I'm hosting an exciting event today over at the New America Foundation -- if you can't make it in person, you can watch the stream live online:

The Open Technology Initiative of the New America Foundation will host Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski on February 24, 2010 at 11am. Chairman Genachowski will preview working recommendations in the National Broadband Plan for advancing U.S. mobile broadband leadership.

Recognizing the importance of broadband for ensuring America’s economic development and leadership, Congress and the President tasked the FCC with developing a National Broadband Plan to connect all Americans to affordable, world-class, high-speed Internet. The FCC’s National Broadband Plan, which the agency will deliver to Congress on March 17, 2010, will create jobs and spur economic growth; unleash new waves of innovation and investment; and improve education, health care, energy efficiency, public safety, and the vibrancy of our democracy.

Chairman Genachowski will preview working recommendations for spectrum reforms incorporated into the National Broadband Plan. A distinguished panel of industry representatives and the public interest advocates will respond to these proposals.

This event will be webcast live, and questions will be taken via Twitter. Send your question or comment to @newamerica with the hashtag of #NAFevents.

Welcome
Steve Coll
President, New America Foundation

Keynote
Julius Genachowski
Chairman, Federal Communications Commission

Moderator
Sascha Meinrath
Director, Open Technology Initiative
New America Foundation

Panelists
Ben Scott
Policy Director, Free Press

Chris Guttman-McCabe
Vice President, Regulatory Affairs
CTIA-The Wireless Association

Julie Kearney
Vice President for Regulatory Affairs
Consumer Electronics Association

Matt Wood
Associate Director, Media Access Project

SAVE THE DATE!

August 12-15, 2010:
International Summit for Community Wireless Networks

Vienna, Austria
www.wirelesssummit.org

The New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative, Tech Gate Vienna, the CUWiN Foundation, and the Acorn Active Media Foundation are pleased announce that the annual International Summit for Community Wireless Networks will take place in Vienna, Austria from August 12-15, 2010.

Internet access is increasingly important to all facets of civil society. Since the first National Summit for Community Wireless Networks in 2004, tens of thousands of community and municipal broadband initiatives have been deployed around the globe, but many communities are being left out of this communications revolution. "The global coalition of developers, communities, industry, and advocates working together over the past decade has created one of the most disruptive and far-reaching technological innovations of our generation, yet few know about it and fewer still have taken advantage of this opportunity," says Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Initiative and the Summit's founder. "The International Summit for Community Wireless Networks is the nexus around which this movement swaps notes, strategizes, and organizes its agenda for development and implementation of ubiquitous, affordable broadband networks."

2010 marks the first year that this group of technologists, entrepreneurs, government officials, academics and engaged citizens will convene outside the United States, a critical step to broaden and deepen international involvement in what truly is a global movement. Participants will learn from each other’s examples, exchange strategies and anecdotes, and build partnerships that strengthen alliances among projects.

Vienna possesses a rich and diverse mix of established technology companies and start ups, new media organizations, researchers and cultural producers as well as a remarkable number of institutions of higher learning. Not only is Vienna well positioned among the top international leaders in the information economy, the city is also home to FunkFeuer, one of the most advanced community wireless networks in the world. FunkFeuer is highly respected internationally for its technical and social innovations, its many collaborations with university researchers and artists, and the scale and scope of its network. The Summit will provide an opportunity to expand upon FunkFeuer's successes and spread best-methods for developing sustainable metro-scale wireless mesh networks.

The International Summit for Community Wireless Networks focuses on how wireless networks can better serve their target populations, the policies needed to support broader deployment of community wireless systems, and the latest technological and software innovations in the field.

More information on the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks, including a call for proposals, registration, and other logistical information, will be available in the coming weeks at www.wirelesssummit.org.

We look forward to seeing you in August!

