Pod Insights The Vergecast Huawei, 5G, and Robocalls with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks About this episode FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks stops by to discuss Huawei, regulating robocalls, net neutrality, the race for 5G and more with The Verge’s Nilay Patel and Makena Kelly.
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1:11 Nilay Patel? Hey everybody, it's Neil from The Vergecast. On this week's interview episode, very timely, our excellent policy reporter, McKenna Kelly, joins me to talk to FCC Commissioner Jeffrey Starks. He is brand new, he's one of the newest commissioners of the FCC. He was just appointed, I think, 100 days ago by President Trump. He's a Democratic Commissioner. We talked to him about the T-Mobile Sprint merger, about what's going on with Huawei, location tracking, robocalls. All of the things an FCC Commissioner has to think about as they manage our nation's various networks. It is a big job. Commissioner Starks is an extremely chill dude. He got into it with us, we came at him pretty hard. Really interesting interview.
1:53 Nilay Patel? The way he thinks about stuff, he was a DOJ lawyer before, he really, he thinks about things differently than I think other FCC people we've talked to. And he really thinks about how to make sure access is equal for everybody. So that's a really interesting frame. Then we asked him a lot if China's spying on us through Huawei. So, check it out, this is FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks.
2:15 Nilay Patel? We're here with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. How are you, sir?
2:18 Speaker 03 Great, great to be here.
2:19 Nilay Patel? I'm joined by Makena Kelly, our policy reporter. Happy to be back. So I'm gonna start with a real softball. It actually is, I'm not even lying.
2:27 Speaker 03 Good.
2:27 Nilay Patel? It's not even a joke.
2:27 Speaker 03 I like it.
2:29 Nilay Patel? You're like the new guy, the FCC.
2:31 Speaker 03 Yes.
2:31 Nilay Patel? You just started.
2:32 Speaker 03 Yes.
2:32 Nilay Patel? Like five months ago?
2:33 Speaker 03 Uh, no, no, not even. Uh, I think I just crossed day 100, so about a little over three months.
2:38 Nilay Patel? Okay. You were appointed by President Trump?
2:40 Speaker 03 Yes, although, uh, you know, I'm in a Democratic seat. And so I'm, um, you know, it's a recommendation from Senator Schumer.
2:49 Nilay Patel? Okay.
2:49 Speaker 03 Uh, to the President. The President then accepted, uh, the recommendation. And so I was nominated by President Trump. I'm officially a presidential appointee confirmed by the Senate. But a Democratic seat, yes.
3:00 Nilay Patel? So what does that day look like, that you get appointed? Do you get a phone call? Is it like the Nobel Prize, like the middle of the night? Is it...
3:06 Speaker 03 For the confirmation or for the appointment?
3:08 Nilay Patel? For the appointment. Is it a letter? Does like a, does the military show up at your door?
3:11 Speaker 03 For, the dirty secret is there was a lot of lead up to, uh, actually getting the appointment. And so, you know, had to interview, of course, with Senator Schumer. Had to interview, of course, with, uh, folks in the White House. And so the actual appointment, when it was accepted by the President, yes, I did get a phone call that the President, uh, was going to nominate me. Yeah.
3:32 Nilay Patel? Who was the phone call from?
3:33 Speaker 03 The phone call was from the head of PPO, Presidential Personnel Operations.
3:38 Nilay Patel? Oh, wow. I didn't even know there was such a thing.
3:40 Speaker 03 Yes, PPO.
3:41 Nilay Patel? All right. I'm, I've always been curious. Like no one ever, no one ever discusses the mechanics of that, right?
3:46 Speaker 03 I'm glad I got to take you under the hood then.
3:48 Nilay Patel? Yeah, it's good. The PPO, I gotta find this person. And then walk us through your background a little bit. So you were at the FCC before. You litigated a pretty big net neutrality case. Just give people a sense of your history.
3:57 Speaker 03 Yes, so went to Yale for law school. I'll, I'll start even, um, further than that, which is, um, right after undergrad, worked for a couple of years in the private sector, and then worked for an Illinois State Senate Staff Committee, on which then a little-known Senator named Barack Obama sat.
4:14 Nilay Patel? Mm-hmm.
4:14 Speaker 03 Uh, when he was a state senator in Illinois and volunteered for his US senatorial campaign. And so I like to always say that I was, um, giving him some, um, some guidance on ways to vote, even way back when. Then went to Yale for law school, graduated from there, worked in the private sector for a couple of years, then joined the Obama administration where I was senior counsel to the deputy attorney general. So this is the, Jim Cole was my boss, right under Eric Holder. And handled a number of matters there, civil, some criminal, some national security matters. And then got brought over to the FCC where, yes, I was working on universal service, was working on early net neutrality cases. And then was, this whole kind of appointment ended up happening.
4:57 Speaker 03 And then now, of course, I'm a full-blown commissioner at the FCC.
5:01 Nilay Patel? So were you like a telecom tech nerd before, or you kind of slid into this world?
