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DIRECTOR HILDRETH: So now, Reed, if you would
join me up here on the podium.

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So I'm being joined by Reed Hundt who is the
former Chairman of the Federal Communications

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Commission and as we heard today, really the,
I won't say grandfather, maybe Godfather of

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the E-Rate, Reed.

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He is currently the CEO of the Coalition for
Green Capital, a non-profit group that promotes

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the development of national and state green
banks.

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He was the Chairman of the FCC from 1993 to
'97 and he was on President Obama's 2008 Presidential

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Transition Team.

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He sits on the Board of Directors of Intel
Corporation, ASEA, a communications software

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firm, SmartSky Networks, a wireless firm and
Level Money, a financial services firm.

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He is a vocal proponent of libraries.

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It is appropriate that we end with his remarks
given a lifelong commitment to improve broadband

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connectivity as one of the original architects
of the E-Rate Program and also, we are just

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so pleased to open this up with Chairman Wheeler
and end this with Chairman Reed Hundt.

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We're very honored to have those two chairmen
acknowledging the importance of libraries.

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Reed.

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CHAIRMAN HUNDT: So thank you very, very much
to Susan for hosting, everybody here today

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and also to Susan Benton who is my friend
and client, because I represent her as a pro

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bono lawyer at the FCC, and you all know that
Susan is the CEO of the Urban Libraries Council.

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First, a personal note.

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My sister is the head librarian in Rockville,
Maryland.

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My nephew is a librarian.

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My mother was a public school teacher.

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My brother is a public school teacher.

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My sister-in-law is a public school teacher
and I once was a public school teacher.

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In Washington, they would be called "takers"
but we regard ourselves as a family that has

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had a long, long commitment to public service,
and I am very proud to, if I could be so bold,

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say that I'm part of the library community.

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And now I would like to express some of the
realities of the situation and not everything

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I say is going to be good news.

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The library community, folks, we need to step
up our game.

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We are in the playoffs.

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We need to aim higher.

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We need to pull together.

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We need to fight more fiercely and we need
to understand that this game is definitely

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worth the candle.

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And it is critical that everyone understand
the political realities that face Chairman

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Wheeler and that face the FCC.

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Before I go into any more detail, I want to
make sure that you understand that I was not,

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in fact, the creator of the E-Rate.

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Leadership is critical in every walk of life
but particularly in politics, and I want to

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acknowledge the two principal people who were
the leaders that created the E-Rate.

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First, Al Gore.

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It was in the winter of 1992-1993.

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Al called me into his office.

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He was a senator who had just been elected
Vice President of the United States so the

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office was right over there, and he said,
"If I can persuade President Elect Bill Clinton

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to make you the Chairman of the FCC, I'll
do it if you promise to find a way to have

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the following occur: I want every schoolgirl
in Carthage, Tennessee to be able to go to

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the Library of Congress without buying a bus
ticket.

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I want all that information digital and I
want the most remote school child in the poorest

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community in the United States to have access
to it."

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From the beginning, the vision was schools
and libraries, all information, we're all

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in it together.

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And then he said, "My father was the principal
author of the Interstate Highway Act and this

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is going to the digital equivalent."

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A lot of that has happened but that wouldn't
have happened but for the fact that about

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three years later, Senator Olympia Snowe,
I note a Republican, said to me, "You're the

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FCC Chairman.

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How'd you like to pay a visit to Bangor, Maine?"

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I can't pronounce Bangor correctly.

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Close enough?

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Somehow it doesn't sound the same when Linda
says it, does it.

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So I flew up there with Senator Snowe and
we went to a school and she gave a wonderful

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talk to the students and then she took me
to the library in the school.

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Then she said, "Look, there are hardly any
books."

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She said, In the future -- this is almost
20 years ago -- she said, "In the future,

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there won't be that many more books here.

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It'll all be digital and I want to make sure
that all the digital information in the world

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is available to every single child that goes
to this school or any other school in the

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country."

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So it came down to a critical vote in a divided
Congress and all the Democrats wanted Al Gore's

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vision to come true.