About the Acorn Active Media Foundation: The Acorn Active Media Foundation engages in software, website and technical development in support of the global justice movement. Acorn's commitment to its work stems from a foundational philosophy that its projects should align with the Foundation's goals to support social and economic justice. More information is available at: www.acornactivemedia.com.

About the CUWiN Foundation (CUWiN): CUWiN is a world-renowned coalition of wireless developers and community volunteers committed to providing low-cost, do-it-yourself, community controlled alternatives to contemporary broadband models. Its mission is to develop decentralized, community-owned networks that foster democratic cultures and local content. Through advocacy and through its commitment to open source technology, CUWiN supports organic networks that grow to meet the needs of their community. More information is available at www.cuwin.net.

About the Open Technology Initiative: Part of the New America Foundation, a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy institute in Washington, D.C., the Open Technology Initiative (OTI) formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations and facilitates the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks. As an independent non-profit initiative, OTI provides in-depth, objective research, analysis, and findings for policy decision-makers and the general public. More information is available at: http://oti.newamerica.net.

About Tech Gate Vienna: Tech Gate Vienna is Vienna's first Science and Technology Park. For several years Tech Gate Vienna has provided a common location for research facilities, technology orientated companies and supportive advisory services. Vienna's focus on high-tech development is right here. Concentration on specific topics has ensured its effectiveness, and created an important requirement for developing synergies. More information is available at: http://www.techgate.at.

An interesting proposal from Senators Warner & Snowe. Reading between the lines, this is to solve the problem that technical expertise is too often sorely lacking across a number of different areas within the FCC (which has prioritized legal expertise over technological):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Julia Wanzco (Snowe)
December 8, 2009 202.224.1304
Kevin Hall (Warner)
202.224.2425

Snowe, Warner Announce Bill to
Boost Technical Resources for FCC

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) today announced bipartisan legislation to bolster access to technical resources for the Commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Snowe-Warner initiative will update current law to allow each Commissioner to hire an additional staff member—an electrical engineer or computer scientist—to provide in-depth technical consultation.

“Given the rapid advancement of technologies and innovation within the telecommunications industry, it is essential that Commissioners have in-house technical expertise to make well informed regulatory decisions,” said Senator Snowe, a senior member of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, which has jurisdiction over the legislation. “This legislation is a common-sense initiative that will guarantee each Commissioner has a technical expert on staff to provide detailed analysis on some of the most cutting-edge issues affecting the communications industry today.”

“Easing restrictions on the number of experts a commissioner can hire will provide the FCC with more tools and information it needs to decisions,” said Senator Warner. “This will give commissioners access to the best information possible, from all relevant disciplines, and in a timely manner – which is critical in making well-informed decisions.”

Under current law, each Commissioner is permitted to appoint only three professional assistants and a secretary. Historically, these professional assistants have been legal advisors covering the wireline, wireless, and cable/media sectors. The Snowe-Warner bill complements this structure by ensuring Commissioners have access to expertise involving the technical aspect of the issues, which is fundamental to developing sound regulatory policy related to the nation’s communications industry.

Here's the latest from the most recent expansion of Team OTI. I'm really looking forward to working with Tom -- he's going to be a fantastic addition to the Open Technology Initiative.

New America Foundation Announces Its First Knight Media Policy Fellow

November 12, 2009

The New America Foundation today announced that Tom Glaisyer will be its first Knight Media Policy Fellow, focusing on national media policy changes and related developments under a new grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Glaisyer, a Ph.D. candidate from Columbia University's School of Journalism, has long been focused on the interplay between media and political processes and institutions. He will take the lead on New America's media policy work, including the task of identifying and recruiting additional Knight Media Policy Fellows and coordinating their work.

"We're thrilled to have Tom leading the charge for our Media Policy Initiative," New America CEO Steve Coll said. "He is deeply involved in these discussions already, and his mix of academic research, technical expertise and hands-on experience with online community-building provides a perfect complement to the practicing journalists already at New America."