5:05 Speaker 03 Yes, it was, you know, a little bit of both. When you abstract what we do even at the FCC, these are really issues of equity, issues of inclusion. And so was working on those even back in, when I was a, you know, an Obama appointee. And so did come across some telecom issues while I was there at DOJ. And then ended up really being the tip of the spear on a lot of issues where I was in the senior leadership team of the FCC Enforcement Bureau. That was about three years before I was named here to be a commissioner. And so these issues have always been important to me. You know, even today, I gotta say, the most important thing that I see every day is making sure that there is equity in broadband, who has internet, who doesn't.
5:49 Speaker 03 I think it is something that drives our economy, is impacting who has a voice, who doesn't have a voice. And I deeply believe that, you know, the disconnected are disaffected here in America. And you can understand why, because they feel like they're being left behind. So one of the things that I really do focus on every day now is making sure that we are getting the internet out to more people so that they can have the connections that they need to serve their lives and participate in this modern democracy, really, I think is what's really at stake.
6:22 Nilay Patel? And that touches on everything, right? That touches on net neutrality, that touches on 5G rollouts, that touches on fiber deployment.
6:28 Speaker 03 Exactly right. And even further than that, it touches on telemedicine, I think is something that is going to be deeply important to Americans going forward. It touches on closing this digital divide. It is something that is so important. And I really think you see, you know, the fact that a lot of Americans feel left behind, feel isolated, is in some part wrapped up in whether they are able to connect in the way that modern Americans should be able to do.
6:53 Nilay Patel? Okay, I want to get deep into that stuff because it's what we talk about in the Rich Cast all the time, but I want to start with something that is frankly a little bit sillier and way more annoying, which is robocalls.
7:03 Speaker 03 Yes.
7:03 Nilay Patel? So last week, there was a new initiative announced from the FCC to combat robocalls. My read on it, McKenna's read on it, is basically it clarifies that carriers can do the things that they were already trying to do without getting into trouble. Is that your read on it?
7:18 Speaker 03 Yes, my read on it is I do think it is a good, it is a good path forward. When we're talking about robocalls, we're talking about 5 billion calls a month. And so what does that mean? Almost over 110,000 robocalls a second. So over the course of our conversation here, there will be amassed almost 5 million robocalls. And on their most benign, they are a nuisance, you're eating dinner. We're getting into a conversation and you get a robocall. At their worst, they're predatory, where we know that millions and millions of dollars have been lost, in particular by elderly folks who are scammed out of money. They receive a call that their tax payments have been misfiled.
8:02 Speaker 03 You see, of course, you know, you need to call us back because your grandson is in trouble. And so there are a whole lot of issues where these calls really are predatory. What the chairman did last week was announce something that is on the call-blocking end, which I think is really important. That is going to basically block some of these robocalls from getting to your phone. What I would like to see, even on the chairman's initiative, is that it is required. Here, it's permissive, that these carriers may do it. And then the other thing I think is important, that it's going to be free. You know, we know that a lot of, "No More Robo" is something that has been a good initiative. I do like that the chairman has proposed this as an opt-out scheme because we do know that a lot of folks just don't take the time to actually sign up for some of the services that are available.
8:46 Nilay Patel? By the way, did you see, was it Randall Stephenson? He was like onstage in an event. McKenna wrote about that. Yeah, and he got a robocall?
8:53 Speaker 03 I have no doubt.
8:55 Nilay Patel? Like he like hung up from his Apple Watch? He was like a robocall. I mean, it impacts everybody.
9:02 Speaker 03 To show the lengths that folks have gone, when I was in the enforcement bureau, where it was my job to enforce violations of the law, I would get robocalls to my landline as an FCC enforcement bureau official. And so it's clear that nobody is, uh, nobody is immune to these. You know, the other thing that I would really say is that it has changed in some sense the fabric of our culture. You know, I certainly remember a time where you would pick up the phone when somebody called. It was, it could be, even if you didn't recognize the number, it could be your pastor, it could be, um, your kid's school, it could be literally a neighbor. That's the problem with neighborhood spoofing, right? Is that is a call that looks like it's coming from a neighbor that you should recognize.
9:42 Nilay Patel? I won't pick up a, a number with my area code anymore.
9:44 Speaker 03 Yeah, I don't pick up-
9:44 Nilay Patel? I don't live in my, in that area code.
9:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
9:46 Nilay Patel? I know no one's calling me.
9:47 Speaker 03 Totally. I don't pick up a call unless I know who it is because, uh, it's probably a robocall. It's probably somebody who's not really trying to reach me. And so it's something that the FCC, it's the number one complaint that we see year over year over year, both us and the FTC. And so we gotta, we, we've gotta be on it.
10:02 Nilay Patel? So the chairman's proposal to me looks like a very market driven proposal, which is not surprising for Chairman Pye, right? Like, I mean, take, no more rules, the market will fix it. That's, that's his thing. He waves the mug around, it's great. This is not a problem in Europe. This is not a problem in other places around the world. Why is it a problem here?
