
MS. TRISTANI:  I mean, maybe with consumers 7
affairs, they could ask.  Maybe a complaint or a 8
question has come up?  I’m just saying to help us if I 9
could ask that. 10
MS. BERLYN:  Yes? 11
MR. MARSHALL:  We received this email like 12
yesterday or the day before yesterday. 13
MS. TRISTANI:  Because I don’t know. 14
MR. BARTHOLME:  Debbie, if I could just --15
MS. BERLYN:  Yes? 16
MR. BARTHOLME:  To a certain extent, I 17
believe that there are other types of providers.  Like 18
I think that satellite radio companies do this 19
already.  So if you have a satellite radio in your 20
car, someone breaks in and steals that, you can notify 21
them, and then no one will ever be able to activate 22
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that for service moving forward because it’s filed as 1
a stolen item. 2
So it does exist in other places, and I 3
don’t know how the cell phone companies, carriers 4
handle it individually. 5
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Thanks. 6
Okay.  And no other comments from the 7
public, I don’t think, in the room? 8
[No response.] 9
MS. BERLYN:  All right.  We’ll move on then. 10
We have one piece of old business, and Scott 11
is checking our Robert’s Rules of Order.  Do we need 12
to ratify the old TIB principles first?  Is that what 13
we need to do or --14
MR. MARSHALL:  If you’re amending from that 15
document.  If you’re amending that document. 16
MS. BERLYN:  We are going to amend that 17
document. 18
MR. MARSHALL:  Yes.  Because right now, that 19
document has no effect at all because of the notice 20
problem at the last meeting. 21
MS. BERLYN:  So can we just take the -- so 22
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can we just not ratify it and continue to work on it 1
and then --2
MR. MARSHALL:  Pass a --3
MS. BERLYN:  A new one? 4
MR. MARSHALL:  Yes, you could do that also 5
if you wanted to. 6
 MS. BERLYN:  We could do that also.  So we 7
don’t really need to ratify the old one.  We’re just 8
doing a little Robert’s Rules check here. 9
MR. MARSHALL:  You could do either. 10
MS. BERLYN:  We could do either. 11
MR. MARSHALL:  You could do either. 12
MS. BERLYN:  So we don’t really need -- I 13
don’t see any reason to ratify the old one then, if we 14
can do either. 15
Okay.  So moving on, we have truth-in-16
billing principles which are in your packet.  So if 17
you could pull those out?  These are our truth-in-18
billing principles.  And for those of you who were on 19
the phone, we did have a discussion and we did approve 20
them back in February, but they were not published in 21
the Federal Register.  So we knew that we needed to 22
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bring them up again at this meeting. 1
And -- there is no sense in ratifying 2
something we don’t need to do, right? 3
MR. MARSHALL:  Well, yes.  Assuming that you 4
had a sense of the group in February that they wanted 5
to pass that document. 6
MS. BERLYN:  Right. 7
MR. MARSHALL:  And if people are comfortable 8
with starting afresh and just forgetting about what 9
was done previously --10
MS. BERLYN:  Want me to get a sense of the 11
group? 12
MR. MARSHALL:  Yes.  Get a sense of the 13
group. 14
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Let me get a sense --15
Scott would like me to get a sense of the group about 16
our procedure here.  So we have a document that we did 17
approve in February with the understanding that we 18
would ratify it at this meeting as a CAC of the whole. 19
But we have amendments. 20
So would the group -- is it the group’s 21
pleasure that we not ratify the document from 22
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February, but that we proceed with amendments that 1
have been proposed in the working group?  There are 2
some that actually have not been privy to discussion. 3
So that’s a fair question, Scott. 4
We have had a series of amendments that have 5
come up in yesterday’s meeting of the working group 6
and also over lunch discussion today, just to inform 7
you of that. 8
So we could ratify the one in February and 9
then start with a series of amendments, or we could 10
dispense with ratifying our February truth-in-billing 11
document and just amend it.  So it’s just a matter of 12
whether we take a vote on ratifying and then go 13
forward with amendments or not. 14
So does the group feel a need to ratify the 15
document from February?  And I would like to see a 16
hand of anyone who would like to ratify the February 17
document first before moving forward with amendments. 18
Is there anyone who would like to do that procedure? 19
[No response.] 20
MS. BERLYN:  No.  Okay.  So I think 21
everybody is comfortable with working from the 22
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document and doing amendments. 1
MR. MARSHALL:  Okay. 2
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  I saw no hands, Scott.  3
Okay.  Now, Scott, help me out.  The copy that is in 4
everybody’s packet, does that show the --5
MR. MARSHALL:  That is the redline that 6
shows the --7
MS. BERLYN:  The amendments from yesterday. 8
MR. MARSHALL:  Well, the amendments that 9
Mary from Verizon had offered. 10
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Okay. 11
MR. MARSHALL:  It does not reflect --12
MS. BERLYN:  Any discussion today. 13
MR. MARSHALL:  -- the amendments from 14
yesterday, last night to today. 15
MS. BERLYN:  Okay. 16
