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March 25, 2008

FCBA Cyberspace Committee Lunch on the Future of Voice and Video and Communications in an Internet-Enabled World

I wanted to give a heads up to any of you who might be in DC on April 2. I co-chair the Federal Communications Bar Association’s Cyberspace Committee. We are hosting a brown-bag lunch on “the Future of Voice and Video and Communications in an Internet-Enabled World.”

The event is free, and you don’t have to be an FCBA member to come to the lunch, but you do have to RSVP.

My objective (whether or not it is anyone else’s objective connected to the event, I do not know) is to shake things up at least a little in DC, to give the regulators, policymakers and advocates a taste of what is going on in the world outside the Beltway, and to make sure laws and rules and policy are crafted with a full appreciation of the needs of innovators and entrepreneurs to do things that existing laws might not have contemplated.

My hope is that when bring tech and business pioneers to DC, the policymakers get a better sense of our needs, and we get a better understanding of their obligations to the greater public good. When we cross-pollinate the policymakers in DC with cutting-edge technologists and entrepreneurs, we get a better understanding about how technology and policy might evolve in a mutually virtuous cycle. We can’t keep writing laws and regulations in a vacuum, and, by the same token, we can’t keep building new companies without fully appreciating how law, regulations and policy might affect business.

This lunch is just a humble part of a longer dialogue. I’ve tried in the past to bring innovators into the corridors of power. (I’m not sure how many remember the “Peripheral Visionary Summits.”) The discussions are always lively and enlightening. Whether we do any permanent good is anyone’s guess. I hope everyone leaves with a better appreciation of business needs and policy concerns. I’m convinced that we’ve got to persist, to invade DC as often as possible to help shape forward-looking laws and policy.

This Cyberspace lunch is simply designed to expose policy makers to a few ideas and examples about what is going on with voice and video in an Internet-enabled world, and how existing rules are helping or hindering entrepreneurial efforts. I hope to reiterate that the Internet-enabled digital communications future is not about voice alone. It is not about video alone. It is about what happens when both applications, along with the host of other evolving and inter-related applications, are viewed as part of the larger Internet experience. The future of communications is about what happens now that Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law kick-in and we create a "system" and a new synthetic environment that will change forever the ways in which we all interact.

Here are the details

Federal Communications Bar Association: Cyberspace Practice Committee Brown Bag Lunch

Date/Time: Wednesday, April 2, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.

Location: Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, 2300 N Street, NW

Topic: The Future of Voice and Video and Communications in an Internet-Enabled World

More Info: This lunch will bring together technology, business and policy thought-leaders to consider the future of Internet-delivered voice and video… and whatever other services and applications await us on the horizon.

Moderator: Jonathan Askin, Professor, Brooklyn Law School

Panelists: Shelly Palmer (Managing Partner, Advanced Media Ventures Group; President, The Emmy Awards -- National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY); Lowell Feldman (CEO, Feature Group IP; Adjunct Professor at UT School of Law); John Hane (Pillsbury Winthrop); Craig Walker (Sr. Product Manager, Voice Products at Google)

Again, to RSVP: Click Here

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Posted by jonathan.askin at 05:29 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2008

An Under-the-Rader FCC Proceeding that Could have Profound Consequences on Internet Communications

I’m interrupting my drafting of Reply Comments for Feature Group IP’s petition to the FCC seeking to ensure that Internet communications may evolve and grow and experience the network effects that can only be achieved in no gatekeeper is allowed to preclude its users from easily and affordably participate in Internet communications. I’m taking this break in part to stretch my back and to clear my head, but also to get a reality check.

Maybe I’m delusional, but I’m starting to feel a little more optimistic that the FCC could take positive action in this proceeding to ensure that ILECs cannot use their stranglehold over the last-mile bottleneck to overcharge other carriers to reach narrowband customers. Perhaps it’s the power of righteousness. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’ve been cloistered writing these comments and I am out of touch with what’s going on in the World outside. Or, perhaps, it’s that I feel a new dawn at the FCC, and a newfound belief that it will take dispostive action to allow the Internet to transform the ways in which we communicate.

Frankly, I was particularly pleased and hopeful when the FCC opted to hold a Public En Banc Hearing in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Broadband Network Management Practices at Harvard Law School on February 25.