10:19 Speaker 03 I think it's a problem here, you know, we have allowed our network to kind of propagate these calls. And so I think it is, it is an issue where industry needs to do their part.
10:30 Nilay Patel? But there's not like an EU regulation, you can just like copy and paste from the internet? Like, all their stuff's online.
10:35 Speaker 03 Not that I know of.
10:36 Nilay Patel? Really? There's not a regulatory scheme in Europe that has prevented this, that we can just replicate here?
10:40 Speaker 03 Not that I know of. This is something where autodailers have been able to produce these mass numbers of calls. We obviously have a little bit of statutory authority that we need to look into. Folks on the Hill are, are, are trying to help us here. The definition of autodialer is something that is back before us because we didn't exactly define it right. The FCC, I think, also needs to probably criminally prosecute, refer to DOJ, folks who are the worst robocallers, because I don't think this is an issue that you're just gonna be able to tax your way out of from an enforcement perspective. And then, like I said, we need some help from the FCC, we need some help from the Hill, and we need some help from industry. Call authentication, shake and stir, I think is something that is-
11:21 Nilay Patel? A great acronym.
11:23 Speaker 03 You like that?
11:23 Nilay Patel? I do, it's good. It's the funniest acronym the FCC has put forth.
11:26 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, I gotta agree. And it is something that is going to, you know, basically it's going to have started the origination of a call and have almost like a passport where, you know, the origination of the call and the, as a call progresses down through the network, other folks are going to stamp that passport to make sure that this call is actually authenticated. And I think it's going to change, change where we are on robocalls.
11:51 Nilay Patel? All right, that's robocalls. I wanted to make sure we talked about it, because you're right, it's, McKenna was telling me earlier, like, when we write about it, it does surprisingly well on the site. And to me, it's like, people are still making phone calls? Like, just turn it off?
12:02 Speaker 03 Well, I mean, people, everywhere I travel, people tell me, people tell me, why don't I have internet? I need the internet. Why is it that the FCC can't get me high-speed broadband? Which, again, goes back to my digital equity point. But people really focused on robocalls. I mean, it is, like I said, anywhere between a nuisance and something that drives people crazy. And so, it's something that we've got to choke out.
12:26 Nilay Patel? All right. So, let's move on to the internet side of things now. I suspect, because you don't have an order in front of you, that you won't be able to say much about this, but yesterday Chairman Pai said he would support T-Mobile and Sprint. He gave a laundry list of conditions, McKenna wrote those two. Was it like 97% of Americans covered by the?
12:44 Speaker 04 Three, there's like a bunch of different timing, right? There's three years, six years, there's some compliance things. He has a plan.
12:51 Nilay Patel? He's got a plan.
12:52 Speaker 04 T-Mobile is like, we're all for it, but we don't really have any paperwork, right? And there's nothing to comment on, so far.
12:59 Speaker 03 And that's exactly right. I don't have any paperwork before me, you know, the record is obviously being developed. And this is something that I second my Democratic colleagues' call for this to probably be put up for public commentary. This is 30 pages of additional commitments that T-Mobile has made. I do think that's something that the public should be able to weigh in on, but, but really, I'm not going to be able to comment about the merger itself. I do believe, under our public interest standard, under Section 310D, I do believe in a muscular public interest standard for reviewing of mergers. I think that's my job. And the other thing that I would say, just as a general framing mechanism, is, you know, I think the FCC is obligated not to just talk about whether a merger is going to harm competition. Lots of other folks do that, including the DOJ.
13:42 Speaker 03 I think we are obligated to actually affirmatively say that competition is going to be enhanced under our mergers and our merger review standards.
13:49 Nilay Patel? So let me, let me give you like a hypothetical from the past. Let's see if I can trick you into this. A while ago, T-Mobile, T-Mobile just wants to merge with stuff, can't help themselves. A while ago, they wanted to merge with AT&T. That was blocked. And one of the reasons was going from four to three is bad.
14:04 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
14:04 Nilay Patel? We are now in a situation where we might go from four carriers to three carriers.
14:07 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
14:08 Nilay Patel? Do you think the AT&T decision was the right decision on those matters?
14:11 Speaker 03 You know, and so I, I take your point. And obviously going to three is very much at the crux of what we're talking about, uh, under our consideration. And so I am reviewing that record and taking instruction and guidance from what was done there and thinking how it impacts the decision that's before me.
14:30 Nilay Patel? Where, where were you in the, in your career when AT&T, T-Mobile was going down? Were you in the enforcement division?
14:35 Speaker 03 I think I would have been an official at DOJ, I think.
14:39 Nilay Patel? So you're at the DOJ. Were you like, yes, we got them?
14:42 Speaker 03 Uh.
14:43 Nilay Patel? Was there a party in the office? Was there cake?
14:45 Speaker 03 Not that I know of.
14:46 Nilay Patel? Obviously, you're gonna get an order in front of you.
14:51 Speaker 03 Yes.
14:51 Nilay Patel? It doesn't seem to be over. The rumbles out of DOJ yesterday, you know, they're still looking at it very, very closely. When you get an order, you're gonna come back and you can talk to us about it.