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  Debbie? 17
MS. BERLYN:  Ken? 18
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  I wonder if -- and again, I 19
may be missing this.  But it seems like a lot of them 20
are editorial.  I would certainly defer to the chair 21
in terms of saying that we would accept the editorial 22
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ones and leave it up to you to sort of present the 1
amendments that you think deal with content so we 2
don’t debate typos. 3
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Is everybody okay with 4
that?  I’m going to ask Lawrence to come up here 5
because I’ve got an awful lot of paper here, and I 6
don’t want to be confused.  And -- okay.  All right. 7
So everybody has a copy of the truth-in-8
billing principles with you will see some tracked 9
changes that were made after the working group met 10
yesterday and approved some changes.  And so, take a 11
look at that copy.  The changes that you see were 12
relatively simple. 13
Most of what you see here is that we just 14
changed from the word “telecommunications” to 15
“communications” to more closely reflect what the 16
FCC’s NOI is all about.  It’s not just about 17
telecommunications providers.  It’s more broadly about 18
communications providers. 19
So that is -- yes? 20
 MS. CRESPY:  I think there were two what I 21
would call more substantive changes from Joel. 22
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MS. BERLYN:  We’re not on his yet. 1
MS. CRESPY:  Oh, okay. 2
MS. BERLYN:  So that’s the recommendation of 3
the working group.  The working group did approve 4
these amendment to the truth-in-billing principles. 5
So, let me see Robert’s Rules here.  So 6
would someone like to move to amend the draft 7
document?  Ken? 8
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  So moved. 9
 MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Second? 10
MS. LEECH:  Irene.  Second it. 11
MS. BERLYN:  All right.  All those in favor 12
of the changes that you see reflected in the copy that 13
you have, all those in favor say aye. 14
[A chorus of ayes.] 15
MS. BERLYN:  Opposed? 16
[No response.] 17
MS. BERLYN:  Abstained? 18
[No response.] 19
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Any further amendments? 20
MS. TRISTANI:  Debra, didn’t that working 21
group approve Joel’s amendments that we --22
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MS. BERLYN:  Yes. 1
MS. TRISTANI:  Okay.  So --2
MS. BERLYN:  Yes.  So if someone wants to 3
move and explain them, I have -- these are Joel’s 4
right here.  Let’s see if we can -- and, anyone, 5
please help me because I tried to take some notes.  I 6
also have his redlined version here.  I wish that Joel 7
was here, but he’s not back.  He said he’d be back. 8
MS. TRISTANI:  I can help, but I don’t have 9
his amendments in front of me.  I just wrote notes. 10
MS. BERLYN:  I do, and we’ll see what we can 11
do here.  Okay.  Gloria, do you want to come up?  Do 12
you want to come up, too? 13
MS. TRISTANI:  Sure. 14
MS. BERLYN:  We’re all struggling a bit 15
because we all -- yes? 16
MS. CRESPY:  To the earlier point, most of 17
them are just clarifications and what I would call 18
edits.  I think there were two that were a little bit 19
policy and a little bit different direction that we 20
need to discuss.  Of Joel’s changes, yes. 21
MS. TRISTANI:  I think we need to let 22
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everybody know what his changes are. 1
MS. BERLYN:  What all of the changes are. 2
MS. CRESPY:  But I thought in order to speed 3
this up, we were not going to talk about the ones that 4
were just purely editorial, but just the two --5
MS. TRISTANI:  We do need to know. 6
MS. CRESPY:  Oh, okay.  Okay. 7
MS. TRISTANI:  The committee doesn't know.  8
They don’t have copies of these. 9
MS. BERLYN:  Right.  So, you know, the plain 10
language --11
MS. CRESPY:  I was trying to address the 12
plain language.  Never mind. 13
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  So this is his copy.  So 14
I have his copy here, and so some of these 15
recommendations are quite simple.  And I don’t think 16
you even have them all because I got this --17
MS. TRISTANI:  Do you want me to try and 18
explain it because I tried to follow him? 19
 MS. BERLYN:  Sure, but let me give the 20
simple ones first.  He has recommended some editorial 21
changes.  I guess I don’t need to say those. 22
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Okay.  The first one, and you have this one, 1
is to change the first paragraph to cross out “as the 2
marketplace becomes more competitive” and change that 3
to “through updating the commission’s truth-in-billing 4
rules.”  Is that your understanding? 5
MS. TRISTANI:  Yes. 6
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  So that’s the first 7
 change that we have in the first paragraph. 8
MR. MARSHALL:  Do you want to address them 9
individually or as a bloc? 10
MS. BERLYN:  No.  Let’s address because I 11
think some of them are very simple, and then we’ll go 12
back to those that may require discussion. 13
And then there is a series of language he 14
added.  He adds the words “in plain language” in 15
several different places.  So, after A, where it says 16
“clearly written, consistent, and accurate information 17
in plain language,” and after then C, “clearly 18
written, consistent, and accurate information in plain 19
