 It's no secret that broadband in America is a problem. We're paying a lot more money, but service and speeds are staying about the same. It's getting better, but not fast enough. And there are a lot of people who have ideas on how to make it better. One of those people is Susan Crawford, professor at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. She just came back to New York after a stint as President Obama's special advisor on science, technology, and innovation. And she also served on Mayor Bloomberg's Council on Technology and Innovation. She's the author of a book on telecom monopolies called Captive Audience. She has a lot of ideas on how to fix it. I'm here with Susan Crawford, law professor and author of Captive Audience, which is basically a book about how Comcast is taking over the world. It's an argument to buy Comcast stock. Yeah. I mean, fundamentally, you argue very precisely in the book that they can't be stopped. They're doing awfully well. They are doing well. Why is that? Well, it is a great American success story. I mean, it's fantastic. And these are fantastic managers. They're really good at running this business. They're very calm, very stately. But so is Standard Oil. That was a fantastic business, too. And it's great for them. But if you can control a commodity that everybody in the country needs, and you can set the prices for it and decide what quality you deliver it at, and then you can just divide markets and say, all right, you take Minneapolis, I'll take Chicago, and make deals with your brethren, and then just keep grinding out profits, and then not upgrade. That's what really gets me exercised about this. More than 85% of the country is stuck with cable modem service for high-speed internet access. Very expensive compared to other countries. And second rate. It's not fiber. It's not fiber. And so I would love to see, if you're going to have a big provider of high-speed internet access, it needs to be subject to either competition or oversight. These guys have neither. And I want to see the country compete in the 21st century. This is not just about consumers watching video or anxious anxieties about who's filtering out what internet access. This is about the country's ability to keep up with other nations. And I'm really concerned. Broadband internet access, high-speed internet access, you argue that it's effectively utility, like electricity or water. But we don't regulate it like that. What's the barrier? I think a lot of our readers would tell you that, of course, it's required, but you can get it or you cannot get it. Right. Well, here's what happened. Exactly the same story for electricity. So it used to be controlled by a whole series of private trusts, these giant companies. No oversight, nothing. FDR comes into office. He said, no, everybody in America should have a connection to electricity at a reasonable price. It doesn't happen by magic. It actually takes government policy to make this possible. And so that's why I'm so hopeful about this issue, because your generation, people who love this stuff, are going to get this. Let me just stop you right now. In this context, for you to say that you're hopeful about the government doing anything seems extremely foolish. And I'm an advocate of net neutrality. I enjoyed the book thoroughly. But I have no hope that our government will accomplish any of these goals. Well, there's government, there's government. I'm totally focused on mayors these days. I've given up on federal policy for the time being. But why are you focused on mayors? Because mayors are sovereigns. Mayors can act. They have control over their rights of way. They can say, we need fiber in our area. So I've met a bunch of them. The mayor of Flaffette, Louisiana, tells this great story. His grandmother thought of electricity as, they called it the light bill, because that's all she could imagine electricity being used for. So he says, we need to use our electrical utility to bring fiber to Lafayette. And he's a Republican. It's not a left-right issue. It's essential. And so everybody there has a really fast connection, a really low cost. Chattanooga, Tennessee, the mayor there says the most important thing he's ever done in Chattanooga is make sure that there's fiber access for everybody, $70 a month. So he says that's important. But why? I mean, I know why. I think a lot of maybe Verge readers know why. But the wider community of people in America don't necessarily know why. There's no immediate benefit to getting faster internet access in your home other than you're going to get Netflix a little bit faster. Well, think about the electricity analogy. OK, if you only think it's good for the light bill, and you can't imagine that you could plug other devices into your house and run, let's say, a refrigerator or a dishwasher. Same thing with very high-speed fiber access. We don't even know yet what it's going to be used for. We do know that presence, humans actually being able to talk to each other, requires really low latency, really high-capacity networks. And when you make presence possible using these networks, all kinds of things become possible, things like health care at a distance, education at a distance, not just sort of dialing into some classroom, but actually doing it, advanced manufacturing. All this stuff is possible, new businesses. Kansas City is interesting, right? Because Time Warner is there screaming from the