ManyMedia

Freedom to Connect: F2C09

This is David Isenberg’s Freedom to Connect (F2C09) conference, which will be held on March 30-31 in Washington DC. This year’s theme is the Emerging Internet Economy.

I’ve been to a few of his F2C confs and they’re a fascinating mix of Internet and telecom insiders talking on- and off-the record, engaging conversations, topped off by great food and outstanding music. His program for this year is amazing (again).

The registration fee is half-price this month, so it is timely to mention. Who attends and why? From his site:

F2C 2009 presents the people of the Internet who:

• enable economic growth,
• strengthen democracy,
• facilitate creativity and innovation,
• make the Earth greener, and
• lower the barriers that divide people.

F2C 2009 will tell the story of:

• on-line, network-enabled industry and culture, new jobs and sustainable growth
• Burlington VT, where muni fiber enables business, artistic endeavor, and new telemedicine
• how Lafayette LA’s community came together as it built its muni fiber network
• the twin cities of Cedar Falls and Waterloo, Iowa, where one twin has a muni net, and the other doesn’t
• how municipal CIOs are planning for Seattle, Portland and San Francisco municipal fiber networks
• city nets, wired and wireless, that didn’t work — what went wrong and what that teaches
• what Obama’s infrastructure and economic recovery plans mean for tomorrow’s network
• and more…

Events, Network, Policy, Scenarios collaboration, conference, economy, F2C09, fiber, telecom, telecommunications, Washington DC

A significant telecom conference is coming up that will be of interest to serious insiders. It’s about creating change, collaborating and exploring new business opportunities, and growing in ways not yet defined. I’m blogging this conference, so check back for an extended post.

Coming up in a few weeks (January 18-21) in my neighborhood is the Pacific Telecom Council’s 2009 Conference: Collaborating for Change. I’ve heard that this is THE telecom conference to attend if you’re interested in collaborating with others in related fields.

From their website:

Change brings challenges and these challenges are the focus of PTC’09. Services have become far too complex to be developed and offered by a single integrated service provider. Today’s telecommunication services and applications would not be possible without unprecedented collaboration between carriers, software developers, researchers and equipment makers, both in their home countries and across borders.

While challenges remain, change brings many new opportunities as well. PTC’09 will explore these and the strategies and partnerships that bring them to market.

No event embraces the spirit of collaboration more completely than PTC.  For 31 consecutive years, telecommunications companies, equipment and software developers, content and media services providers, vendors, investors, academics and researchers, policy makers and civil society representatives have met each January in Hawaii to forge alliances, negotiate agreements, and to learn from one another’s experiences.

I hope to see some of you there. Read more…

Events, Network, Policy, Scenarios collaboration, conference, economy, fiber, Hawaii, Internet, PTC09, satellite, telecom, telecommunications

Will the courts get it right? Will the FCC? Who will be the first governmental body to show future wisdom in determining guidelines for our regulatory future?

A US court of appeal has rejected a request by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to take another look at its October decision which defined cable TV companies as bit carriers, thereby falling under the FCC guidelines for telecommunications services.

If this court decision remains unchanged, it will mean that all of the wholesale and network sharing rulings that apply to US telcos will now apply to cable companies.

This is the reason that all the telco DSL providers in the US work hand-in-glove with ISPs, but so few of the cable TV companies deliver their services through ISPs. The same applies to Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs).

Network, Policy cable TV, CLEC, court, FCC, guidelines, ILEC, incumbents, telcos, telecom, telecommunications