language.”  So you’ll see consistently in D and E, and 20
then in F, “full disclosure, in plain language.” 21
I don’t have it in B.  No, I wonder if he 22
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missed that one.  Because he has “clearly written, 1
consistent, and accurate information.”  So why not in 2
there? 3
MS. TRISTANI:  I would have it there as 4
well. 5
MR. MARSHALL:  I think he did --6
 MS. BERLYN:  Yes.  He doesn’t have it in his 7
redline. 8
MS. TRISTANI:  Also in B. 9
MS. BERLYN:  We can add that also.  It 10
should be probably in B, “clearly written, consistent, 11
and accurate information in plain language” in B as 12
well. 13
Okay.  The next change that he has is that 14
in B, he has “clearly written, consistent, and 15
accurate information in plain language regarding 16
actual speeds of Internet access services not just” --17
and he adds the word “just” -- “theoretical maximum or 18
up-to speeds.” 19
Is that correct to what you have here?  20
Okay. 21
All right.  Okay, and then the next one --22
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okay, now I have to go back to my notes because I 1
think we -- did we change this next one here? 2
Okay.  So we wanted to add a new -- we were 3
thinking of adding, and this is one that our working 4
group crafted along with Joel’s recommendation is 5
crafting a separate Roman numeral IV that would say 6
something like that "The commission should consider 7
how to apply all these principles to all technologies 8
based on how consumers interact with these services." 9
MS. HAMLIN:  Debra, could you read that 10
again? 11
MS. BERLYN:  “The commission should consider 12
how to apply all these principles to all technologies 13
based on how consumers interact with these services.” 14
Oh, here’s Joel. 15
MS. LEECH:  The intention of that was so 16
that it’s all providers and whether you pay for them 17
or whether you just go to the Web somewhere and access 18
them.  And so, that’s what the language is trying to 19
represent.  I had trouble when I first saw it, but I 20
haven’t come up with anything better. 21
MS. BERLYN:  Joel, you’re back.  Joel, we’re 22
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on the truth-in-billing principles.  And so, I’ve been 1
trying to work off of your redlined version and talk 2
about these changes.  So, and Lawrence and Gloria are 3
helping.  So I think --4
MR. KELSEY:  There is one more. 5
MS. BERLYN:  We do have one more. 6
MR. KELSEY:  One more change. 7
MS. BERLYN:  I think we do have one more.  8
We’ve been trying to cover them all, but there is one 9
more under Roman numeral -- is it Roman numeral I, 10
letter M, Legal and Privacy Policies.  To add a second 11
sentence that would say, “Subscribers should be 12
supplied with a contract --” 13
Actually, we were thinking of making a 14
separate, making it N and saying, “Subscribers should 15
be supplied with a contract both at the point of sale 16
or subsequently if they request it.”  And should the 17
word “both” be out?  “Subscribers should be supplied 18
with a contract at the point of sale or subsequently?” 19
Or should it be both? 20
MR. KELSEY:  I don’t think it matters. 21
MS. BERLYN:  I don’t know.  It doesn’t 22
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matter.  Okay.  Anyway, so it should be after M.  It 1
would be N.  Subscribers should be supplied with a 2
contract both at the point of sale or subsequently if 3
they request it. 4
Only if they request it?  Okay.  So I think 5
we’ve captured all the edits.  Is that correct to your 6
understanding, Gloria? 7
MS. TRISTANI:  Yes.  Yes. 8
MS. BERLYN:  And yours, Lawrence? 9
MR. DANIELS:  Yes. 10
MS. BERLYN:  And everybody else who was at 11
the working group?  And Ed?  Yes, Ed? 12
MR. BARTHOLME:  I had a question.  You said 13
for the one where we’re adding the entire clause about 14
 looking at -- the commission should look at everybody 15
and basically treat them the same kind of thing.  You 16
said to add that as number IV? 17
MS. BERLYN:  We were thinking of making a 18
separate Roman numeral for that so that it would apply 19
to everything. 20
MR. BARTHOLME:  Okay.  Would it not fit 21
under Roman numeral II as an N?  Like actions by the 22
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commission or FCC actions? 1
MS. TRISTANI:  It's probably better there. 2
MS. BERLYN:  Yes.  Yes. 3
 MR. BARTHOLME:  And then you don’t have to 4
come up with a title for Section IV and all that. 5
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  That makes sense.  Does 6
that make sense to everybody to put that under FCC 7
Action as -- I’m getting so confused because 8
everything is numbered differently.  So it would be 9
number -- I have numbers on mine. 10
MR. DANIELS:  I know.  But this is -- everybody 11
else has letters. 12
MS. BERLYN:  Oh, everybody else has -- so 13
it’s after Code of conduct.  Okay.  So it would not be 14
Roman numeral IV.  It would be -- yes, I have 15.  15
Okay. 16
Okay.  So it would be under FCC Action.  17
Yes, makes sense, Ed. 18
Okay.  So now let’s take all of that for 19
point of discussion.  Yes, Mark? 20
MR. DEFALCO:  Yes, I just have a question, 21
and I’m not sure what the answer is and from a voting 22
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perspective it doesn’t make a difference to me either 1
way.  But on the first page at the bottom, I-B, where 2
we’re going to say “written consistent information 3