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And for a whole bunch of reasons that are
characteristic of partisanship and not bipartisanship,

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the Republican party didn't want anything
Al Gore advocated to come true.

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And Olympia Snowe stood up in front of everybody
else in the Senate Congress Committee and

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she said, "I'm voting with the Democrats."

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Ten to eight, that's how it passed into law.

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When it got to the FCC, there were two Republicans
and one Independent who wanted to vote against

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so that we would have lost at the FCC and
not been able to pass the rule.

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I told Linda this story the other day.

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Olympia Snowe stayed up to 3 in the morning
working the phones, calling the Republicans

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and getting them to vote yes.

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And then at 7:30 in the morning, she called
me and she said, "I got you your votes."

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She said, "I really don't understand why a
mere commissioner at the FCC should not just

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say yes when a senator asks."

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(Laughter)
CHAIRMAN HUNDT: Now those are stories about

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leadership.

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They're not meant to be stories about partisanship.

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They are meant to be stories about leadership
but it is critical that we all understand

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that this is a country of private wealth and
public poverty.

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This is a country where to stand for the proposition
that there should be public access to anything

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is to take a stand in a long-running battle
of ideas.

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You can take your stand on either side.

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There are a lot of things to be said about
a private life and the values of private investment

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and the values of capitalism.

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And there are a lot of things to be said about
a limited government and small government

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and government waste.

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There are a lot of things to be said on that
side.

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But if you're talking about wanting libraries
to be the number one free public internet

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access point in the community, then what you're
saying is "On this topic, I'm taking another

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stand.

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I'm saying that we need communities to have
free public access and that that free public

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access should not be inferior to the broadband
available in suburbs in the United States

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today."

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So thanks to Susan Benton, in the last two
weeks, the Urban Libraries Council did a survey

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of 33 major libraries in the United States,
more than 100 different buildings, and that

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survey demonstrated in these libraries that
not one single one has one gigabyte a second

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connectivity to the buildings, and when you
pull out a handheld device and you measure

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the wifi at 4 p.m., in every single one of
the major libraries -- these are the major

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-- the biggest libraries in the United States
-- in every single one, the wifi connectivity

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is inferior to what it is in the suburbs of
the United States, in homes.

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So how can anyone think that the hundreds
of people in this building now are getting

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anything like, anything like adequate access
to the internet?

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What is the meaning of adequate access?

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It's the things you all heard over the last
several hours, being able to download a job

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application and fill it out, being able to
go online and take a course, being able to

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enroll at code.org and spend one hour learning
to code.

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And these are not the things that Al Gore
and Olympia Snowe knew would be the demand

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case years later, but they knew that something
like them would be the demand case.

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Thirty million Americans every single year
go to a public library for free access in

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order to improve their careers.

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That's one-tenth of the population and it's
not the same people every year.

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Over the course of just three or four years,
the majority of adult Americans go to a library

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to try to get a job or to improve the job
they have.

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This is the importance of public access.

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You all have studied.

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You all have showed that there is popular
opinion behind this vision.

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Now let's talk about some of the statistics
and I want to go right to the core of an issue

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that has plagued this debate since it started
two years ago.

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First, schools or libraries, which is more
important?

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Schools or libraries, which is more important?

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I think it's a false choice.

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We should talk about an L-Rate and the L-Rate
should be our vision of what libraries need

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and that should be some amount of money and
schools need some amount of money and when

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you add the two together, you know the total
need.

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It doesn't mean a different tax base.

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It doesn't mean that you need to think about
them differently because they serve overlapping

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populations but it's a way to figure out what
you really need.

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Nevertheless, I do want to compare the two
because we need to talk about needs in statistically

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useful terms.

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Libraries constitute about 20 percent of the
number of buildings of schools.

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Libraries, on a visits per year basis, are
about 20 percent of the visits to schools

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every single year.

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If we talk about potential users, there are
four times as many potential users of libraries

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as there are of schools.

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If we talk about the number of registered
users in libraries, there are more than two

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times as many registered users of libraries
as there are children and teachers in schools.

