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KMB VIDEO JOURNAL

PARTICIPATING TELECOM LEADERS

Conference Speaker Michele C. Farquhar, Partner, Hogan & Hartson; serves as co-director of the firm’s communications group. She focuses her practice on commercial and private wireless and mass media regulation, strategic planning on complex spectrum allocation and auction-related transactional issues, regulation and licensing of new domestic and foreign technologies, and global telecommunications convergence and competition issues. She has extensive experience in practice before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and federal courts as well as U.S. Congress, the White House, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and international regulatory bodies. Before joining Hogan & Hartson as a partner, Michele served as Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau at the FCC, where she had primary responsibility for the Bureau’s implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and numerous rulemaking proceedings, spectrum auctions, licensing and ownership issues, and enforcement matters. Under her leadership, the Bureau undertook rulemaking proceedings addressing interconnection, resale and roaming, enhanced wireless 911, refarming, and microwave relocation; she also developed auction rules and enhanced flexibility for many different wireless services, including local multipoint distribution service (LMDS), paging, specialized mobile radio service, wireless communications service, and new services at the microwave and millimeter wave frequencies.

Conference Speaker Dr. Robert W. Crandall, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies Brookings Institution. Robert Crandall focuses on telecommunications and cable television regulation, industrial organization and policy, and the changing regional structure of the U. S. economy. He is author or coauthor of many books, including Competition and Chaos: U.S. Telecommunications since the 1996 Telecom Act, (Brookings 2005) Broadband: Should We Regulate Internet Access? ( Brookings, 2002) Telecommunications Liberalizing on Two Sides of the Atlantic (AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, 2001) and Who Pays for Universal Service? (Brookings, 2000).

Conference Speaker Rick Cimerman, is Vice President, State Government Affairs, National Cable & Telecommunications Association Rick is the Senior Director of State Telecommunications Policy. He joined NCTA as a Director in January 1995. His primary responsibility is to aid State Cable Associations and cable companies in working with Public Utility Commissions to facilitate local telecommunications competition. Rick currently co-chairs the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee's Broadband Task Force, serves as the Program Chair for the NARUC/NECA National Summit on Broadband Deployment and is the past president of the National Coalition for Technology and Education in Training (NCTET). He has testified across the country before numerous state Public Service Commissions and Legislatures. He has also served as an adjunct faculty member of Michigan State University's NARUC Annual Regulatory Studies Program and serves as a member of New Mexico State University's Center for Public Utilities Advisory Committee. Prior to joining NCTA he worked for nearly three years as the Director of the Telecommunications Division of the Maryland Public Service Commission. Rick oversaw the Telecommunications Division at a time when Maryland became one of the first states to allow local exchange competition. While at the Commission he managed a professional staff of accountants, economists, and engineers and provided expert testimony on behalf of the staff.Rick also worked for two and a half years at the Florida Public Service Commission with an emphasis on issues related to competition and emerging competition. He holds a Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Economics from the University of Florida where he studied public utility economics in association with the Public Utility Research Center (PURC) at the University of Florida. Rick is also a former Jeopardy TV game show winner.

Conference Speaker Robert C. Atkinson, Director of Policy Research, CITI Columbia University. For 18 months prior to joining CITI, Mr. Atkinson was the Deputy Chief of the FCC's Common Carrier Bureau. Mr. Atkinson negotiated the conditions associated with the FCC's approval of the SBC-Ameritech merger and was responsible for the substance of many major FCC decisions, including: UNE Remand; Line Sharing; Bell Atlantic-GTE and Qwest-US West mergers; Broadband Deployment (Sec.706) Report; and, Local Competition & Broadband Deployment data gathering. In 2001, the FCC appointed Mr. Atkinson to be the Chairman of the North American Numbering Council. Beginning in 1985, Mr. Atkinson was responsible for the regulatory, public policy and external affairs activities of Teleport Communications Group (TCG), the nation's first Competitive Access Provider (CAP) and Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC). In 1994 he became Senior Vice President for Legal, Regulatory & External Affairs when his role was expanded to include responsibility for TCG's Legal Department. When AT&T acquired TCG in July 1998 and TCG became AT&T Local Services, Mr. Atkinson was Vice President and Chief Regulatory Officer of AT&T Local Services until he joined the FCC. Throughout his career, Mr. Atkinson played a leading role in most of the key regulatory and public policy decisions that introduced competition to the local telephone markets and shaped the Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) industry.