regarding the actual speeds of the service as opposed 4
to the theoretical or up-to speeds,” is that possible 5
for a cable modem service, where the speed you 6
actually get is dependent based on the number of 7
people who are on the system at any given time? 8
So I don’t know that you could say what the 9
actual speed is.  Your actual speed at one point of 10
time is going to be different than it is at another 11
point of time.  So I just will raise the question.  I 12
don’t think that’s the case for DSL, but I think it is 13
the case for cable modem. 14
MS. BERLYN:  Yes.  No, it’s a good point. 15
Yes, Ed? 16
MR. BARTHOLME:  I was going to say I think 17
with DSL, and I might be wrong, the distance you are 18
from the point of origin affects that.  So as each 19
person gets further down the line, I think there is a 20
deterioration in speed.  So that would be another 21
caveat where --22
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MS. BERLYN:  And isn’t this something that 1
the technology, that advisory task force is actually, 2
whatever they’re calling it, that technology team is 3
sort of looking at, it is that sort of information? 4
MS. CRESPY:  I think the word “actual” is a 5
little, very difficult to get at, and what you often 6
see is something more like “typical” or “expected,” 7
something along those lines. 8
MR. KELSEY:  Or I would suggest “average.”  9
But yes, I mean, I think the idea is for the 10
commission to look at how -- I mean, the idea here is 11
up-to speeds are delivered only 50 to 80 percent of 12
the time, based on the commission’s report in 13
September.  And so, how do we get to a number that 14
gives consumers a more meaningful idea of what they 15
can expect to experience based on how much they’re 16
paying per month? 17
And so, I think that the measurement may be 18
different based on the different technology.  But 19
certainly providers can give an idea of what an 20
average speed is in a neighborhood, given how many 21
subscribers they have in a particular neighborhood or 22
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census track. 1
And then there is also language that’s been 2
suggested out there that isn’t in here, but just has 3
been suggested in the docket that they could, for 4
example, say if 95 percent of our subscriber base is 5
online at the same time between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 6
p.m., this is what you could expect versus if no one 7
is on the service at noon, this is what you could 8
expect.  And give consumers kind of an idea of the 9
different speeds that are delivered based on the 10
technology, based on the folks that are subscribing in 11
the footprint, et cetera, et cetera. 12
That’s not in this docket, but the idea is 13
the commission can make those determinations based on 14
a full airing of those issues once folks have an 15
opportunity to talk about them. 16
MS. BERLYN:  I like two words that you 17
mentioned when you were talking about realistic 18
expectations.  I wonder if that’s an important concept 19
to put in here? 20
Yes, Ed? 21
MR. BARTHOLME:  I was going to say I think 22
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it’s important to keep in mind that this specifically 1
says “at the point of sale.”  So, hopefully, by the 2
time it’s that far along, they’re going to know the 3
neighborhood.  They should have a record of how many 4
other subscribers they have in it.  So it’s not in 5
general mass advertising where they have to come out 6
with a blanket statement.  That’s my point. 7
 MR. MARSHALL:  Do you want to discuss the 8
changes she had? 9
MS. BERLYN:  Oh, we’re not going to go there 10
yet.  We want to take care of all these first. 11
So are we comfortable with the language as 12
it is in B?  I-B. 13
 MS. CRESPY:  I thought -- are we leaving 14
“actual” in?  Was that your question, Mark? 15
MS. TRISTANI:  I’m comfortable because we’re 16
making a recommendation, and the commission will best 17
determine how to make it fit in.  The idea is to give 18
the consumers a sense of what the possibilities are 19
out there, as somebody said, whether 8:00 p.m. or 20
12:00, noon.  So you know? 21
MR. DEFALCO:  I would favor “typical.”  I 22
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think “actual” is we know it’s going to vary, and 1
therefore, I don’t think a provider could say what the 2
actual speed is going to be unless they say it’s going 3
to be X at 2:00 p.m. and X at 4:00 p.m. and Y at 10:00 4
p.m. and that kind of thing. 5
So I think if you say “typical,” you’re 6
covering all the bases. 7
MS. BERLYN:  Typical. 8
MS. TRISTANI:  I’ve not seen “typical” used, 9
but --10
MR. DEFALCO:  I’m okay if you go with 11
“actual.”  I’m just telling you what I think.  That’s 12
all. 13
 MS. BERLYN:  Anyone else want to weigh in? 14
MR. BARTHOLME:  I think Joel mentioned 15
“average” as a possible word.  I do kind of see some 16
validity to the concept of if you used “actual,” it 17
gives people an immediate ability to say, "Oh, well, 18
that’s impossible so we can’t do that," and move on.  19
Because of the unpredictability and things change and 20
stuff like that. 21
MR. KELSEY:  I think Gloria is right that 22
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the commission can make that determination.  I like 1
the word “actual,” and the commission can decide 2
whether it’s typical or average, where it’s an up-to, 3
whether there are a number of different speeds.  You 4