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If we talk about the actual internet access,
which John was just talking about, more than

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two times the number of internet access users
in public libraries as in schools.

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So whichever way you want to measure, you
actually have metrics.

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So whether you look it as buildings, 20 percent;
or whether you look at it as users in terms

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of two times and four times, then you have
to compare against the following: E- Rate

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money, how much is going to schools.

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Well, Larra Clark was talking to us earlier
about the shortfalls in data gathering.

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But as best as anyone has been able to guess
-- and it is not to the credit of the FCC

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that they have not made the data transparent,
but they are making it transparent because

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Larra and Susan have been pushing them on
this and they're willing to be pushed, they're

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willing to be pushed, this FCC is willing
to be pushed.

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But we still don't even know how much money
the E-Rate has paid out to schools.

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Best guess, it's about three percent.

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Three percent isn't that 20 percent proportioned
to buildings and it isn't anything like a

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relative proportion to the number of users
in libraries.

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All we can say about three percent is it hasn't
produced the desired result because when Susan's

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group did the measurement in these libraries
in less than 10 days because modern measurement

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tools work just like that, when we did this
measurement, what did we discover?

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What I've already told you, woeful state of
connectivity, woeful.

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And if we had a statistically valid survey
-- I think it was you, Chris, who told me

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you're guessing that it's about 400 libraries
you would need -- I think I'm remembering

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right -- out of the 17,000 buildings, we need
to survey about 400 in order to have a statistically

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valid survey -- it's going to prove that the
status quo is really, really deficient.

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Let's now talk about the size of the E- Rate.

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It's roughly $2.4 billion dollars.

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It was set at $2.25 billion dollars in 1997.

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One of the things that I regret is that we
did not put in a CPI inflator at the time

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that we set the number.

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I have some excuses.

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They don't stand up to scrutiny.

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It was a mistake.

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Let's adjust for inflation.

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If we adjusted for inflation, the E- Rate
would now be about $3.5 billion dollars.

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If we adjusted for the relative size of the
economy now as opposed to what was then, the

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E-Rate should be about $3.75 billion dollars.

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If we look back over the last 10 years and
do those adjustments and say what should have

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been the E-Rate spending over the last 10
years, we come up with the following conclusion.

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We have a shortfall of about $10 billion dollars.

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That's how much the country owed to itself
and didn't pay.

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This is exactly the same infrastructure story
that you see with respect to roads or dams

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or any other feature in the public landscape,
and that's the reason why the connectivity

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is so woeful in the library buildings and
in the classrooms today, because we weren't

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spending that money for the last 10 years.

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And if you say, "Oh, we just forgot."

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That's not the reality of the story.

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The reality of the story is that libraries
and schools, as always, are right in the middle

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of culture wars in our country.

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That's the reality of the story.

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It is all well and good for me to tell you
that we somehow managed to pull off the E-

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Rate.

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From the minute E-Rate was passed, there has
been political opposition to the E-Rate here

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in Washington, DC, from that very minute.

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It was called the Gore tax.

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There were ads that were run against it.

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There were attacks on the people who ran the
original administrative structure.

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The person I originally appointed to run that
program was personally attacked and vilified

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and accused of waste fraud and abuse which
he didn't commit and finally, they drove him

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from office.

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That's why it ended up at USAC.

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There were challenges to the constitutionality
of the spending.

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I could go on and on and on but I'm saying
to you all there is not a broad-based consensus

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in Washington, DC about what to do.

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In this room there might be but when I say
we need to step up our game, it's because

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it is not fair to take the greatest visionary
and leader at the FCC in the century, Tom

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Wheeler, and say "Thanks a lot.

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Here's what we need.

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You're on your own."

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We need to be behind him.

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We need to be supporting him and our time
is show.

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What you've heard today -- I'm going to translate
what Tom said because it's really, really

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important -- first of all, the model is the
marginal wifi user at peak hours.

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It is not just broadband to the building but
broadband to the building plus high- speed

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wifi in the building.