Conference Speaker Geoff Daily, DC-based technology journalist, Broadband activist, marketing consultant, and Internet entrepreneur. Geoff write for App-Rising.com which covers the development and adoption of broadband applications, the deployen of and need for broadband networks, and the demands placed on policy to adapt to the revolutionary opportunities made possible by the Internet.

Conference Speaker Ken Robinson, currently a Washington Attorney, was Senior Legal Advisor to Al Sikes, Chairman, FCC. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he received both his A.B. and J. D. in 1966 and 1969. He has served as Attorney, Evaluation and Special Regulated Industries Sections, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 196y9-70; Counsel, Office of Telecommunication Policy, Executive Office of the President, 1970-74; and policy advisor to Assistant Secretaries of Commerce for Communications and information – Henry Geller, Bernard J. Wunder David J. Markey, Acting Assistant Secretary Rodney Joyce, and Alfred Sikes. He is a member of the D.C. and N.C. bars. Mr. Robinson has made and is making continuous significant policy contributions in the American telecommunications milieu.

Conference Speaker Barbara Esbin, Senior Fellow , Director, Center for Communications and Competiton Policy, The Progress & Freedom Foundation. Esbin served for over fourteen years at the Federal Communications Commission, most recently as Special Counsel in the Market Disputes Resolution Division of the Enforcement Bureau. Before joining the Enforcement Bureau at the FCC, Esbin spent four years as Associate Bureau Chief at the Commission's Media Bureau. There, she represented the Bureau on a number of inter-agency efforts and led the review of several major industry mergers and rulemakings addressing cable and broadband competition issues. Esbin has also served as Associate Bureau Chief of the Cable Services Bureau, Special Counsel for Competition and Senior Policy Advisor at the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, and Attorney-Advisor and Assistant Tariff Division Chief of the Common Carrier Bureau. She has spent time in private practice, specializing in cable and broadband regulatory issues between her two FCC engagements, and electric utility regulation prior to joining the FCC. Esbin had two judicial clerkships in the North Carolina appellate system and is a graduate of the Duke University School of Law and Antioch College.

Conference Speaker Hank Hultquist, Vice President, Federal Regulatory, AT& T. Hank joined AT&T (then SBC) in 2004. He represents AT&T at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on a number of issues including broadband and Internet policy, video and media policy, intercarrier compensation, and universal service. He is a member of the Board of Direcors of the Wireless Communications Association (WCA) and serves on the North American Numbering Cuncil (NANC). Prior to joining AT&T, he was wih MCI for eight years. He is a graduate of the George Mason University School of Law and Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Anna Maria Kovacs, President, Regulatory Source Associates
Anna-Maria Kovacs is founder and President of Regulatory Source Associates LLC. RSA provides investment professionals with analysis of federal and state regulation of the telecom and cable industries. Kovacs has followed the telecommunications industry for over 20 years, as either an analyst or consultant. Her undergraduate degree in Economics and English is from Boston University. Her Ph.D., from Harvard University, is in Comparative Literature with extensive work in Economic History. Her MBA is also from Harvard. Kovacs is a CFA.

Brent Legg Brent C. Legg currently serves as Vice President of State & Local Initiatives for Connected Nation. In that role, Mr. Legg provides primary management of Connected Nation’s national (state-by-state) strategy. Brent coordinates the work of Connected Nation as the organization expands its engagements in and to other states, particularly focusing on those states lacking a statewide technology private-public partnership. Previously, Mr. Legg has served as Field Director for United States Congressman Geoff Davis (KY-4), senior legislative liaison to former Kentucky Education Cabinet Secretary Virginia Fox, and assistant policy advisor to Governor Ernie Fletcher during his 2003 gubernatorial campaign. Mr. Legg graduated Magna Cum Laude from Transylvania University in 2003 with a degree in political science and is a 2002 graduate of the Hansard Scholars Programme for Parliamentary Government at the London School of Economics in London, England. While completing his undergraduate degree, Mr. Legg interned in the offices of United States Senator Mitch McConnell and The Right Honorable Michael Howard, QC MP, former Conservative Party Leader of the United Kingdom.