know, we can kind of allow the bureau to make that 5
determination based on the record. 6
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Anybody else?  Okay.  7
Keep going.  Other issues to discuss within the 8
amendments that we have just proposed?  Lise? 9
MS. HAMLIN:  The way I have this on the new 10
N for number, I guess this is under I, where it says, 11
“Subscribers should be supplied with contract at the 12
point of sale or subsequently if they request it” 13
sounds to me like they don’t get provided a contract 14
unless they request it.  Is that what was intended? 15
MR. KELSEY:  No, I think they should 16
absolutely be given a contract when they sign up for 17
service.  And then a year later, if they are thinking 18
of switching, if they are looking at the terms and 19
they don’t have it, they request it, and it’s supplied 20
to them.  So it's something --21
MS. HAMLIN:  I think you want to make it two 22
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sentences then or some way that it’s really clear that 1
they should be provided with a contract, period.  2
That’s what you’re saying.  And then if they need a3
subsequent --4
MR. KELSEY:  I’d be happy with that.  5
Anything that captures the sentiment. 6
MS. HAMLIN:  Something like that. 7
MS. BERLYN:  I think the way it’s written, 8
you want to divide it into two sentences.  Is that 9
what you’re thinking? 10
MS. HAMLIN:  So it’s a matter of anything 11
else, just the way I read it, first of all, I wasn’t -12
 -13
MS. BERLYN:  Provided a contract at the 14
point of sale, period.  And I don’t know.  We’ll come 15
up with a second sentence here. 16
MR. DANIELS:  And subsequent -- if they 17
request another contract at a later time, it will also 18
be supplied. 19
MR. KELSEY:  I think it would be the same 20
contract that they signed originally.  So it would 21
just be “and subsequently, if they request it, or upon 22
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request.” 1
MR. DANIELS:  Subsequently, if they request 2
a copy of it. 3
MS. BERLYN:  I think it is one sentence, but 4
I don’t think it’s two --5
MR. KELSEY:  Making it “and.”  Does that 6
help? 7
MS. BERLYN:  Yes.  I think if we have the 8
word “and," it makes it clear.  "And subsequently.” 9
MR. DANIELS:  If they request it at a later 10
time. 11
MR. DANIELS:  And subsequently upon request. 12
"Subscribers should be supplied with a contract at 13
point of sale and subsequently upon request." 14
MS. BERLYN:  Yes, Ken? 15
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  Debbie, I would think that 16
it should be required to be -- the contract should be 17
required to be sent out again if, in fact -- I would 18
say on an annual basis if, in fact, changes have been 19
made to the contract by the carrier. 20
MS. BERLYN:  Or if changes have been made.  21
That’s different. 22
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MS. TRISTANI:  Just to clarify, is that only 1
if changes have been made should it be required to be 2
sending it, or what if you lost your copy of your 3
contract? 4
MS. BERLYN:  Then you can request it.  So 5
this is a third, this would be a third one. 6
MR. DANIELS:  Point of sale, upon request, 7
and based upon change. 8
MS. BERLYN:  And if changes are made? 9
MR. KELSEY:  Seems like maybe that’s the 10
second sentence.  If changes are made, carriers should 11
be required to send those changes out.  Changes are 12
made in the terms and conditions. 13
MS. BERLYN:  To terms and conditions. 14
MR. DANIELS:  "The carrier should be 15
required to provide the amended contract." 16
MS. BERLYN:  Yes.  If you could write that, 17
that would be great. 18
MR. DANIELS:  Okay.  So it looks like, "If 19
changes are made to the contract, contract terms and 20
conditions, the carrier should be required to supply 21
the amended contract." 22
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MR. KELSEY:  Correct. 1
MS. BERLYN:  A copy of the amended contract. 2
MR. DANIELS:  Okay.  "A copy of the amended 3
contract."  Okay.  Okay. 4
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Any other -- yes, Lise? 5
MS. HAMLIN:  I found the last one, I found 6
it confusing.  I didn’t really understand what it 7
meant.  And I’m wondering if we just say, “The 8
commission should consider applying all the principles 9
to all technologies, period.”  Rather than just the 10
"based on how consumers interact with them," I didn’t 11
know what it meant.  There may be another way to say 12
that, but I found it really confusing. 13
I thought maybe just leave it at -- just 14
stop in the middle there. 15
MR. KELSEY:  So the idea was --16
MS. BERLYN:  Raise your hand there, Joel, so 17
they can see. 18
MR. KELSEY:  Sorry.  The idea was at some 19
point in the principles, the words “in addition to 20
communication services,” which is what the NOI talks 21
about, that the commission should also consider 22
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applications providers.  And I had suggested we either 1
clarify what they mean by that or we delete it.  And 2
so, the idea was the commission should look at 3
applying truth-in-billing practices and principles to 4
all technologies. 5
But if you’re a consumer and you’re using an 6
application, you’re not signing a contract.  You’re 7
not paying for the service.  You’re not doing a lot of 8
the things that are within here.  There are certainly 9
privacy principles that probably apply.  But the idea 10