The testimony from several Internet entrepreneurs and innovators and noted academics were remarkably germane to the issues raised in the FeatureGroup IP Petition, particularly the comments of Professor Yochai Benkler and his recognition that “the Internet is overwhelmingly about users connecting to each other, not providers connecting to audiences.” As Professor Benkler stated:

“Once you stop looking through the blinders of people trained in 20th Century business models, the Internet is about people connecting to each other, to chat about the silly and the profound, to create together and to organize, to transact and to tell each other stories about who we are and how our lives might become. Organizations whose history and culture are based in content delivery to audiences or delivery of well-specified services to terminals are going to have a very hard time understanding that this is where the future lies. They will only do so under the pressure of genuine open competition, which will force them either to understand this change or get out of the way.”

While Professor Benkler pointed specifically to concerns over Comcast’s alleged degrading of access by end-users to peer-to-peer BitTorrent applications, his analysis could not be more apt than in consideration of the activities of the ILECs treatment of narrowband consumer access to voice-embedded Internet applications and consumers’ ability to participate in more robust, holistic communications and group forming networks. The self-help mechanisms used by the ILECs to extract the highest intercarrier compensation conceivable when an end-user relegated to the PSTN wants to participate in an Internet-based communication that may include a voice component do nothing to advance the Internet, communications, consumer welfare or the public good, beyond the short-term lining of the pockets of the ILECs and their shareholders.

The FCC has the opportunity, by granting the FeatureGroup IP Forbearance Petition, to ensure that the arbitrage game that the ILECs are perpetrating – extracting supra-competitive compensation from those providing Internet connectivity to the PSTN – do not stifle the growth and evolution of Internet-enabled communications. The FCC has the opportunity in this case to ensure that consumers may obtain maximum value derived from group forming networks and the network effects that may only be achieved when users of each network – including those relegated to the limited-functioning, narrowband off-ramp on the network of networks – are allowed to participate across networks without any intervening gatekeeper to use its excessive market power or control over an access facility to game the system and extract supra-competitive compensation from consumers or other providers.

Finally, I was encouraged to see organizations like the Open Internet Coalition and Google, and other policy thought-leaders for the Internet application innovators and entrepreneurs becoming actively engaged in the complex debates over the proper approach to pricing interconnection between telecommunications providers. Internet communications entrepreneurs and users have unfortunately become collateral damage in the wars over compensation that have waged for more than ten years between telecommunications carriers in efforts to extract as much inter-carrier revenue from one another as possible, often at the expense of the consumer and the greater economic and social good.

With help from these innovators, and a better understanding of an Internet-enabled future by the officials at the FCC, I think good things could happen.

I suspect this will be among the issues we discuss next week at Spring VON in San Jose. We still have a lot of work ahead of us to make sure the rules and policy are safe for the Internet to grow and evolve. The price of a free and open and robust Internet is eternal vigilance.

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Posted by jonathan.askin at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)

March 10, 2008

Spring VON Pre-Con – Competition Policy

I’m looking forward to my return to the VON Community after a one year hiatus. Most academics take a sabbatical from academia into industry. I took a sabbatical from industry into academia. But, then, I often get things backwards.

In any event, the Spring VON Competition Policy Pre-Con, “Seismic Eruptions and Disruptions in an Internet-Enabled World”, has really shaped up quickly and promises a pretty great day to learn and debate the great policy issues confronting the Internet communications industry.

The current line-up includes discussions on the broad range of complex policy competition policy issues including mergers, antitrust, patents, jurisdictional, social and economic issues with thought-leaders from across all industry players including:

Ed Black, Chief Executive Officer, Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Christian Dippon, Vice President, NERA Economic Consulting
Kevin Minsky, Policy Counsel, U.S. Legal/Corporate Affairs, Microsoft
Michael Pelcovits, Principal, Microeconomic Consulting & Research Associates, Inc. (MiCRA)
Lawrence Spiwak, President, Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies
Marty Stern, Partner, K&L Gates
Jeffrey Blumenfeld, Partner, Crowell & Moring LLP
Mark Ostrau, Partner,Fenwick & West LLP
Alfred Pfeiffer, Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP
Harvey Saferstein, Member ,Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo, PC
David Turetsky, Partner, Dewey & LaBouef LLP Moderator:
Glenn Manishin, Partner, Duane Morris LLP
Ross Buntrock, Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC
Bill Lake, Partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr
Jason Wakefield, Vice President, Governmental and External Affairs, Covad Communications Company
Glenn Richards, Partner, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
Daniel Berninger, Independent Technology Analyst, Tier1 Research
Rob Bertin, Partner, Bingham McCutchen LLP
Fred Grasso, Counsel, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Ron Del Sesto, Partner, Bingham McCutchen LLP
Rick Cimerman, VP, State Government Affairs, National Cable & Telecommmunications Association
Staci Pies, Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs, Skype N.A.
David Young, VP, Federal Regulatory, Verizon
Jim Kohlenberger, Executive Director, The Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition