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KMB Video Journal

43rd Participatory Conference

A KMB Video Report on Telecom Policies for Broadband Deployment to Strengthen America’s Economy

Introduction. The KMB Video Journal has been convening leading decision-makers and opinion-leaders to discuss important national telecommunications and information policies for more than a quarter century. Virtually hundreds of business, Federal and state government, academic and public service leaders have participated in dozens of KMB’s invitational conferences.

The Latest Conference – Briefly. On May 4-5, 2009, KMB hosted its 43d conference, at the Dolphin Beach conference center in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida. The focus of the conference was the Obama Administration’s ambitious $7.2 billion broadband development program, included in the “stimulus package” passed by Congress and signed into law earlier this year (Public Law No. 110-385).

Participating in this latest KMB conference were –

Robert C. Atkinson. One of the local competition pioneers who worked with Teleport for years, Atkinson is an expert on state and local regulation. He also served as Deputy Chief of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Common Carrier Bureau (now “Wireline Competition Bureau”). At present, Mr. Atkinson is Director of Policy Research with Columbia University’s Center for Tele-Information (CITI), part of the university’s world-renowned business school.

Rick Cimerman. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s (NCTA) state government affairs vice president, Mr. Cimerman is an authority on state and local regulation of broadband and cable television services. Mr. Cimerman is also an expert on FCC policies and practices. He has represented the cable industry in FCC many proceedings and has broad familiarity with cable’s broadband plans and policies.

Robert W. Crandall. Dr. Crandall is a Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He is an internationally acclaimed student of regulatory policies. In addition to telecommunications and information services, Crandall is an authority on energy, transportation, and manufacturing. He worked with the Ford Administration in its pioneering deregulatory initiatives.

Geoff Daily. Mr. Daily is a leading writer and opinion-maker, commenting on a diversity of Internet, information and regulatory policy, business performance and development, and other topics. He is a respected commenter on broadband topics and issues, and has written and commented extensively on the ongoing broadband stimulus program.
Michele C. Farquhar. Ms. Farquhar served as Chief-of-Staff of the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), then Chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. At present, she is co-director of Hogan & Hartson’s Communications Group. Ms. Farquhar also served as President of the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA). She has been extensively involved in the wireless industry’s response to the ongoing broadband program.

Hank Hultquist. Mr. Hultquist is an AT&T vice president responsible to present and defend the company’s policies before the FCC. He has also been involved in developing and presenting AT&T’s positions regarding the Obama Administration’s broadband stimulus program. Mr. Hultquist is a Washington communications policy veteran, having worked with MCI earlier in his career.

Anna-Maria Kovacs. Dr. Kovacs heads Regulatory Source Associates. She is a leading financial analyst with years of experience monitoring FCC policies and actions, and their impact on the investment community and the public. She has written extensively regarding the ongoing broadband stimulus effort.

Brent Legg. Mr. Legg is a Connected Nation vice president, with experience in “mapping” the availability of broadband services. Connected Nation has mapped and developed broadband development plans in a number of states including Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. Legg has first-hand knowledge and experience regarding state as well as Federal broadband policies.

Ken Robinson. Mr. Robinson served as a senior aide to five NTIA Assistant Secretaries of Commerce, and worked at the Antitrust Division, Executive Office of the President, and FCC as well. He practices communications law in Washington.

Five Segments. The conference was divided into five segments dealing with: (1) Broadband Provisions of the New Stimulus Act; (2) Broadband Systems & Programs; (3) Broadband Needs in Healthcare and Education; (4) Administration of the Stimulus Program; and (5) Desirable National Goals and Initiatives. All of these segments and discussion were filmed.