is based on how consumers interact.  So if you’re 11
using a Web site rather than signing up for a service 12
that you pay month to month for, that that may have a 13
different approach to how they have to disclose things 14
to consumers. 15
MS. HAMLIN:  So what you’re saying -- this 16
is Lise again.  What you’re saying is as they are 17
applicable?  There are some of the provisions aren’t 18
 applicable.  Some of them are.  So you should consider 19
applying the principles to all technologies as they 20
are applicable to those technologies. 21
Because when you say -- I understand what 22
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you’re saying now.  But this doesn’t say that to me, 1
“as they apply.” 2
MS. BERLYN:  Can you think of some language 3
that you think would be better, Lise? 4
MS. HAMLIN:  Might be, but there may be even 5
a better way to say that. 6
MS. BERLYN:  We’re looking for drafting help 7
here.  So you’re saying the commission should consider 8
how to apply all these principles to technologies as 9
they are --10
MS. HAMLIN:  As appropriate or as applicable 11
or as needed.  No, not as needed. 12
MS. BERLYN:  Based on how consumers interact 13
with these services? 14
MALE SPEAKER:  That's what we had. 15
MS. BERLYN:  Yes, that’s what we had, sort 16
of. 17
MR. KELSEY:  I guess I’m comfortable either 18
way.  I don’t know if other folks have opinions? 19
MR. DANIELS:  Lise?  If we cut off the 20
portion “based upon how consumers interact with these 21
services,” do you think that would capture what it is 22
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that we’re trying to say or we think it’s incomplete? 1
 MS. HAMLIN:  But I’m not sure that Joel 2
would agree.  I think he wants to make it really clear 3
that it’s not -- we understand that they wouldn’t all 4
apply.  Not all of these principles would apply in 5
every situation. 6
MR. DANIELS:  Well, Joel, if we were to say, 7
"The commission should consider how to apply all of 8
these principles to all of these technologies that’s 9
applicable." 10
MR. KELSEY:  I think "as they are 11
applicable" probably makes the most sense.  Yes. 12
MS. BERLYN:  And then we can drop the rest 13
of it, you think? 14
MR. KELSEY:  Sure. 15
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  So the new sentence 16
reads --17
MR. DANIELS:  "The commission should 18
consider how to apply all of these principles to all 19
technologies as they are applicable." 20
MS. BERLYN:  Okay?  Sound okay?  Okay. 21
All right.  Is there anything else left from 22
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these amendments that we have thus far to discuss, for 1
discussion? Speak now. 2
[No response.] 3
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Now before we go to do 4
anything further, Alison had a question. 5
MR. MARSHALL:  Do you want to move?  Did we 6
adopt those amendments? 7
MS. BERLYN:  No, we didn’t.  Should we do 8
that first? 9
MR. MARSHALL:  Before you go to Alison’s, 10
maybe you ought to --11
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  All right.  We can do 12
that.  All right.  So does someone want to move the 13
adoption of these amendments? 14
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  So moved. 15
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you, Ken.  Second? 16
MS. LEECH:  Second. 17
MS. BERLYN:  All those in favor of adopting 18
these amendments to the truth-in-billing principles, 19
signify by saying aye. 20
[A chorus of ayes.] 21
MS. BERLYN:  Opposed? 22
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[No response.] 1
MS. BERLYN:  Anyone abstaining? 2
[No response.] 3
MS. BERLYN:  They are approved unanimously. 4
Thank you. 5
 Okay.  Now, Alison, we will move to further 6
discussion. 7
MS. MINEA:  Thank you.  I’ve got a question 8
about I-A. 9
MS. BERLYN:  Alison, could you just raise 10
your hand?  I want to make sure they have you on the 11
mike.  Okay. 12
MS. MINEA:  Thanks.  I had a question about 13
I-A, which would require providers to disclose at the 14
point of sale written information about, among other 15
things, estimated taxes and surcharges.  My particular 16
question about that was for companies that provide a 17
national service, such as satellite companies, and who 18
advertise nationally with one price, explaining to a 19
consumer in writing the actual taxes that would apply 20
to them could vary almost down to the zip code when 21
factoring State and local taxes. 22
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So I’m wondering if requiring written 1
disclosure at the point of sale might be very 2
confusing and lead to very long and cumbersome 3
disclosures compared with what we do now, which is 4
simply to say here is the price plus applicable taxes. 5
And I think at least at Dish, we feel that most 6
consumers do expect that taxes will be added. 7
So I’m just wondering if that was what we 8
intended was to have a disclosure specific to each 9
locality for national services?  Thanks. 10
MS. BERLYN:  Someone want to address that 11
issue?  We did talk a little bit about that in the 12
working group.  But yes, go ahead, Gloria. 13
MS. TRISTANI:  We discussed a little bit 14
during the working group, and it was a sense that --15
at least some of us, that to many consumers, it is 16
very important information to know what the tax is 17
going to be because the tax can be 5, 10, 15 percent, 18