14:59 Speaker 03 I would love to.
15:00 Nilay Patel? Okay.
15:00 Speaker 04 Great.
15:01 Nilay Patel? Let's talk about China.
15:02 Speaker 04 Definitely, yeah. That's something everybody's talking about. We can't talk about Sprint or T-Mobile, but everyone has something to say about China, right?
15:08 Speaker 03 Yes.
15:09 Speaker 04 So the FCC just basically said, China Mobile, you're out.
15:13 Speaker 03 Yes.
15:13 Speaker 04 And also even last week, Brendan Carr, a Republican Commissioner, called for national security agencies to investigate the Chinese telecommunications companies that are already operating in our networks.
15:23 Speaker 03 Correct.
15:23 Speaker 04 You seem to kind of agree with him on that.
15:26 Speaker 03 I do. Of course, this is all subject to getting, you know, DOJ and Team Telecom and the executive agency to weigh in on whether they do see the, the same kind of national security concerns. But yes, uh, two weeks ago, we did not allow a 214 license for China Telecom.
15:44 Nilay Patel? And what is a 214 license?
15:46 Speaker 03 That is a license to operate within the US. And most critically, you know, I take the point that if China Telecom had been the lowest cost carrier, they could have in fact carried some of US government agencies' communications.
15:59 Speaker 03 And if there is, as the executive agency told us, national security concerns that they have, which I agreed with, I think it is something where we're not going to be able to allow them to operate in the US. And so there is China Telecom and China Unicom are the two additional entities that Commissioner Carr had mentioned. And it does sound like the chairman is planning to bring those licenses before us. And I assume we would have the same standard that we would apply there.
16:27 Speaker 04 So you think it's appropriate here? There's other lawmakers on Capitol Hill who are even calling Huawei a spy agency. You think this is an appropriate measure for the FCC to get involved with?
16:36 Speaker 03 The FCC, I think it is extremely important. It is incumbent upon us. And in fact, we have a distinct role to serve in protecting our communication networks. Under national defense is technically what the statute says, as well as the safety of life and property. I think it is extremely important for us to make sure that we step into the full extent of our authority. You know, and just generally going back, prior to the 96 Communications Act, we very much had a network where there were a number of well-established carriers that trusted each other. It really was kind of analogous to the feel of a small town where folks leave their doors open at night because it's there's so much trust
17:18 Speaker 03 in the interconnections that happen there. Obviously, now with technology, the neighborhood has grown. It's almost more like a city now. And of course, we have significantly more more connections, more vulnerabilities. And there are folks out there, you know, I do stipulate that a significant number of carriers do have very good security mechanisms in place. But there are certainly actors out there that would take advantage of vulnerabilities. And so, you know, the kind of wistful, small-town feel of a well-established network is more nostalgic now. And we have to be very much focused on making sure by 2025, there are going to be over 25 billion IoT devices that are connected to the network. We have to be focused and fit into our national security role.
18:00 Speaker 04 You're bringing up IoT devices. So even over the weekend, Google, a big IoT manufacturer and seller, decided to revoke Huawei's Android license. Is this kind of the role you see private industry playing?
18:14 Speaker 03 Yes, and so, well, that's a little bit muddled because that was part of, they got named onto the blacklist by the Commerce Secretary. We have seen within the last 24 hours that the Commerce Secretary has kind of softened that a little bit because that is going to have such an impact on so many consumers that have Huawei devices and are they going to get Android patches and are they going to be able to still be on the Android ecosystem and Google, you know, just the reverberations are significant. And so, just within the last 24 hours, that has been tamped down a little bit. Although the executive order by the President does, over the long term, still stand. And what I'm focused on as an FCC Commissioner, again, that seems to get more into, what
18:59 Speaker 03 Google is doing seems to get into a little bit more of kind of the commerce lane of trade and whether we're going to allow private actors to have agreements and execute agreements with Huawei and some of those other companies. But what I'm really focused on is making sure that we have a secure network as possible. And that goes to these licenses with Chinese carriers. This goes to the supply chain NPRM notice for proposed rulemaking that we have before us. And that essentially means the Universal Service Fund. It's about a $9, $10 billion fund that we administer at the FCC. Whether that fund is going to allow government dollars to flow to some of these Chinese companies, that's something that the FCC certainly has authority on.
19:43 Speaker 03 And then figuring out how we can step into our national security lane even more, something that I think we actually really need to be focused on. There are a significant number of small rural carriers, and we're still figuring out the scope of this, that actually do have some of this Chinese infrastructure in their network right now. And we need to find a way to find it, fix it, and I think fund it, the remediation aspect of that.
20:08 Speaker 04 How do we, I guess, how do you approach, you know, remediating that and changing, you know, the infrastructure?
20:14 Speaker 03 So that's exactly right. That's the question that I'm thinking through, that a lot of folks are starting to think through. I know a number of senators on the Hill are also very focused on this because, you know, the executive order, the National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, also tells us that going forward, prospectively, we need to make sure that we're not allowing some of this Huawei and Chinese infrastructure that could have backdoors and their software built into it.