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That's what we have to talk to him about in
everyone of our buildings.

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If somebody is going to write the checks,
you don't go in and say, "Yeah, I don't really

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like what you want to buy."

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Besides, he's not even wrong.

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You all know that this is the use case you
want to build for, so that's the data that

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we have to give him.

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Second, he told you that he's not going to
be funding POTS as you were saying.

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We have to have a transition plan, either
fast or just a little bit less fast but it

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has to happen because that's what he told
you.

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Next, it's not just more money.

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By not later than June, the FCC intends to
insist that libraries figure out how to have

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consortium bidding.

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I'm just quoting here.

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We have to have longer time periods for these
contracts.

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We have to have reference pricing so that
nobody pays too much and everybody pays the

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lowest reasonable price.

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We have to figure out how to provide IT experts
for libraries that don't have IT experts.

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We can't have it be that they non-experts
are either left out or told to fend for themselves

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or they pay too much.

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And we have to have limited pilot projects
that run right away starting with the June

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Order at the FCC and that actually generate
data so that by not later than the end of

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the year, a more permanent program can be
put in place.

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The reply comments on this topic are due on
Monday and we all should remember that if

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we don't hang together, we're going to hang
separately.

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So we need to do a better job, starting with
me, meeting and talking and figuring out what

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to say together and then when you all go to
the Hill in May and talk to all the members,

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this has to be at the top of the list.

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Of all the institutions in the civic landscape,
libraries get the smallest amount of money

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from the federal government, of all of them,
smaller than schools, smaller than healthcare,

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smaller than any other institution that you
can think of in the social landscape.

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Total amount of money that I saw in your budget
that you are empowered to transfer to state

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libraries --
DIRECTOR HILDRETH: One hundred and fifty million

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CHAIRMAN HUNDT: $155 million.

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DIRECTOR HILDRETH: Yeah.

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CHAIRMAN HUNDT: That isn't even noticeable
in the Department of Education budget.

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And your agency didn't exist until 1997?

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DIRECTOR HILDRETH: '96.

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Well, it was buried in the Department of Education.

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We wanted out.

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CHAIRMAN HUNDT: Exactly.

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This doesn't mean -- I have all these teachers
in my family.

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I am not saying anything against schools.

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Those needs have to be met, too, but this
group needs to say what are our needs and

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we have to stand up and we have to do the
math.

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We've got the reply briefs due next Monday.

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The first week in May, under the leadership
of John Chambers over here at the FCC who

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knows more about libraries than anyone who
ever was employed at the FCC, we have a working

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group where we have to actually get to conclusions
about the administrative process reforms.

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We've got to do that so that he can start
writing his order in May so that the order

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can come out in June that establishes the
new administrative processes and that also

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talks about how the FCC is going to be spending
its money in the next cycle.

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In terms of general big picture, for many,
many years, the entire community that's benefitted

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from the E-Rate has, understandably, because
of the constant culture wars, said year after

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year, "Let's just hold on to what we've got."

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That's what we've had to do just because of
the constant pressure.

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But that's not what this FCC is telling us.

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This FCC is saying instead of looking at it
as x dollars every single year, why don't

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you come in and tell us, we'll bunch a whole
bunch of money right up front.

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It'll be a capital expenditure the way John
Windhausen and the SHLB group have been talking

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about it, more money up front.

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We'll for once and for all put fiber to all
these buildings.

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We'll provide caching technology.

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We'll have one single model for every single
building and then your maintenance costs in

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the years later will be less than the upfront
costs.

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This, by the way, is the way every single
network in the United States is built.

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It's only in this sector that we haven't yet
embraced that model and we're being told by

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the FCC, "Bring us the plan and we'll pay
for it."

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We have to get the plan out and it has to
be technical.

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00:20:36.260 --> 00:20:41.110
Now Susan demonstrated to me that there is
plenty of competence, not in every library,

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but in a bunch of libraries to deliver the
IT planning.

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Susan Hildreth could do it.

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You can talk about POTS.

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This can all be done.