rooftops. We've always offered this service. You could always get it. They never offered a gig of it for $70 a month. But why is it that they're not seeing these things happen? The big dominant incumbents are saying they're not upgrading people, they're grinding away, they're costing the same. Why don't they see that if they partner with local communities and big cities, whatever, that they will get a flood of new customers? What's holding them back? Profit making, just the way an ordinary business runs this thing. See, they can milk their existing investments forever. They can make more and more money out of the existing infrastructure. Why would you upgrade? Why would you lower prices if you've got complete control of the market? You've got the richest customers, you're charging them more and more and more using programming, using local sports a lot of the time. And you've got them in a vice grip and then you can set tiers and do more price discrimination. It's a great business for them. They have no incentive to change. Now, in Provo, where Google's showing up, Comcast suddenly, for $70 a month, offers $250 down, $50 up fast. Internet access, nowhere else in the country does Comcast do that. Why do they do it in Provo? Because competition, competition. We just, we're so unused to this idea that we can't even like, competition, how did that happen? And so whatever we can do in these cities to set this yardstick to say great cheap service should exist, it's incredibly important. And I'm really excited about the possibility with 20 more cities that get online and find a way to bring fiber, then every other mayor gets jealous. You have to say every time a street is ripped up in any one of the five boroughs, put conduit there. Every time conduit is put in, it should reach each building around there, build the laterals. Every time there's conduit, it should be shared, even if Verizon takes part of it, make sure that a competitor gets in there. The city really gets in its way by charging extraordinarily high franchise fees for competitive fiber providers. That's ridiculous. The idea, this is not a money-making venture. It should be that everybody gets this facility. How do you deal with the wireless carriers who have very little competition, who are pointing repeatedly to smartphones as a massive success of competition, whether or not you believe that's true, but that's what they do, and who are saying if you regulate us, you'll kill this, look at what just happened without your help. Wireless is a more competitive marketplace than the wired marketplace I'm focusing on, but these two things are complementary. Fiber policy is wireless policy. Get more fiber throughout the country and you've got much more Wi-Fi, all kinds of things that spring off of that. It's true that Sprint and T-Mobile are giving AT&T and Verizon more of a run for their money right now, and it's true that LT is everywhere, but it's such a capped, compressed service. It's great for mobility, but it's complementary with an E. It's not a substitute. Nobody in South Korea would ever start a business using a smartphone and not having a wire at home. Same thing here. What are the next steps, both on the local and the larger macro national level, beyond just making everybody jealous? What are the concrete things that actual people can do? Oh, no question. The thing I'm going to do with my life and my limited time on earth is make sure that I can help mayors understand best practices across these different cities, never act in a vacuum, share lots of information, maybe act as a buying cooperative when it comes to getting the equipment in place, mounting the political campaigns. That's so important. What people can do in each city is give their mayor air cover, say, we're going to vote on this basis. We're going to make sure that the people who represent us understand that we need this access at a reasonable cost. It's interesting that you're focused on mayors, and that's why I'm coming back to it, because how do you do that without a strong federal policy throughout the country? Here's my secret plan. Can you go to every state and every city? Yeah, the secret plan is each city gets interested in this. We roll back the terrible state laws that prevent cities from acting on fiber networks. Gradually, it's going to take a while. There are 19 of them. That creates a patchwork that makes everybody jealous and switches the expectations so that at the federal level, even the people who seem incapable of moving now change the policy. We don't make progress really until you can see something. In America right now, we don't see how badly we're doing. We make that visible by using the mayors. It's a first step. It's not the last step. Well, it's Professor Cross. Professor. Thank you very much. Nice to meet you. Thank you.
 It's no secret that broadband in America is a problem.
 We're paying a lot more money, but service and speeds are staying about the same.
 It's getting better, but not fast enough.
 And there are a lot of people who have ideas on how to make it better.
 One of those people is Susan Crawford, professor at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.
 She just came back to New York after a stint as President Obama's special advisor on science,
 technology, and innovation.
 And she also served on Mayor Bloomberg's Council on Technology and Innovation.
 She's the author of a book on telecom monopolies called Captive Audience.