20:43 Nilay Patel? Is that a given? That's like the question I think is at the heart of this.
20:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
20:47 Nilay Patel? Do you take it for a given that Huawei equipment has backdoors?
20:50 Speaker 03 Well, I don't take it for a given. I take it in the sense of, you know, I have had national security folks who have specifically told me of how they think about it, what our exposure is, what our risks are, and how seriously that they take the possibility of backdoors in our network.
21:10 Nilay Patel? Yeah. Because obviously they've deployed lots of equipment in Europe. They're saying, "Look, we're passing all the tests from America's allies. Why don't you trust us?"
21:18 Speaker 03 You know, this gets into the trade-off that Huawei has had, and frankly, how some of these small rural carriers have thought about this. You know, almost since 2012, 2013, certainly in 2018, there have been clear unofficial warning shots that US is growing more uncomfortable with allowing Huawei, ZTE, to have their infrastructure here. We allowed some of those small rural carriers to make the business decision themselves, where they were going to come out on Huawei being the cheapest but the highest quality, where they were on the spectrum of national security, privacy, versus being the cheapest cost provider here. And obviously, that's a business decision.
22:00 Nilay Patel? And that's something they've told us. I mean, we've talked to lots of rural carriers, and they're like, "Our costs are going to skyrocket now." When you talk about equity, that's a big piece of it.
22:08 Speaker 03 Which is why I think it is, now that we have the executive order that was issued just last week, I think it is something that I'm truly focused on right now. I have, I'm focused on it. I have my team focused on it, thinking through what is the scope of this problem? You know, how much of this infrastructure is going to be at issue? How much is it going to cost to, you know, rip and replace is what some of the national security folks call it. We know that we're not allowed to bring this in prospectively, but retrospectively, we know that we have some of this in the ground. I think if the national security concern is there, we have to focus on that aspect of this as well.
22:45 Nilay Patel? And that concern is there?
22:47 Speaker 03 It's very much there for me. And I know it is also a concern of a number of folks on the Hill that we start to get a, get a hold of, of how we are going to remediate the national security infrastructure that we already have in our networks right now. In particular with some of these small rural carriers.
23:04 Nilay Patel? In your view, what could Huawei do to fix it? Is there, is there a way for that company to get your trust back or the government's trust back, I would suppose?
23:12 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, this is a whole of government issue. It wouldn't, at the FCC.
23:16 Nilay Patel? You personally?
23:17 Speaker 03 I am not, I am that decision maker in a certain way, but I am not globally that decision maker. My, my sense as I sit here today is that it is very tough to kind of mitigate some of these vulnerabilities when you're talking about having this company potentially allowing their software to have code that allows for a backdoor for, for potential Chinese spying. I think that's very hard to, hard to mitigate.
23:44 Nilay Patel? But it, I mean, does that look like, okay, you're going to turn over all your source code to us before you're allowed to ship one product in the country? Is it where you're going to submit to testing? Like, is there a method? Are there steps that you could see that would actually begin to mediate this problem?
24:00 Speaker 03 I'm sure that will be part of an ongoing dialogue, both with, you know, the folks that, that truly do that national security aspect of that on a daily basis, you know, FBI, CIA, folks that are really focused on that. And getting their assessment on, on whether there is a path for Huawei to otherwise get themselves comfortable with the national security risks that folks very clearly feel are real and are out there.
24:25 Nilay Patel? All right, we're going to take a quick break for an ad. We'll be right back.
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25:49 Nilay Patel? All right, we're back. FCC Commissioner Jeffrey Starks. All right. They kind of asked all the smart questions.
25:56 Speaker 03 She did.
25:57 Nilay Patel? Yeah. I'm gonna ask a really dumb question.
25:59 Speaker 03 Yeah.
26:00 Nilay Patel? I mean, it's really dumb. Just let go with me on this. One of the reasons that we keep talking about Huawei and network equipment and infrastructure is that we are currently trying to build 5G networks. Huawei is a leader in that equipment, particularly millimeter wave. Here's my really dumb question. Why is 5G a race? Like, what happens if we come in second? Do, like, Verizon customers revolt in the streets because they can't download Game of Thrones slightly faster?
26:25 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, so I think it is important for us to continue to lead the race.
26:30 Nilay Patel? But why is it a race?
26:31 Speaker 03 Why is it a race in the sense of...
26:33 Nilay Patel? Like, who are we racing?
26:35 Speaker 03 Well, I think we're racing.
26:36 Nilay Patel? That is the frame of the whole conversation is like this is a race. But I don't know who our competitors are and I don't know what happens if we come in second.
26:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think there are a number of other countries. We obviously led to 4G and I think we get to set some of the standards that are going to ultimately be implemented worldwide, which is why I think there is, there is a little bit of a race. I agree with you in some sense on the premise that I'm equally focused not only on getting 5G out there, but for a lot of the folks that have no G. You know, there are, there are, you know, and I'm excited by a world that is going to have artificial intelligence and, and driverless cars and, and virtual reality that we're all talking about, but I think it's also really important that we focus on the folks that are struggling to get high-speed connections at all.