Dr. Kovacs briefly explained that the “stimulus package” provided for $2.5 billion in grants and loans by the Agriculture Department’s Rural Utilities Service, and $4.7 billion in grants by the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA). Mr. Legg then explained how there actually were a number of programs here -- $3.9 billion for “infrastructure,” but also some (a) $200 million to enhance community communications centers (e.g., libraries), (b) $250 million for enhance and foster broadband adoption, and (c) $350 million to secure more accurate, reliable, broadband data. In this last regard, Legg quickly summarized Connected Nation’s pioneering efforts in Kentucky and other states.

Mr. Cimerman explained that cable television currently offers high-speed Internet access to about 92% of households, though about 35 million do not now subscribe. He explained how the “National Broadband Plan” being developed by the FCC will be important independent of the broadband stimulus spending. In that regard, Drs. Kovacs and Crandall both noted that the cable, telecommunications, satellite, and wireless industries currently are investing much more than the stimulus program amounts, and are likely to continue to do so.

Mr. Hultquist explained how AT&T had recommended the FCC’s four “network neutrality” principles apply in the case of both NTIA and RUS funding, but he also noted that no one currently knows what the final rules will be. He joined with Mr. Atkinson and discussed potential wireless efforts to expand broadband coverage and use. In that regard, there was a discussion of the “backhaul” costs which wireless networks entail, costs which some contend are very high.

Conference participants quickly reviewed a number of specific broadband requirements and expectations, with a special focus on healthcare – both in the home and elsewhere (at the workplace, for instance, or between hospitals and other facilities). Messrs. Hultquist and Cimerman described briefly the services their company and the cable industry already provide. In this regard, there was also a discussion of the needs and expectations of older Americans – and, the relationship between broadband, new applications, and the current pressures to deliver better healthcare but at lower costs.

Participants discussed the difficulties the FCC will experience, developing a “national plan” which needs to take into account a number of Federal, state, and local government programs – as well as those underway in the private sector. In this regard, there was also discussion of the value of identifying barriers and obstacles to broadband deployment and use. It was noted that the Obama Administration has now appointed both a Chief Information Officer and a Chief Information Officer. Participants agreed it would be helpful if these senior Federal officials helped put together a list of barriers.

There was a discussion of how the conference participants expect NTIA and RUS to administer this major Federal program. NTIA is expected to make awards and issue funds in three tranches. Among the criteria NTIA is expected to assess and evaluate are the timeliness of the proposed effort – how quickly can facilities be installed and services provided? Then, the long-run sustainability of the project – can it be expected to survive without future Federal support. And, the experience of the applicant.

The need for NTIA to secure additional technical and administrative help was discussed, including the possible loan of FCC personnel. Ms. Esbin noted, however, that much of the FCC staff is lawyers who have expertise in FCC rules and regulations – not necessarily the grant-making challenges NTIA is likely to face.

The conference participants discussed issues ranging from privacy. data security, and consumer safeguards and the contribution advanced communications can make toward solving national energy and health care challenged.

There was extensive discussion of the need to ensure that broadband projects generate usable data – on the impact broadband has on education, for example, or healthcare. In that regard. Dr. Crandall suggested that NTIA and RUS might want to contact Obama Administration officials with relevant experience – e.g., former Professor Austin Goolsby – to ensure that the best questions are asked, and the most useful data generated.

Mr. Daily discussed trends in the industry which suggest speeds in the 100 MB range will be desirable soon. There was recognition that would require substantial capital investment. There also was a discussion of the implications of expanding the definition of “universal service” to include such very high-speed connections.

The conference participants concluded with brief comments and recommendations. All stressed, for instance, the need to foster an investment community conducive to maximum private sector investment. All stressed the importance of grants and experiments that are likely to produce useful and transferable information and results. All the participants also observed that the broadband stimulus program did not obviate the need for regulators to address and to resolve, on a timely basis, longstanding issues such as intercarrier compensation.

The full range of discussions is shown in the video segments which follow.