We’ll also host a presentation on Emergency Services and the Internet by Jason Barbour, President, NENA

The pulvermedia crew are also returning with the VON Town Hall Meeting to kick off Spring VON. The Community Leaders for the Town Hall Meeting include:

Lowell Feldman, Chief Executive Officer, Feature Group IP
Link Hoewing, Assistant Vice President, Internet and Technology, Verizon
Larry Irving, Co-Chairman, Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA)
Rick Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, Google

and yours truly, Jonathan Askin, Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School and returning VON alum.

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Posted by jonathan.askin at 11:10 PM | Comments (1)

March 05, 2008

Oh, No, Way to Blow Ohio

One of my first memories was of the Nixon-McGovern Presidential race in 1972. My Dad was a McGovern Delegate. All my friends’ parents were voting for McGovern, except for the parents of the stupidest kid in school. They were voting for Nixon. By my primitive polling technique, McGovern was going to win by about 90,000,000-to-2. That was the first time I recognized that my view might be skewed (maybe I should be named Jonathan Askew, not Jonathan Askin) – that maybe I wasn’t in touch with prevailing American opinion.

Or, maybe, I’m just the kiss of death for whatever I care about. Perhaps the Clinton or McCain forces should pay my way to campaign around the country for Obama?

Yesterday was the latest in a long line of mis-estimations of American sentiment and behavior. I’m one of those who thought American Idol, Survivor, the Apprentice, and every other reality program could not possibly compete for American eyeballs against quality narrative fiction.

I also figured Obama had to win Ohio. I was on the ground. I felt the enthusiasm. Polls be damned. My few days in Ohio convinced me that the polls could not possibly account for Obamania. Once again, I was living in some bubble with little interaction or appreciation of the popular zeitgeist.

It looks like we’ll have at least seven more weeks of winter for the Democratic Party as the campaign gets progressively more negative, as the Democratic candidates fight for every delegate, as the Republicans step in line behind their nominee.

What I find most disturbing is that, if it comes down to Ohio in the General Election race between Obama and McCain, the ugly primary has already planted a heavy seed in the minds of Ohio voters against Obama, with mischaracterizations about his view on NAFTA and his ability to make the hard and immediate life and death decisions when the call comes in at 3am.

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Posted by jonathan.askin at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)

March 04, 2008

A, O, WAY TO GO OHIO

♪♫ I went back to Ohio …♪♫

(I hope I’m not jumping the gun with my Ohio Obama optimism so early on this most auspicious day for America)

I’m guessing that if Chrissie Hynde went back to Ohio this week, she’d be pretty pleased with what she’d see. First of all, it turns out that Columbus could be a pretty fun town. Who would have thought it? It’s at least fun when a bizarre confluence of political junkies, sports fanatics and art enthusiasts take over the town … but maybe any town would be fun under those circumstances.

Columbus, Ohio hosted Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and even Arnold Schwarzenegger over the weekend. Arnold apparently wasn’t there on behalf of McCain. He was in Columbus to support “The Arnold Classic”, a bodybuilding competition at the Columbus Convention Center. Combined with the thousands of carpet-bagging campaigners and Columbus’ Short North Gallery Hop, Columbus probably hosted just about the most eclectic cross-section of America that the vast, empty expanse between NYC and Vegas has ever seen.

I spent a few days in Ohio doing Obama work in advance of the Tuesday Primary. I figured this was the moment to pull out all the stops. If Obama doesn’t win in either Ohio or Texas, the pundits are predicting, not six, but at least seven more weeks of winter for the Democratic Party (as Clinton next rests her own hopes on the April 22 Pennsylvania Primary). God knows how much damage we’re going to inflict on the Democratic Presidential hope if we have to engage in another seven weeks of infighting and dirty politics within the party. Believe me, the campaign ads were getting uglier and more relentless in Ohio.

In any case, Ohio is deeply engaged. Kind of remarkable for a state whose last favorite son was Warren Harding, whose Presidency was marred by scandal and who was reported to have said “I am not fit for this office and never should have been here.” He also died in Office. In fact, four of the eight Presidents from Ohio died in Office, and they haven’t produced a President in 88 years. Eight Presidents during Ohio’s first 117 years as state. None in its last 88.