The Knight Media Policy Fellowships are designed to attract creative thinkers in old and new media who will track, critique and suggest media policy change. Among other efforts, the fellows will build on the Knight Commission's recently published report, "Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age."

Starting from the reports' findings, Knight Media Policy Fellows will focus on policies to reform public media, increase independent reporting on issues of public interest, and better help citizens access and engage with high-quality information. By tracking and critiquing policy initiatives at the federal level, and innovative media efforts in communities across the country, the fellows will report on both the successes and failures, along with their implications for the Knight Commission's recommendations to reform journalism nationwide.

"We look forward to hearing how officials in Washington are, or aren't, following up up on the recommendations of the commission -- and what the Knight Fellows think about that," said Eric Newton, vice president for journalism programs, Knight Foundation.

The additional Knight Media Policy Fellowships will be one-year, non-residential positions. Formal applications will not be accepted until December, but interested individuals can contact New America now at http://newamerica.net/contact/.

About the New America Foundation

The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan
public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States. For more, visit www.newamerica.net

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation advances
journalism in the digital age and invests in the vitality of communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Since 1950, the foundation has granted more than $400 million to advance quality journalism and freedom of expression. Knight Foundation focuses on projects that promote community engagement and lead to transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.

Cecilia Kang over at the Washington Post recently covered the Open Technology Initiative's proposal for a broadband nutrition label. You may already be familiar with the idea from the myriad credit card applications you probably receive each month which are mandated to contain a Shumer Box of key information about the credit card offer.

This sort of standardization makes comparisons across credit cards remarkably easy and helps ensure that we, as consumers, know what we're getting ourselves into. The same idea is what underlies the nutrition labels found on all prepackaged foods. My team's addition to the debate was to apply this idea to broadband services and propose what information should be contained within this informational disclosure.

Here's more from the Washington Post:

A nutrition box for Internet service?

Of all the data being collected for a federal probe into truth-in-billing rules for communications services, one statistic stands out:

Consumers are paying for broadband Internet service that lags advertised speeds by as much as 50 percent.

That stat was revealed by the Federal Communications Commission last month during a report on its plan to connect the entire nation to high-speed Internet. The news sent Twitterverse aflutter with outrage. Post Tech got tons of feedback on an entry about it. Consumer advocates said the revelation could open the door to class-action lawsuits against carriers for deceptive advertising.

And now those groups are offering one solution to help users from getting bamboozled. The groups, along with the New America Foundation, have proposed a Nutrition Fact box for broadband. Instead of calories, carbs and fiber, the broadband box would break down data on guaranteed delivered speeds, price, and length of contract. Such details are often blurred and buried in the fine print of multiple-page service agreements.







Truthful delivery of advertised speeds clearly hit and nerve with users who spend an average of $150 each month for their cell phone, cable or satellite television, home phone and Internet connections. And it was added frustration to notoriously shoddy service problems.

Communications service providers often rank low among industries in customer satisfaction surveys. Some online consumer activists have used the viral messaging on the Web to push companies like Comcast and Verizon to refocus their ways. Service at Comcast was so bad for Advertising Age blogger Bob Garfield that he started a Web site Comcastmustdie.com. That site has died and the push online hasn't led to meaningful change on billing practices of communications firms like Comcast, AT&T, Dish TV, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile, consumer advocacy groups said.

"Consumers experience substantial confusion and frustration when choosing a service provider and plan, when using unexpectedly limited or low quality services, and when receiving higher-than expected bills," the groups wrote in final comments sent yesterday for the FCC review. "Substantial changes to the commission’s existing rules are necessary to remedy these problems."

Currently, carriers are generally left to voluntarily abide by some of the truth-in-billing standards, according to the groups that include Free Press, Consumers Union and Media Access Project.

The FCC's review looks at information available to consumers at all stages of the purchasing process of a communications service -- choosing a provider, choosing a service plan, managing use of the service plan, and deciding whether and when to switch an existing provider or plan.