295
00:20:50.770 --> 00:20:51.800
This can all be done.

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There are a lot of libraries where the IT
competence doesn't exist, isn't funded by

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the local and municipal governments and doesn't
need to be funded.

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00:21:01.910 --> 00:21:08.380
It doesn't have to be that you have a Cisco-trained
IT professional in every one of 9,000 systems.

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It ought to be that 50 or 100 could serve
the entire country meaning everything needs

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00:21:14.020 --> 00:21:15.740
to be transparent.

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00:21:15.740 --> 00:21:18.050
That's why we want to be online.

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00:21:18.050 --> 00:21:22.010
All library deals ought to be public for all
other library deals.

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00:21:22.010 --> 00:21:24.920
All library usage measurements ought to be
public.

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00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:31.430
In fact, every library ought to be goading
themselves and others on every quarter by

305
00:21:31.430 --> 00:21:39.280
reporting to the FCC every single quarter
now, forever, how it's going which is so incredibly

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easy.

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It wasn't easy back in the old days.

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Those old days don't exist now.

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It's really easy to do these measurements.

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We just have to say, "You know, the data's
going to make us free."

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00:21:50.270 --> 00:21:55.110
Now, to what level are we going to upgrade?

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00:21:55.110 --> 00:21:59.880
When we're talking about this surge spending,
if you'd forgive the phrase, what level are

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00:21:59.880 --> 00:22:01.720
we going to upgrade to?

314
00:22:01.720 --> 00:22:07.360
There's no doubt whatsoever, because all the
comments that were written on April 7th all

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00:22:07.360 --> 00:22:11.800
support this, the fundamental idea has to
be fiber to the building that is capable with

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00:22:11.800 --> 00:22:14.870
today's electronics of delivering one gigabyte
a second.

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00:22:14.870 --> 00:22:17.020
But that is not the future.

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00:22:17.020 --> 00:22:20.780
The future is the 1 gigabyte will become 10
and will become 100.

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00:22:20.780 --> 00:22:24.930
But the way fiber works, and this is a lawyer
explaining it, once you get the glass in the

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00:22:24.930 --> 00:22:32.120
ground, adding the electronics later to upgrade
the bytes per wavelength, that is a comparatively

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00:22:32.120 --> 00:22:34.340
lower expenditure.

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00:22:34.340 --> 00:22:39.550
So we have to be focusing on first getting
what John Windhausen and his group called

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00:22:39.550 --> 00:22:42.420
"the capital expenditure" in place.

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Second, as to the wireless local area networks,
the comments -- you know, and I was up late

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00:22:47.970 --> 00:22:52.810
last night reading an awful lot of them -- I
haven't quite finished yet, but they make

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00:22:52.810 --> 00:22:53.980
it really, really clear.

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00:22:53.980 --> 00:23:00.690
There are several basic categories that are
necessary: the maintenance, the caching, the

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routers, the internal networks which in some
cases have to have wire components.

329
00:23:05.100 --> 00:23:07.770
It's not that complicated.

330
00:23:07.770 --> 00:23:14.030
We should be presenting to the FCC one or
two basic models and saying these are the

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models, with variations, that all libraries
should be utilizing.

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There are some comments that say, you know,
libraries really shouldn't do consortium bidding.

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00:23:25.160 --> 00:23:30.770
All those comments were from the people currently
supplying the libraries.

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God bless them.

335
00:23:31.770 --> 00:23:35.620
They've actually done a wonderful job but
they're not looking out for the biggest bang

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for the buck.

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00:23:36.620 --> 00:23:37.970
This is a buy- sell transaction.

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00:23:37.970 --> 00:23:39.700
You were talking about haggling.

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We have to be doing some haggling.

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Now why should libraries be able to opt out
of consortiums?

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Only if they can get a better deal by opting
out.

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00:23:49.480 --> 00:23:53.210
Nobody should be saying "I want the federal
government to give me money so that I can

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00:23:53.210 --> 00:23:57.250
opt out so that I can pay for a worse deal."