27:26 Nilay Patel? But that to me is like the, the trade-off, right? If, if it's a race, we're gonna necessarily make some trade-offs.
27:32 Speaker 03 Yeah.
27:33 Nilay Patel? And prioritize some things. And because we did.
27:36 Speaker 03 And we certainly know that China has been hyper-focused on having a global dominance around this and that is in fact why, you know, Huawei was expecting and hoping to become the number one.
27:48 Nilay Patel? Yeah.
27:48 Speaker 03 Supplier here very quickly. And of course, if, if, you know, if some of the, the trade issues with Google and Intel and Qualcomm and Broadcom and all those folks who have said that they're not going to be able to continue their relationship with Huawei in the same way, I'm sure that's going to be a significant setback.
28:06 Nilay Patel? But do you ever sit in a conference room at the FCC? I'm assuming you have conference rooms, there's a whiteboard and then someone writes like, what if we pump the brakes on 5G? And then they're like, pros, potential for increased national security, cons, Verizon won't be able to sell one Samsung phone in Chicago. Right, like, does that ever come up? Like, maybe we should like, slow this down and get it right on a different set of metrics than speeding as fast as we can.
28:32 Speaker 03 I don't think so, and you do have so many folks that are, you know, 5G is going to be the next generation. It is going to revolutionize our experience with internet, with our ability to connect in smart cities and smart living and getting more mid-band out there. I do think it is important for us to lead, but I do want to make sure that we are focused. And there certainly are national security concerns about how you get out there and lead in this way, which is why I think you do see folks that are trying to think through in real time, where do we stand with Huawei? Where do we stand with some of these national security vulnerabilities that we know are out there? But again, I want to also focus the conversation on making sure that communities aren't left behind.
29:17 Nilay Patel? So I just want to briefly talk about net neutrality, because McKenna told me this morning, it's kind of dead in the water right now. But I'll let her do the sort of policy, the political side of it. You were, I mean, you did litigate a big net neutrality case when you were in the enforcement bureau. You won. I imagine that you are a supporter of such a thing as net neutrality.
29:36 Speaker 03 I am very much a strong supporter of net neutrality.
29:39 Nilay Patel? So you roll out 5G networks, they're expensive, all the big telecom companies are buying media companies. There's just a lot of incentive to pay off that investment by zero-rating HBO, the HBO hit series Game of Thrones, or the AT&T hit series Game of Thrones, right? Which does not end well. Anyway.
29:57 Speaker 03 The Starks do well, though.
30:01 Nilay Patel? Just trying to get it out there any way I can, keep that in the public consciousness. The Starks do do well. But there's a lot of incentive for a company like AT&T to pay off its network by doing a lot of weird prioritization practices, by doing a lot of double-sided market stuff. Is that something that you preemptively want to stop? Is that something you think you have traction on?
30:19 Speaker 03 I think we should definitely get back to our 2015 open internet rules. No blocking, no throttling, no paid prioritization. I think the Americans expect a free and open internet. And something that's not really talked about a lot is, and I think you're getting at it here, for a lot of Americans, I think this is really going to be a pocketbook issue. We know that $2,700 the average American family pays for their cellphone, for their cable, for their internet. And for a lot of Americans, again, talking about digital divide, for a lot of Americans, that's just a bridge too far. I do think if we allow a world where there's going to be fast lanes and slow lanes, folks are going to have to pay more for their internet. You know, you're going to have certain companies that are going to pay for a fast lane, and
31:02 Speaker 03 that cost is going to ultimately flow back, I think, to American consumers, and that's something that doesn't sit well with me. The other aspect of this that I think that is critical to highlight is there are a lot of voices that are not mainstream media voices that I think also could be silenced under a scheme where there's not a free and open and net neutrality internet. A lot of voices of color, but also different viewpoints on political spectrums, whether right wing or left wing, or Republican or Democrat or otherwise.
31:33 Nilay Patel? Does it drive, I'm going to tell you something that drives me crazy, and you can tell me if this drives you crazy. That's how I'm going to structure all my interview questions from now on. It's a series of complaints and see if you agree. Yeah, but you brought that up, right? Net neutrality is at its heart kind of a free speech issue.
31:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
31:46 Nilay Patel? Okay, your Republican colleagues are, you generally oppose net neutrality. The chairman obviously
31:52 Speaker 03 There is a
31:53 Nilay Patel? And the next breath, you know, the White House is putting out tattle on Google and Facebook if you've been unfairly silenced on social media. Do you see that as, just as incompatible as I do? Like, my head spins trying to get my head around how you can believe that net neutrality is bad, but you also want to, like, over-regulate Facebook.
32:11 Speaker 03 So I don't in particular what, I do think net neutrality is about voices that are outside of the mainstream. I do agree that there is a tension there. I'm not in particular trying to wade into the social media bias and all of that. I don't in particular understand that argument, to be honest. But I do know that there are a lot of, there are a lot of folks out there on the Republican side that are voicing that concern. I'm having trouble exactly kind of following the thread there.