depending on where you are.  And it’s very hard to 19
make a choice if you don’t know what the whole cost is 20
going to be. 21
So it doesn’t matter.  You want to have a 22
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sense of what you’re going to be paying total.  The 1
idea here is to have an idea, to know what you’re 2
going to pay. 3
MS. BERLYN:  And the distinction that we 4
made, Alison, was that this is at the point of sale, 5
which is at a point in which you do know where you are 6
and not -- so it wouldn’t impact national advertising 7
campaigns.  It would be at a point at which you are 8
purchasing them in your locality, with information 9
about exactly where you are so that information about 10
what the taxes are should be available.  Does that 11
help? 12
MS. MINEA:  That certainly helps our concern 13
about the advertising, and that’s very helpful.  So 14
what exactly would be the documentation to which this 15
recommendation would apply?  Would it be -- would it 16
be a contract or some other type of documentation that 17
I’m just not thinking about? 18
MS. BERLYN:  Go ahead. 19
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  I would think certainly --20
I know what some carriers do is they give you at the 21
time of purchase an estimated first bill.  Or you 22
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could find out about an estimated first bill, or very 1
soon after you do it, you get a notice of estimated 2
first bill.  I would think that would be the way that 3
a consumer would be notified. 4
MR. KELSEY:  I think it would probably vary, 5
based on what service you’re signing up for.  So the 6
NOI covers wireless service, like cell phones and 7
mobile devices.  It covers pay TV.  It covers 8
broadband.  It covers long-distance telephone.  It 9
covers the bundle.  And so, I think it would probably 10
vary based on which service it is because each of them 11
operate and interface with consumers a little bit 12
differently. 13
So my guess is that the commission, when 14
promulgating the rules or issuing the NPRM, would ask 15
how it should be interpreted, if they decide to take 16
our principle. 17
MS. BERLYN:  Any further discussion?  Did 18
you have an amendment that you wanted to actually 19
offer, Alison, to address that? 20
MS. MINEA:  I don’t think an amendment is 21
needed.  The advertising piece was the part that 22
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concerned me the most, and I think, as written, this 1
is just fine. 2
Thank you very much. 3
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  Thank you. 4
So we have -- yes, there is no amendment.  5
So we have an amended version of the truth-in-billing 6
document.  So we can now -- do I have a motion to 7
approve the truth-in-billing principles? 8
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  So moved. 9
MS. BERLYN:  Oh, I have -- Gloria raised her 10
hand.  Ken, do you want to second? 11
MS. TRISTANI:  I was going to move, too.  12
I’ll second it.  I don’t care. 13
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  So now all those in 14
favor of the truth-in-billing principles signify by 15
saying aye. 16
[A chorus of ayes.] 17
MS. BERLYN:  Any opposed? 18
[No response.] 19
MS. BERLYN:  Any abstentions? 20
MS. CRESPY:  Verizon abstains. 21
MS. BERLYN:  We have one abstention with 22
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Verizon.  Any other abstentions? 1
 MS. MINEA:  Dish abstains. 2
MS. BERLYN:  And Dish Network, thank you.  3
And Dish is an abstention. 4
Okay.  Thank you very much. 5
All right.  Good work.  Let’s go to I think 6
 -- are we at the end here, Scott?7
MR. MARSHALL:  We are. 8
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you.  I lost my agenda. 9
We have done our -- oh, is there any other 10
old business to conduct?  I don’t think so.  No. 11
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  Move to wrap up and 12
adjourn. 13
MS. BERLYN:  Well, let’s do a wrap-up.  14
Scott and I are going to work on a date in June for 15
the Consumer Advisory Committee to meet again.  That’s 16
our aim now is to get us together again in June. 17
MR. MARSHALL:  For a day and a half. 18
MS. BERLYN:  And we will attempt to do this 19
day and a half again.  I think that would really be a 20
good idea.  I hope that in between now and June, 21
working groups will meet and will attempt to do some 22
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recommendations so that we will actually have business 1
to conduct during that half day. 2
And also, one thing I did want to mention is 3
that Charles is interested in switching his work that 4
he does at the CAC from the Working Group on Consumer 5
Information and Participation to the Broadband Working 6
Group.  So we may, indeed, need someone who might be 7
interested in taking the leadership for that working 8
group.  So if you are interested, please let me know. 9
That working group is designated to do some 10
things that were -- actually, we designated that 11
before we had this new leadership at the FCC.  So some 12
of the intent of that working group has, quite 13
honestly, been taken care of with this new FCC.  But 14
there are other issues that this CAC can work with the 15
commission on. 16
And the whole question of how to ensure that 17
consumers can participate in the activities of the 18
FCC, in the decisions and proceedings that the FCC has 19
underway, I think is still a very important and 20