Image credit: New America Foundation

Here's a fun article from the upcoming issue of IEEE Spectrum. Interestingly enough, while here at the eComm Conference here in Amsterdam, I'm working with my friend, Aaron Kaplan, on some of the newest open source community wireless mesh software and will be bringing home a mesh-in-a-box to deploy in my own back yard.

Netbooks Are Only Part of The Solution

POSTED BY: Tekla Perry // Wed, October 28, 2009

Netbooks are going to be huge, much bigger than they already are. Trust me on this. I say this not because I see more and more people working on them in cafes instead of on standard laptops—though I do. It’s not because I particularly want one—though for short trips I can see the appeal. It’s not because on a recent multifamily vacation one family showed up with one netbook per child.

It’s because my 70-something aunt, the one with the 30-year-old radio that you can only turn off by pulling the plug, and the TV that gets its signal from a 50-plus-year-old two-wire cable, just told me she’s thinking of getting a netbook.

Oh, it’ll be a couple of years before she actually makes the purchase, but the fact that she’s evening considering it is huge. The appeal for her is the cost, for sure—if it turns out to be a mistake, it won’t be a huge mistake. But what also is drawing her is also the fact that netbooks don’t look all that high tech. They don’t take up much room, they don’t have a lot of extra buttons on the keyboard, and they don’t do vast numbers of things she wouldn’t want to do anyway—like edit video or spend hours typing long documents.

But she has been thinking that it would be pretty cool to look up a fact she read somewhere but just can’t remember exactly, or check out a new medication prescribed by her doctor before she orders it.
And that’s enough usefulness to make her part with $250 or so. Once she gets one, I’ll show her how she can keep up with all her grandnieces and nephews on Facebook, and she’ll be set.

Unfortunately, much as I would have liked to, I didn’t run out that moment and get her a new netbook. Because there’s one piece of this puzzle missing—some kind of community wi-fi access. It doesn’t have to be free, it doesn’t have to be fast, but it has to be there; easy to get to at a reasonable price.

Forget dial-up—netbooks don’t even come with built-in modems, and these days the bells and whistle of most web sites mean dial up is just too slow to be viable. Cable modem or DSL would mean new wiring in her home (she’s got one corded wall phone right now, no other jacks), and a box that would have to be installed somewhere, set up, and occasionally rebooted. I can’t see convincing her to go through that hassle and expense.

But community wi-fi would be perfect. She’d need nothing but the netbook, the monthly fee would be reasonable, and, while likely slower than cable or DSL, it’d be moving plenty fast for her needs.
Which got me wondering—what happened to community wi-fi, anyway? I called Sascha Meinrath, research director of the New America Foundation’s wireless future program. He told me that it’s been going great in Europe, but in 2004 or 2005 got sidetracked in the U.S. “The rationale of community wireless, bringing low-cost or free wireless to the masses, got usurped by the corporate model,” he says, “how do we charge money for it.” And the corporations that cities contracted with to build low-cost systems didn’t have a lot of incentive to make those systems succeed, since they’d be competing with their own, higher cost internet access offerings. Earthlink, for example, last year shut down it’s community wireless systems in Philadelphia and New Orleans.

The good news, Meinrath told me, is that community wireless in the U.S. may be starting a new surge. He sees encouraging signs in the efforts of Meraki, a Google-backed startup that’s building low-cost wireless networks for companies, universities, and communities, and other low-cost efforts. He’s starting to see municipal and community groups who looked at community wireless in the past but got put off by the apparently high costs getting ready to take another look at it. And, he says, the $7.2 billion in stimulus funds targeted at increasing broadband access can only help; he’s hoping communities will spend that money on low-cost open source systems instead of expensive proprietary systems to make it go as far as possible.

