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I'm joined today by doctor ever it ehrlich he is the former
Under Secretary of Commerce in the Bill Clinton administration
i wanna talk first doctor like about net neutrality
and we've been talking about net neutrality kinda belong to front and I'm
curious whether you agree
these are at least above the most important considerations and they are
one
will potential new rulings regarding net neutrality
on level the playing field that in part has been leveled by the advent of the
Internet
and number two are we looking at potential for their
consolidation have media ownership released
control over media based on
potential net neutrality rulings are these the two biggest concerns or are
there others
I'm not sure if you're the biggest concerns although they of course
are concerned the one that I would particularly add to your list
is what's the best way to get to some other revolutionary stuff to be walking
internet to do for us
particularly remote medicine promote education
and to a lesser extent live entertainment I
those are tied up in the net neutrality question as well
okay so when we look at possible legislation going forward
do you think that the battle a it in terms of net neutrality should be
focused on
preventing damaging legislation from being passed or do we actually need to
be poor proactive
and to create law that will prevent some of these negative things from happening
now I i think that that the best thing to do with the moment is Jay
keep our hands off a bit I had net neutrality
sounds like it has a political overtone but in many ways
it's really a business fight between the big web sites like Google
and the big carriers internet shape no like
Comcast your Verizon or AT&T
I you know Google Wallet YouTube and Netflix
put a lot stuff out on the Internet half for the internet right now is
video and it called help the pipes it makes it harder for other stuff to work
and in essence net neutrality says did
the big web sites don't really need to pay for the contest in a cost
because the essence of net neutrality is that everybody is treated the same
everybody is it the same and that really is what the business decisions about
should the big website speed hey for running their
18-wheel rates on roads where the rest of us
are driving school dinners in tell for you know
and command automobiles and kind of on the other side of that
analogy would have course P those smaller
media outlets like our program and so many others
who benefit from from the leveling of the playing field so to speak
web sites like YouTube re speech TV distribution services that are
non-commercial
and if all of a sudden they come in less clearly or it is more difficult to
access those programs because comcast has decided that the programming they
produce
is going to look clearer and have band with priority
it could really hurt the independent media movement as well
well that's a risk although I don't think it's a very
real or pressing on I it's less a matter of Comcast giving a break to its own
programming
because the antitrust laws and the rico statutes already prohibit that
I if we lived in a world without neutrality
you'd be able to go to Comcast
and she prices posted on the wall birch you're a service you are
much the same way that when you go in June way mechanics so
you know garage using prices on the wall for parts and labor
I in to some extent the pic website
already have an advantage because they
cash their content all around the world like
scrolls putting away not for the winter and smaller competitors like yourself
don't have that advantage sure the idea that
neutrality protects small web sites
for predatory options by big web sites
or by Internet service providers is really kinda overblown tonight thinking
so if you had to sum up relieved to go back to those first issues you talked
about
remote medicine in remote education
talk a little bit about that because as important as it is
it gets less play in corporate media when if and when
net neutrality is even discussed so what are the issues there
well that's right and in fact I think for progresses
this is really the way to keep our eye on the ball
we want the intertextual revolutionize education and health care
I i mean that's pressing point on the agenda
but let's say that we had telemedicine you would have a live
hook up to your doctor diagnostic sending
very high density files like catch can't
or remote education where people take not just massively online courses
but yeah I on-the-job training and the like you need a very high quality signal
for doing that it doesn't have to it can't be interrupted
can't be buffered the same way that you know
other stuff gets interrupted it has to in essence by an express lane
to be effective and that's what we do in most markets you can go to Sears in by
good better best you can decide to go into a high occupancy pay lane on the
rotor stay and the other lames
and that's what telemedicine remote education and the like me
they need got high quality signal that uninterrupted
and as long as the Internet Service Providers
can't provided they were gonna hold up
the advent up those new technologies I feel like this gets this kind of
smoothly
into the second thing I wanted to talk about with you which is
when we look at legislation around the internet and it doesn't have to be
specifically
what we're talking about in terms of net neutrality I'm reminded of a case in new
york from last year
where a judge ruled that looking at child ***
is not actually a crime unless you are
right clicking and saving individual images
to your computer now of course we can understand that in practice it doesn't
really change the spirit of what you're doing whether you're just looking at the
pictures
are saving them and eventually that law was changed to kind of take into account
how the internet is used is this a common thing that right now legislation
is not taking account
into account the practical way that the Internet is used
II was thrown for a bit by a dog your analogy but I see where you're going
clearly point to a couple other things the first is
I if you talk to many proponents particularly for neutrality
I you'll hear that the internet has always worked
are you know from its first days as dark but net
I it's always work in a way that doesnt
have any discrimination among users
you can't buy a better signal and you can't do anything but
you know take what's there but thats
that goes back to when the internet was a way to deliver mail to researchers at
universities
it's not that wasn't about world in which you got great big high-density
video files or active competition among web sites
saying that we should run the Internet today
the way we were and it went Darpan it was bringing male
academic researchers twenty years ago is like saying
that the second amendment that gave you the right to keep a musket in your
closet
ahead is the militia was called up also gives you the right to have
HK 47 with cop killing bullets
it's just dupay and the other thing and this is really a squares euro kinda
issue
is we look at regulation up the phone system
going back eighty years to the Communications Act
34 and know the phone system that lassies mom used to hand crank is
signaling get operator
and were I think it's a bad idea to think about applying
that system to the year we told the bell companies
that they could have a monopoly if they cannot mopped up their saliva
a little bit and accepted a regulated rate of return
now we've got companies competing
in wire and cable and fiber in wireless and satellite
you're investing over shakespeare seventy billion dollars a year
to create a competitive system and we ought to let that operate
regulating the Internet as if it were the phone company
is really like saying that because we like you have a musket
you get have an ak-47 it doesn't make a lot of sense yeah and that's one
argument I had with plenty of people on this program the musket ak-47 when I
think it's a good
it's an excellent analogy actually we've been speaking with doctor
Everitt erlich former Undersecretary of Commerce
in the Bill Clinton administration really a pleasure to have you on thanks
so much for doing much
really gay