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00:23:57.250 --> 00:24:01.480
And we ought to be willing to agree to that
and we ought to be willing to say to the FCC

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00:24:01.480 --> 00:24:06.450
that we will hang together because we don't
want to get bad deals separately.

346
00:24:06.450 --> 00:24:08.470
We need to allocate by priority.

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00:24:08.470 --> 00:24:14.800
All the comments make it clear that there
has to be some sense of equity in the prioritization

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that the FCC does.

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00:24:16.080 --> 00:24:23.680
There are variations on what equity consists
but for sure, it is an adjustment by income.

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00:24:23.680 --> 00:24:28.550
It is an adjustment by the number of users,
for sure.

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00:24:28.550 --> 00:24:31.740
And so the ULC presented a formula.

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There could be other formulas.

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00:24:33.010 --> 00:24:37.410
But we all have to agree on a sensible allocation
formula.

354
00:24:37.410 --> 00:24:41.210
If we were on the Titanic, it would be women
and children first.

355
00:24:41.210 --> 00:24:46.150
This is a post gender discrimination era that
we're in.

356
00:24:46.150 --> 00:24:52.550
We need to have a formula that reflects some
sense of needs because the FCC isn't going

357
00:24:52.550 --> 00:24:57.550
to fund 100 percent on day one.

358
00:24:57.550 --> 00:25:04.240
Number two -- oh, it is absolutely going to
be necessary that we understand the FCC needs

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00:25:04.240 --> 00:25:09.580
to come out with an order in June and that
will not be the final order because it is

360
00:25:09.580 --> 00:25:13.920
also going to be the case that these pilot
projects have to be done and data has come

361
00:25:13.920 --> 00:25:17.660
back and then we need to revise and change
our thinking.

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00:25:17.660 --> 00:25:23.570
But, by the end of the year, we should have
fulfilled Tom Wheeler's dream.

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00:25:23.570 --> 00:25:25.580
He wants to re-imagine the E- Rate.

364
00:25:25.580 --> 00:25:33.060
He told us that he wants us to be collectively
the Andrew Carnegies of this century, maybe

365
00:25:33.060 --> 00:25:38.580
with a little help from Bill Gates, maybe
with a lot of help from Bill Gates.

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00:25:38.580 --> 00:25:41.980
But this is an incredible opportunity.

367
00:25:41.980 --> 00:25:43.170
We have to take it.

368
00:25:43.170 --> 00:25:48.110
Actually, I know that we can take it because
when I look back at that conversation with

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00:25:48.110 --> 00:25:55.140
Olympia Snowe and I look at the results, the
reality of internet access in the United States

370
00:25:55.140 --> 00:26:02.361
from the year that Olympia took me to that
school in Maine, the realty is this: Internet

371
00:26:02.361 --> 00:26:10.170
access in the United States was led, was led
by access to schools and libraries.

372
00:26:10.170 --> 00:26:14.860
In its first 10 years, it was led by access
to schools and libraries.

373
00:26:14.860 --> 00:26:21.970
The United States led the world in having
a generation come onto the internet.

374
00:26:21.970 --> 00:26:29.190
We have, in fact, in that generation the highest
percentage of internet-savvy people of any

375
00:26:29.190 --> 00:26:32.000
country in the world.

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00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:35.570
And we did it on a narrow band, not on a broadband
platform.

377
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And what Tom Wheeler came and told you today
is now you're going to re-imagine the whole

378
00:26:39.250 --> 00:26:44.200
thing on a broadband platform and your vision
is going to be realized.

379
00:26:44.200 --> 00:26:45.600
Lift up your head.

380
00:26:45.600 --> 00:26:46.600
Look a long way out.

381
00:26:46.600 --> 00:26:47.970
Thank you.

382
00:26:47.970 --> 00:26:59.150
(Applause)
DIRECTOR HILDRETH: Well, I knew he would be

383
00:26:59.150 --> 00:27:00.230
a great closer.