 She has a lot of ideas on how to fix it.
 I'm here with Susan Crawford, law professor and author of Captive Audience, which is basically
 a book about how Comcast is taking over the world.
 It's an argument to buy Comcast stock.
 Yeah.
 I mean, fundamentally, you argue very precisely in the book that they can't be stopped.
 They're doing awfully well.
 They are doing well.
 Why is that?
 Well, it is a great American success story.
 I mean, it's fantastic.
 And these are fantastic managers.
 They're really good at running this business.
 They're very calm, very stately.
 But so is Standard Oil.
 That was a fantastic business, too.
 And it's great for them.
 But if you can control a commodity that everybody in the country needs, and you can set the
 prices for it and decide what quality you deliver it at, and then you can just divide
 markets and say, all right, you take Minneapolis, I'll take Chicago, and make deals with your
 brethren, and then just keep grinding out profits, and then not upgrade.
 That's what really gets me exercised about this.
 More than 85% of the country is stuck with cable modem service for high-speed internet
 access.
 Very expensive compared to other countries.
 And second rate.
 It's not fiber.
 It's not fiber.
 And so I would love to see, if you're going to have a big provider of high-speed internet
 access, it needs to be subject to either competition or oversight.
 These guys have neither.
 And I want to see the country compete in the 21st century.
 This is not just about consumers watching video or anxious anxieties about who's filtering
 out what internet access.
 This is about the country's ability to keep up with other nations.
 And I'm really concerned.
 Broadband internet access, high-speed internet access, you argue that it's effectively utility,
 like electricity or water.
 But we don't regulate it like that.
 What's the barrier?
 I think a lot of our readers would tell you that, of course, it's required, but you can
 get it or you cannot get it.
 Right.
 Well, here's what happened.
 Exactly the same story for electricity.
 So it used to be controlled by a whole series of private trusts, these giant companies.
 No oversight, nothing.
 FDR comes into office.
 He said, no, everybody in America should have a connection to electricity at a reasonable
 price.
 It doesn't happen by magic.
 It actually takes government policy to make this possible.
 And so that's why I'm so hopeful about this issue, because your generation, people who
 love this stuff, are going to get this.
 Let me just stop you right now.
 In this context, for you to say that you're hopeful about the government doing anything
 seems extremely foolish.
 And I'm an advocate of net neutrality.
 I enjoyed the book thoroughly.
 But I have no hope that our government will accomplish any of these goals.
 Well, there's government, there's government.
 I'm totally focused on mayors these days.
 I've given up on federal policy for the time being.
 But why are you focused on mayors?
 Because mayors are sovereigns.
 Mayors can act.
 They have control over their rights of way.
 They can say, we need fiber in our area.
 So I've met a bunch of them.
 The mayor of Flaffette, Louisiana, tells this great story.
 His grandmother thought of electricity as, they called it the light bill, because that's
 all she could imagine electricity being used for.
 So he says, we need to use our electrical utility to bring fiber to Lafayette.
 And he's a Republican.
 It's not a left-right issue.
 It's essential.
 And so everybody there has a really fast connection, a really low cost.
 Chattanooga, Tennessee, the mayor there says the most important thing he's ever done in
 Chattanooga is make sure that there's fiber access for everybody, $70 a month.
 So he says that's important.
 But why?
 I mean, I know why.
 I think a lot of maybe Verge readers know why.
 But the wider community of people in America don't necessarily know why.
 There's no immediate benefit to getting faster internet access in your home other than you're
 going to get Netflix a little bit faster.
 Well, think about the electricity analogy.
 OK, if you only think it's good for the light bill, and you can't imagine that you could
 plug other devices into your house and run, let's say, a refrigerator or a dishwasher.
 Same thing with very high-speed fiber access.
 We don't even know yet what it's going to be used for.
 We do know that presence, humans actually being able to talk to each other, requires
 really low latency, really high-capacity networks.
 And when you make presence possible using these networks, all kinds of things become
 possible, things like health care at a distance, education at a distance, not just sort of
 dialing into some classroom, but actually doing it, advanced manufacturing.
 All this stuff is possible, new businesses.
 Kansas City is interesting, right?