32:42 Nilay Patel? Very charitable.
32:43 Speaker 03 Yes, yes, I'm trying to be charitable.
32:46 Nilay Patel? Yeah.
32:46 Speaker 03 The last thing that I would really kind of highlight for focus is I think the impact on innovation is going to be significant. You know, way back in the day, there was, Google Video came out basically at the same time as YouTube. And we certainly know if there had been a nascent YouTube compared to Google, Google would have paid for the fast lane and been able to kind of choke out a YouTube that was fledgling at the time. But that's not what the marketplace, the marketplace decided. YouTube, in some sense, kind of won that battle. And so I do have concern that you would have all of these big, large corporations that would be able to use their market power in a way that doesn't ultimately drive innovation and help consumers.
33:29 Nilay Patel? All right, you want to talk about location tracking, Mckenna?
33:31 Speaker 04 We can. So Pi, last week, seemed to have made you czar of location tracking or something, right? There were some comments made at a House Oversight hearing, and I'm curious if, since you're this location-tracking czar or whatever, you're the lead investigator, is the chairman giving you enough information to lead that investigation?
33:53 Speaker 03 So, I want to completely reframe your question.
33:56 Nilay Patel? All right.
33:57 Speaker 03 I am, I am...
33:58 Nilay Patel? It's getting spicy at the end.
33:59 Speaker 03 Yes, I am not, not the geolocation lead. I've got to say that I think private colloquies between commissioners probably should have stayed such. But because it did come out, right after I was sworn in, the chairman did ask me if I would lead the geolocation investigation. He said, "You're, you know, you're an enforcement lawyer, you're a DOJ-trained lawyer, would you, would you take this on?" In my mind, the investigation should have been open for about nine months at that point, considering that the initial kind of motherboard articles had happened in early May.
34:39 Speaker 03 Also, mind you, this is more in the background. There is a one-year statute of limitations that the FCC has, which basically means you have one year to bring a case, otherwise the bad guys get away with it. And that's just something that has to be stated kind of at the top. So I asked for a briefing from the enforcement bureau chief, how the investigation was going. Again, when you're talking about investigation that in my mind should have been going on for nine months, what I heard from that briefing did not give me confidence that the case was where it should be, and more importantly, that the case was moving along expeditiously, especially considering you're talking about nine months on a one-year SOL statute of limitations.
35:21 Nilay Patel? Just for the listener, we're talking about specifically the ability for a random person to get your location through the black market from a carrier.
35:29 Speaker 03 Yes, thank you, yes. So, yeah, we should back up completely. You know, a geolocation is, you have a particular relationship with your carrier. The customer carrier relationship is dictated by us, by statute, section 222. And so, your carrier is not allowed to, absent your consent, just sell your information, your customer proprietary information, including your location information, including who has called you, who you have called, all of that information. And so, in this instance, we saw that carriers were selling to location aggregators, basically to a third party.
36:09 Speaker 03 They were selling the geolocation information of folks that were their customers. And so then that information was getting sold on, again, when you sell location information to a third party, then it was getting sold to a whole lot of people, including shady middlemen, bounty hunters. And so, it is really a matter of, to come back to your question, McKenna, this is not really about me. What this is about is, what I really saw there is, you know, this is about somebody who, let's say that there's somebody who has gotten a restraining order, a temporary restraining order, because they're in an abusive relationship. They have gotten themselves to a shelter or a safe house. Somebody could literally have paid.
36:52 Speaker 03 A couple hundred dollars to been able to track that person's phone. And that is startling, that's alarming, and that's why that case had to be, has to be progressing as quickly as possible. So what I saw is that a case was not moving quickly enough. And so I declined the chairman's offer to take over that investigation. Instead, I have used my voice in a different way. I wrote a New York Times op ed, of course, highlighting the geolocation issue and what's at stake and why it needs to be prioritized. Cases of mass public safety have to be prioritized. That is something that I learned back when I was at the Department of Justice at the Enforcement Bureau. And this case has to be resolved.
37:35 Speaker 03 It is, we have to vindicate everyday folks and make sure that they're safe.
37:39 Speaker 04 Is this just an investigation that the FCC pursue? Or is there a role for lawmakers and other federal agencies?
37:45 Speaker 03 I certainly think that there is, there certainly is probably a lane for FTC investigation as well, Federal Trade Commission, who probably has better authority over some of the location aggregates. We certainly have jurisdiction, in my mind, over the carriers and that they should not have sold this data to third parties. They should not have sold it downstream. I think those other folks downstream that are not in the telecommunications world, like a bounty hunter, some of these bounty hunter companies, these location aggregators, those probably are somebody who's going to have to have authority of somebody else, FTC or some other, some other entity.
38:26 Nilay Patel? What's the next step? If you're not leading the investigation? Is someone?
38:31 Speaker 03 Yes.
38:32 Nilay Patel? Is it gonna, is it, are you gonna be able to file before that one year statute of limitations?