Now back to my aunt. She still wants that netbook—with Internet access, but without a box in her house. Community wi-fi may be coming, but not soon enough. So I’m thinking, next time I’m visiting I’m going to boot up my laptop and see if I’m picking up any signals; if I am, I’ll go knock on a few doors and see if I can borrow a cup of broadband.

A new concept from the friendly folks at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative:

For Immediate Release
September 24, 2009

The New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative (OTI) is calling for Truth-in-Labeling by our nation's broadband operators. OTI has developed a set of disclosure standards to provide the broadband market-place with a much-needed tool to allow consumers to better understand their broadband subscriptions and compare plans among different operators.

"As the Federal Communications Commission creates a national broadband policy to drive affordable broadband deployment, a key facet of this plan will be empowering customers with the information they need to make informed choices among Internet service providers," stated Sascha Meinrath, Director of New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative. "'Truth in Broadband Advertising' is the key element that ensures that the general public can compare and choose their best broadband options."

OTI has created a sample Broadband Truth-in-Labeling disclosure, in an effort to establish a standardized label for operators to provide consumers with essential information about their broadband subscriptions, including Internet speed, service guarantees, prices, service limits, and other related elements. The label aims at educating consumers about the contents of broadband services to create transparency in the market and increase competition, innovation and consumer welfare.

For full text of the proposal: http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/broadband_truth_labeling.
Please contact Kate Brown with further inquiries at 202-596-3365 or brown@newamerica.net.

About the New America Foundation
The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States.

About the Open Technology Initiative
The Open Technology Initiative formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations and facilitates the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks.

From: Federal News Radio:

Click here to listen to or download the interview. Here's more:

The U.S. is falling behind when it comes to broadband usage and access.

This is according to Sascha Meinrath, Director of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative.

Meinrath recently testified at the FCC Workshop on Next Generation Wireless Technology.

He told the Daily Debrief more about why broadband is so important, why the FCC should do what it can to make sure everyone has access to wireless communications, and what broadband could do for federal agencies in remote locations.

"The FCC now, having realized that we are rapidly losing pace with a growing number of other countries, has decided it is time for us to develop a national broadband policy to, in essence, help spur broadband connectivity across the whole country. So, this would mean both faster speeds and better services in places that are already served and doing the necessary infrastructure development to ensure that those that have been unserved or underserved around the country are actually provided this incredibly important, mission critical resource."

Until the late 1990's, the U.S. was the leader of Internet connectivity.

Ten years later, however, there has been a dramatic shift.

Customers in the United States now pay more for worse services, slower speeds and more limitations than other countries around the world.

The federal government is trying to change this, Meinrath said, with a number of different plans.

"On the one hand, we have this broadband stimulus . . . and that's $7.2 billion, which sounds like a whole money on the face of it, but on the other hand, it's a tiny fraction of what we actually need to be spending as a country to really catch up to other countries around the globe to make a competitive infrastructure for next generation, 21st century economies."

Meinrath used the example of Australia for perspective, which has invested $ 31 billion and has a significantly smaller population.

"The U.S., with $7.2 billion, is spending about $24 per capita and Australia is spending $1,400 per capita. So, all of a sudden one can see that the investment that we're making is really just the tip of the ice berg in terms of what we actually need to be putting into broadband infrastructure."

The problem of getting technology out to rural areas is not new.

Meinrath said the same arguments being used today for broadband access were used at the beginning of the 20th century when the telephone first came into use.

"Today, people look at broadband connectivity as, in some ways, a luxury, because they don't see all of the add-ons that it makes possible -- as a resource, atop which all sorts of commerce and . . . efficiencies are made possible. Unless you keep that holistic view of what broadband makes possible, you fail to really take into account the real meaningful implications and ramifications that broadband connectivity makes possible for everyone."

In today's world, there are also detriments for those who are not connected, Meinrath added.

"As more people get online, those that do not have access to that resource face increasingly insurmountable odds, at everyone from developing and getting out their applications for jobs to accessing resources online to paying their bills -- a whole variety of different things that we take for granted now."