384
00:27:00.230 --> 00:27:05.190
He's always got the good vision and we're
very lucky to have someone with Reed's knowledge

385
00:27:05.190 --> 00:27:11.010
and Reed's passion talking about these issues
here in the circles in DC at a very, very

386
00:27:11.010 --> 00:27:12.850
important time for all these issues.

387
00:27:12.850 --> 00:27:14.910
So we're just about to close.

388
00:27:14.910 --> 00:27:19.750
We want to thank all the panel members -- they
were terrific -- and our Board for sharing

389
00:27:19.750 --> 00:27:24.060
their time and their expertise and their aspirations
with us today.

390
00:27:24.060 --> 00:27:27.040
We had thoughtful analysis and dialogue.

391
00:27:27.040 --> 00:27:31.860
We really hope that we've provided a forum
that's highlighted many of the activities,

392
00:27:31.860 --> 00:27:35.320
many of the opinions and the proposals that
are going forward.

393
00:27:35.320 --> 00:27:40.110
And we think there's a wide spectrum of challenges
and possible solutions that we've already

394
00:27:40.110 --> 00:27:44.530
heard discussed today and we will be continuing
to discuss over the summer.

395
00:27:44.530 --> 00:27:49.820
We know we're at a historic crossroads for
libraries and access and next generation broadband.

396
00:27:49.820 --> 00:27:54.700
We expect many of the issues discussed here
will become even more developed in the public

397
00:27:54.700 --> 00:28:00.560
sphere as the FCC continues to modernization
of the E-Rate program and eventually asks

398
00:28:00.560 --> 00:28:03.480
Congress to weigh in with their thoughts very
soon.

399
00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:08.830
I've no doubt that the public record established
today will help inform those conversations

400
00:28:08.830 --> 00:28:12.790
and we could not have done it without all
of our participants and all of you in the

401
00:28:12.790 --> 00:28:13.900
audience.

402
00:28:13.900 --> 00:28:17.530
So I also want to thank our virtual audience
out there who have been joining us through

403
00:28:17.530 --> 00:28:19.600
YouTube and Google.

404
00:28:19.600 --> 00:28:25.410
These platforms demonstrate as right here
in this library the possibilities that improved

405
00:28:25.410 --> 00:28:27.400
broadband in our Nation can foster.

406
00:28:27.400 --> 00:28:33.190
Now I want to make sure that everybody's aware
that written comments will be accepted and

407
00:28:33.190 --> 00:28:38.840
must be received before April 24th -- that's
next Thursday -- in order to be included in

408
00:28:38.840 --> 00:28:40.130
the hearing record.

409
00:28:40.130 --> 00:28:44.830
So if you're compelled to submit some comments
or if those of you out there virtually joining

410
00:28:44.830 --> 00:28:49.430
us, please feel free to share those comments
with us by April 24th.

411
00:28:49.430 --> 00:28:54.620
Each comment must include the author's name
and organizational affiliation, if any, and

412
00:28:54.620 --> 00:28:59.760
please send them to comments@imls.gov.

413
00:28:59.760 --> 00:29:04.470
So finally, thank you to the Martin Luther
King staff and the library for -- Rich is

414
00:29:04.470 --> 00:29:05.470
still here.

415
00:29:05.470 --> 00:29:06.720
He's made it through the whole morning.

416
00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:09.500
Thank you, Rich and our other DCPL staff.

417
00:29:09.500 --> 00:29:10.780
It's fabulous to be here.

418
00:29:10.780 --> 00:29:12.360
And I just keep looking out there.

419
00:29:12.360 --> 00:29:16.310
It looks like their connectivity is pretty
good out there so we'll have to do some speed

420
00:29:16.310 --> 00:29:17.940
testing in DC.

421
00:29:17.940 --> 00:29:21.690
But his is why we're here folks, this is why
we're here.

422
00:29:21.690 --> 00:29:24.520
We're making a difference in the Nation's
Capital.

423
00:29:24.520 --> 00:29:27.360
If we can do that, we can do it everywhere.

424
00:29:27.360 --> 00:29:28.360
Thank you very much.

425
00:29:28.360 --> 00:29:28.361
(Applause)