On top of all this, let’s not forget that Ohio was a, if not the, critical battleground state in the 2004 Presidential election. By some accounts, tens of thousands of would-be Democratic voters were unable to record their votes, which could have easily swung Ohio, and the Electoral College, to Kerry. I’m pleased to report that Larry Strickling, my former boss at the FCC and a deeply committed Obama staffer, is, among other things, handling voter protection issues on Tuesday, so I figure some of the voter problems will not re-emerge. The campaigns are also encouraging their supporters to vote early so that there are fewer problems during Ohio’s Primary Election Day.

Ohio Democrats should have many reasons to feel first proud, then acutely dejected, about their Presidential history and karma, yet Ohio citizens seem to persevere. The feeling that Ohio can shape America’s future is palpable. The folks in Ohio seem convinced that their opinion, their participation, their vote counts and could change the course of history. I know that the polls were indicating that Hillary would win the popular vote, but that wasn’t apparent on the streets … and the polls are blind to the passion, the hope, the sense of destiny. The Obamania is overwhelming.

The battleground is so intense that the Arnold Classic competitors have nothing on the campaigns – this is a no-holds-barred-drop-down-drag-out-last-gasp-effort for the nomination. My Dad put it in perspective in a blog posting yesterday when he talked about “Obama: The Fear Factor”:

“FDR told us we had ‘nothing to fear but fear itself.’ Barack Obama’s adversaries all seem to agree that ‘we have nothing to HOPE FOR but fear itself.’ As they try to stop the Obama juggernaut, they are all playing the fear card! Hillary Clinton’s scary Texas ad goes so far as to suggest that your children will not be safe in their beds at 3 AM if Obama is the one sleeping next to the red phone. John McCain and President Bush warn that an Obama presidency will leave us at the mercy of terrorists. Right-wing talk show hosts are trying to scare the pants off their listeners by reminding them that Obama’s middle name is Hussein -- a true Manchurian candidate in Muslim garb. Or as FDR might have put it, ‘We have nothing to fear but the fear-mongers themselves.’”

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And what’s with Rush Limbaugh getting to use the Pretenders’ “My City Was Gone” (aka, “I went back to Ohio”) as his theme song? The money Limbaugh pays the Pretenders/Hynde had better go to a good cause that Limbaugh doesn’t support. Perhaps its time to deploy a search engine to get to the bottom of that one … Once again, Wikipedia raised its hand first with a plausible answer: Wikipedia Entry on "My City Was Gone"

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Posted by jonathan.askin at 07:29 AM | Comments (1)

March 03, 2008

Policy Discussions at Spring VON

For those of you who missed the DC policy and government affairs crew at VON, we’re coming to San Jose for Spring VON ’08. We’re returning with the VON Town Hall Meeting to kick off Spring VON and we’ve added a full-day Pre-Con on Competition Policy: Seismic Eruptions and Disruptions in an Internet-Enabled World

The goal of the VON Pre-Con is to scare us all into action. We are living through a technology, business, policy and political upheaval, the likes of which the world has never known. Technology is disrupting business is disrupting policy is disrupting politics. What are the issues that can make or break a company? an industry? a government? We’re in the midst of major consolidations within and across industry sectors. We are witnessing a race to the Patent Office and the patent tribunals by companies seeking any edge in this ferociously competitive world. We are feeling a seismic shake from government and industry players making their own jurisdictional and power grabs. These issues require informed legal talent to straddle the worlds of business and government. The Competition Policy Pre-Con at Spring VON is an effort to learn the issues and find some solutions.

As for the Town Hall Meeting, we’re bringing back a lot of the regulars, but with some new perspectives. The goal of the Town Hall is to build our community, to find common ground and common objectives, to make sure that each of us has the opportunity to play a role in shaping the ever-evolving policies that are shaping the Internet and communications industries. There is simply too much going on for us to sit by idly while the rules are set by those that might not share our vision for an Internet-enabled communications future.

We’re also hosting a talk on Emergency Services and the Internet by Jason Barbour, the President of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA)to segue the Policy Pre-Con into the Town Hall Meeting.

All in all, expect a great education on Internet communications business and technology and policy issues, and a great opportunity to meet the thought-leaders driving the industry, the technology and the policy debates.

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Posted by jonathan.askin at 08:52 AM | Comments (0)