The FCC recently started a blog and joined Twitter to better inform the public about the issues surrounding broadband capabilities.

As far as implementing those changes, Meinrath said he is cautiously optimistic that the FCC Is on the right path.

"I haven't yet seen the plan and I haven't yet seen the meaningful changes being implemented that clearly need to be done. . . . I am quite willing to hold people's toes to the fire to ensure that the changes that need to happen, happen."

Meinrath said that the next three to six months will set a trajectory for the next decade of policies and regulations having to do with broadband.

---

On the Web:


New America Foundation -- Prepared Testimony of Sascha Meinrath Before the FCC Wireless Technology Workshop

FCC -- broadband.gov

FCC on Twitter -- twitter.com/fccdotgov

(Copyright 2009 by FederalNewsRadio.com. All Rights Reserved.)

Please help spread the word!

My colleague, Josh King, and I have been working since 2005 to get IPv6 (Internet addresses) for community networks and everything may come down to the next few weeks. We're asking ARIN to create a process for allocating address space to local broadband networks and could use your support for this proposal. A brief e-mail to the ARIN list is all that's needed. It will take you 1-2 minutes and could help establish a policy that has wide-spread (though little-appreciated) ramifications for the future of community broadband networking. More information is below -- please take 120 seconds to draft an e-mail of support for this proposal.

Thanks,

--Sascha Meinrath
Director, Open Technology Initiative
New America Foundation

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [CWN-Summit] 2008-3 Needs Your Support!
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:21:29 -0500
From: Joshua King

Greetings,

For quite a while now, Acorn Active Media Foundation has been pursuing a IPv6 addressing policy change at the American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN). This policy proposal (numbered 2008-3) is to establish Community Networks as entities which can receive IPv6 address allocations. This policy was pursued for a few reasons:

1. To establish a niche for Community Networks to apply. When Acorn initially applied for an allocation, they didn't know what to do with us. It can be difficult for a disaggregated network to demonstrate the necessary subscribers to qualify as LIR (a Local Internet Registry, usually an ISP).

2. To allow Community Networks to future-proof their networks. Not many upstream providers currently support IPv6.

3. To simplify network architecture. IPv6 mitigates the need for NAT or even DHCP, and can support large single-subnet clouds without collision.

4. For Community Networks to experiment with unique mobile addressing between networks.

5. To try and establish lower fees. Although the policy manual can't contain anything about fees (fees are decided by a separate process), this gives something for the reduced fees to be applied to.

And last and I think most importantly:

6. This policy bucks the trend of just large ISPs having address allocations. There isn't any reason that there shouldn't be an allocation available for community networks, because IPv6 addresses are plentiful. This is the stage where, if we don't want the IPv4 situation of a few large institutions having most of the address space, we should carve out a niche for Community Networks to have their own spot on the Internet.

So if you think this is a good idea, please send a message to the ARIN Policy Proposal Mailinglist voicing your support. The proposal has gone into an comment period before it is decided on by the ARIN Advisory Committee in a couple weeks, so this is the time for the people in ARIN to be reassured that there are actual Community Networks out there who think this is a good idea. It's a small step, but may be a useful one for the greater community of Community Networks. Please forward this message on to anyone you think might be interested. Time is of the essence!

ARIN PPML Contact Address: arin-ppml@arin.net

PPML Archives: http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/arin-ppml

Full text and process background of 2008-3: https://www.arin.net/policy/proposals/2008_3.html

A bit late -- but have been slammed. I speak again on September 9th on the consumer issues panel. Should be a really interesting time of things:

Prepared Testimony of Sascha Meinrath Before the FCC Wireless Technology Workshop

By Sascha Meinrath, New America Foundation
August 13, 2009

I work for a DC-based think tank - holding down the technology arm of the foundation's work.

The Open Technology Initiative formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations; and facilitate the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks.