relevant issue.  And so, if that working group can 21
focus on those questions, I think that there is still 22
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that work to be done. 1
But it needs a leader who is interested in 2
pulling that group together to address those issues.  3
We know there is a lot of activity going on at the 4
FCC.  There will be the broadband implementation, and 5
so the idea of how to ensure that the consumer 6
community, not only the inside the Beltway, but 7
outside the Beltway, is involved in the activities of 8
the FCC and in the decision-making process I think is 9
still critical. 10
So I look to all of you to think about 11
whether or not you want to take a leadership role and 12
pull that working group together.  So think about 13
that. 14
And with that said, we look forward to 15
working groups getting together between now and June. 16
MR. MARSHALL:  I can help with any -- I can 17
help with any logistics with that.  Just give us a few 18
days’ notice, especially if you need remote captioning 19
on a conference call or whatever.  But be happy to 20
help with any logistics for those meetings. 21
MS. BERLYN:  Lise? 22
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MS. HAMLIN:  I have a question about are we 1
going to try to do another half day?  Can I ask you, 2
are the committee meetings considered open meetings?  3
We had a question about that from someone. 4
MS. BERLYN:  The working group meetings? 5
MS. HAMLIN:  Right.  Can people from the 6
public just join in and watch what’s happening in the 7
committee meetings? 8
MR. MARSHALL:  The working group meetings or 9
the committee meetings? 10
MS. BERLYN:  Are you talking about the 11
working group? 12
MS. HAMLIN:  Working groups, I’m sorry. 13
MR. MARSHALL:  The working groups are not 14
part of the CAC meeting.  Traditionally, people have 15
been involved in those groups, have been invited to 16
participate if the group wanted them to participate on 17
kind of an ad hoc basis.  But only CAC members would 18
have a vote in those groups. 19
But they’re not mini FACAs.  They’re not 20
something from the Federal Advisory Committee Act and 21
all that sort of stuff.  Only the full committee 22
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meeting is.  Does that help? 1
MS. HAMLIN:  Yes.  That answers.  Thank you. 2
MS. BERLYN:  Any other questions or issues 3
to address today?  If not, I will entertain a motion 4
to adjourn. 5
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  So moved. 6
 MS. BERLYN:  Oh, sorry.  Wait a minute. 7
MS. LEECH:  Are we going to talk about when 8
in June we might --9
MS. BERLYN:  We don’t have a date yet.  We 10
have to check the availability of this room.  I know 11
June is a difficult month with a number of people.  So 12
if you have -- I don’t even know if I want to ask the 13
question about whether people have good days and bad 14
days. 15
MR. MARSHALL:  Bad days that they know of 16
right now might help. 17
MS. BERLYN:  Yes, any bad days.  We usually 18
do do these on Thursdays and Fridays.  So that limits 19
us right there.  We also want to make sure this room 20
is available.  We also want to make sure we don’t 21
conflict with any major events that the FCC has. 22
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MR. MARSHALL:  Or its constituency 1
organizations. 2
MS. BERLYN:  Right, or any big association 3
meetings. 4
So does anyone know of any June meetings or 5
June events or dates in June that are impossible, 6
focusing on Thursdays and Fridays.  Yes? 7
MS. HAMLIN:  I don’t have the exact date --8
so I’ll get it to Scott -- but we do have a conference 9
in Milwaukee in June.  And it’s the end of June, I’m 10
pretty sure.  But we do go Thursday, Friday, through 11
the weekend.  So I’ll send that to Scott. 12
MS. BERLYN:  Okay.  That would be great.  13
Thank you, Lise. 14
MR. MARSHALL:  Good to know.  That’s why we 15
asked. 16
MS. BERLYN:  Irene? 17
MS. LEECH:  I’ve got a conflict, well, a 18
series of things the week of the 14th of June and 19
couldn’t be here the 17th and 18th if you wanted to do 20
Thursday, Friday that week. 21
MS. BERLYN:  So you could not be here the 22
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17th and 18th? 1
MS. LEECH:  The 14th through 18th, I’m out. 2
MS. BERLYN:  And please understand that we 3
know that we’ll probably hit a date when someone in 4
the CAC won’t be able to make it.  But we hope we hit 5
a date when most of you will be able to make it. 6
We also do really appreciate when we have 7
our have leaders or -- having the Chairman drop by 8
today was fantastic, and having Commissioner Clyburn 9
come and key people at the FCC.  So although we can’t 10
always make sure that happens, we want to make sure 11
it’s not a day when there is a European meeting that 12
takes them all out of here. 13
So we’ll check all those things out, get 14
back to you, and hopefully, we’ll pick a date that 15
works for almost all of us. 16
 So now, for that motion, Ken?  Motion to 17
adjourn? 18
MR. MCELDOWNEY:  Again. 19
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you.  All those in favor? 20
[A chorus of ayes.] 21
MS. BERLYN:  Thank you all. 22
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MR. MARSHALL:  Thanks, everybody. 1
MS. BERLYN:  We’ll see you next time. 2
[Whereupon, at 3:25 p.m., the meeting was 3
adjourned.] 4
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