 Because Time Warner is there screaming from the rooftops.
 We've always offered this service.
 You could always get it.
 They never offered a gig of it for $70 a month.
 But why is it that they're not seeing these things happen?
 The big dominant incumbents are saying they're not upgrading people, they're grinding away,
 they're costing the same.
 Why don't they see that if they partner with local communities and big cities, whatever,
 that they will get a flood of new customers?
 What's holding them back?
 Profit making, just the way an ordinary business runs this thing.
 See, they can milk their existing investments forever.
 They can make more and more money out of the existing infrastructure.
 Why would you upgrade?
 Why would you lower prices if you've got complete control of the market?
 You've got the richest customers, you're charging them more and more and more using programming,
 using local sports a lot of the time.
 And you've got them in a vice grip and then you can set tiers and do more price discrimination.
 It's a great business for them.
 They have no incentive to change.
 Now, in Provo, where Google's showing up, Comcast suddenly, for $70 a month, offers
 $250 down, $50 up fast.
 Internet access, nowhere else in the country does Comcast do that.
 Why do they do it in Provo?
 Because competition, competition.
 We just, we're so unused to this idea that we can't even like, competition, how did that
 happen?
 And so whatever we can do in these cities to set this yardstick to say great cheap service
 should exist, it's incredibly important.
 And I'm really excited about the possibility with 20 more cities that get online and find
 a way to bring fiber, then every other mayor gets jealous.
 You have to say every time a street is ripped up in any one of the five boroughs, put conduit
 there.
 Every time conduit is put in, it should reach each building around there, build the laterals.
 Every time there's conduit, it should be shared, even if Verizon takes part of it, make sure
 that a competitor gets in there.
 The city really gets in its way by charging extraordinarily high franchise fees for competitive
 fiber providers.
 That's ridiculous.
 The idea, this is not a money-making venture.
 It should be that everybody gets this facility.
 How do you deal with the wireless carriers who have very little competition, who are
 pointing repeatedly to smartphones as a massive success of competition, whether or not you
 believe that's true, but that's what they do, and who are saying if you regulate us,
 you'll kill this, look at what just happened without your help.
 Wireless is a more competitive marketplace than the wired marketplace I'm focusing on,
 but these two things are complementary.
 Fiber policy is wireless policy.
 Get more fiber throughout the country and you've got much more Wi-Fi, all kinds of things
 that spring off of that.
 It's true that Sprint and T-Mobile are giving AT&T and Verizon more of a run for their money
 right now, and it's true that LT is everywhere, but it's such a capped, compressed service.
 It's great for mobility, but it's complementary with an E. It's not a substitute.
 Nobody in South Korea would ever start a business using a smartphone and not having a wire at
 home.
 Same thing here.
 What are the next steps, both on the local and the larger macro national level, beyond
 just making everybody jealous?
 What are the concrete things that actual people can do?
 Oh, no question.
 The thing I'm going to do with my life and my limited time on earth is make sure that
 I can help mayors understand best practices across these different cities, never act in
 a vacuum, share lots of information, maybe act as a buying cooperative when it comes
 to getting the equipment in place, mounting the political campaigns.
 That's so important.
 What people can do in each city is give their mayor air cover, say, we're going to vote
 on this basis.
 We're going to make sure that the people who represent us understand that we need this
 access at a reasonable cost.
 It's interesting that you're focused on mayors, and that's why I'm coming back to it, because
 how do you do that without a strong federal policy throughout the country?
 Here's my secret plan.
 Can you go to every state and every city?
 Yeah, the secret plan is each city gets interested in this.
 We roll back the terrible state laws that prevent cities from acting on fiber networks.
 Gradually, it's going to take a while.
 There are 19 of them.
 That creates a patchwork that makes everybody jealous and switches the expectations so that
 at the federal level, even the people who seem incapable of moving now change the policy.
 We don't make progress really until you can see something.
 In America right now, we don't see how badly we're doing.
 We make that visible by using the mayors.
 It's a first step.
 It's not the last step.
 Well, it's Professor Cross.
 Professor.
 Thank you very much.
 Nice to meet you.
 Thank you.