OTI promotes affordable, universal, and ubiquitous communications networks through partnerships with communities, researchers, industry, and public interest groups; and is committed to maximizing the potentials of innovative open technologies by studying their social and economic impacts - particularly for poor, rural, and other underserved constituencies.

***

Today we are living through a critical juncture in telecommunications history.

A trifecta of recent societal shifts are combining to create a "perfect storm" for advancing policies to better meet the needs of all U.S. residents.

• First, technological advances are creating a whole host of new platforms and hardware to better connect people, dramatically increasing the utility of communications tools.
• Second, consumers everywhere are clamoring for access to advanced services and new applications - driving multi-media production and information dissemination.
• Third, generational shifts amongst our country's key decision-makers are generating the potential for seismic changes in our country's regulatory environment.

Taken together, these factors should be driving a communications renaissanceakin to the introduction of the printing press, telephone, or the Internet itself.

Instead,what we are seeing is a systematic entrenchment of vested interests that are diligently:

1. working to prevent many of the most innovative technologies from ever seeing the light of day;
2. who are engaging in draconian attempts to limit media production and stifle information dissemination; and,
3. as Amy Schatz reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, launching unprecedented lobbying efforts to stagnate or prevent meaningful and much-needed reforms.

Here inside the Beltway, an epic battle is about to be waged between those seeking to create a participatory, distributed, and democratic digital public sphere and forces seeking to re-establish a command-and-control regime over next-generation telecommunications infrastructure.

As the populace shifts from wireline to mobile communications as theirconnectivity norm, wireless technologies are at the very heart of this battle.

Instead of building next-generation networks focused around lowering costs forconsumers and maximizing user control over the services and hardware we have bought, providers are architecting systems that maximize billable moments -commoditizing every new space and function possible.

Instead of fostering interconnectivity of networks and interoperability of devices, theforces of command-and-control seek new ways to capture market share and generate path dependencies to limit customer churn.

Handset exclusivity and the lockdown of cellular phones and PDAs are symptomatic of this business model; but so too are the myriad limitations we've already seen to prevent users from doing everything from streaming video, to Google Voice andSkype.

Historically,over the past 75 years, we have dramatically increased wireless capacity by opening up higher and higher frequencies as the technologies have made these bands viable. Allocations for new uses have paralleled these reforms.

However, assignments to license holders in years' past, being based upon the cutting edge technological capacities of their day, are remarkably in efficient by today's standards.

Today, cognitive and software defined radio technologies allows us to "in-fill"throughout the public airwaves - dynamically reusing empty or underutilized frequencies.

This opportunistic spectrum reuse - and its potential to dramatically decentralize and improve communications - is one of the most powerful tools available for breaking the current strangleholds we face over how we communicate.

Today's technological capabilities have far outstripped many current business practices- straining infrastructure that was built for the wrong purpose.

Tomorrow, this disruptive potential is certain to grow and - so long as current systems remain locked down and service provision fails to meet consumer needs - may achieve explosive proportions.

The question we must all face and answer, is "How do we transition to a moredistributed, participatory, democratic telecommunications system?"

After years of burying our head in the sand, a continuing failure to forthrightly address systematic shortcoming in our wireless communications infrastructure will dramatically increase the headaches (and economic costs) that we will eventually have to face.

Leadership from Congress, from private industry, and from the public interest sector is desperately needed to ensure that these necessary transitions are graceful instead of unmanageable and liberatory instead of harmful.

But most importantly, the onus lies with the FCC to ensure that the future of wireless communications lives up to its democratic potential.

The FCC, through incentives and regulatory fiat has the responsibility to ensure that the public airwaves serve, first and foremost, the best interest of the residents of the United States and leverage the capabilities of open hardwareand software; cognitive radio technologies; and peer-to-peer, distributed infrastructures.

I look forward to hearing how each of my co-panelists sees their company's rolein supporting this mandate and look forward to your questions.