38:37 Speaker 03 You know, in my mind, the one year statute of limitations has already hit.
38:40 Nilay Patel? Oh, wow.
38:41 Speaker 03 In the worst case, bad guys got away with it. What the chairman indicated at the oversight hearing last week is that they are I'm using air quotes here, aware of the statute of limitations. What I assume that means, what I hope that means is that there's been a tolling agreement in place, which basically tolls the case from expiring and for the bad guys to get away with it. And so what's happening next is I expect that the Enforcement Bureau, who is the enforcement arm of the FCC, is moving as expeditiously as possible. I certainly know that I have raised it countless ways within my power to make sure that that case is moving along quickly.
39:22 Speaker 03 But the Enforcement Bureau is going to, I expect, make a recommendation on how the investigation should be handled to the five of us that are commissioners, and we'll vote on, we'll vote on that matter.
39:33 Nilay Patel? All right. You've given us a ton of time, so let's do a very quick lightning round and get you out of here. Mac or Windows?
39:40 Speaker 03 Windows.
39:41 Nilay Patel? You got an iPad? I thought that was gonna be like a toss-up for you. Android or iPhone?
39:46 Speaker 03 iPhone.
39:47 Nilay Patel? You got two phones? And they're both iPhones? All right. Windows and an iPhone, that's a, it's a, what's your carrier of choice? Are you allowed to say?
39:58 Speaker 04 We got the shaky hand.
40:01 Nilay Patel? I will say that every time I go to the FCC offices, I'm like, every carrier has their best service here. Every carrier is like, this is the fastest speeds available in the country, is like localized in this one building in DC.
40:13 Speaker 04 Every time I hop on a press call too, it's like the AT&T teleconferencing service.
40:17 Speaker 03 I know.
40:18 Speaker 04 And I'm like, AT&T, all right.
40:20 Speaker 03 We gotta use somebody.
40:21 Nilay Patel? Yeah, we gotta use somebody. 5G E, real or not real?
40:25 Speaker 03 Real.
40:26 Nilay Patel? Real? You think that's, you think that's legit?
40:28 Speaker 03 It is the small step to us, to us ultimately getting to what I think is, is a legitimate kind of 5G world.
40:35 Nilay Patel? Okay. That's bold. All right, I'll take it. I'm like, set back. All right. I gotta say, I don't think it's real. Last one, big one. What's your go-to, like, tech news site? This is a total air.
40:51 Speaker 03 You know, I gotta say... Verge, Vox, Gizmodo I go to as well.
40:58 Nilay Patel? You mentioned Motherboard earlier.
41:00 Speaker 03 Motherboard, Vice, I think are outstanding. I'm somebody who does take from a lot of different sources.
41:06 Nilay Patel? And the Game of Thrones is as good as you were hinting at.
41:10 Speaker 03 I gotta say, I was not altogether happy with the Game of Thrones ending. The fact that the Starks do well pleases me. But I was considering the amount of time that I have plowed into that show. It was not altogether satisfying.
41:25 Nilay Patel? Yeah, it's gonna be a headline now. FCC Commissioner, Game of Thrones is bad. It's coming out in like an hour. It's breaking news.
41:31 Speaker 03 I was about to say. If I catch a lot of heat on this, I'll own it.
41:38 Nilay Patel? Yeah. All right, Commissioner Starks, thank you so much.
41:40 Speaker 03 Yes, the last thing is come check me out on @JeffreyStarks is my Twitter handle.
41:47 Nilay Patel? Are you a spicy tweeter or do you have a team that does it for you?
41:49 Speaker 03 You know what? It's a, we all work on it. It really, bandwidth is such a hard problem for me now. Like, I have, I have very little time. But I do, I do throw in, you know, I tweeted seconds after the end of Game of Thrones. And so it's @G E O F F R E Y S T A R K S, @JeffreyStarks. And yeah, it's some personal stuff, but also some, some thinking on, on, on my job in my official capacity, what I'm thinking through and what I like and don't like.
42:21 Nilay Patel? Great. Thank you so much, Commissioner. It was great to have you.
42:23 Speaker 03 Thank you for the time.
42:25 Nilay Patel? All right. Thank you to FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks and to Makena Kelly, our policy reporter, for joining me on that interview. It was really interesting. I want to note that Why'd You Push That Button is back. They launched last week with an episode about green and blue bubbles and iMessage featuring the one and only Dieter Bone. Listen to that, it is super fun. Dieter yelling at Ashley about RCS is truly a Verge podcast moment. This week, Why'd You Push That Button gets into why people feel compelled to promote their tweets. They actually, I think, are gonna promote a tweet to promote their episode about promoted tweets. It's gonna be weird. Just check that out. You can also subscribe to The Vergecast for free on your favorite podcast app. Just hit the link in the show notes to get new episodes. And please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. I'm being told to say this, I'm just letting you know. I don't know why, but that's what they're telling me to say.
43:09 Nilay Patel? Just do that for me, that'd be really great. We'll be back Friday with Dieter and Paul for the chat show. We'll see you then.
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