CITI Seminar: Spending the Broadband Stimulus: Maximizing Benefits and Monitoring Performance (Washington, D.C.) - 2/19/2009call for input

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Atkinson <rca53 () columbia edu>
Date: February 5, 2009 3:46:32 PM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: FW: CITI Seminar: Spending the Broadband Stimulus: Maximizing  
Benefits and Monitoring Performance (Washington, D.C.) - 2/19/2009

Dave,

I’d be interested in getting questions from IPers to pose to the  
participants in this symposium on the broadband stimulus.  Speakers  
and other details will be announced shortly.  This is a free event  
(but please register) so any IPers in the DC area on Feb. 19 are  
welcome to pose their questions in person.

Bob


Robert C. Atkinson
Director of Policy Research
Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI)
http://www.citi.columbia.edu

office: 212-854-7576
mobile: 908-447-4201

E-mail: rca53 () columbia edu
alt: bob () robertcatkinson com





The Columbia Institute for Tele-Information
Columbia Business School
and
The Georgetown Center for Business & Public Policy
McDonough School of Business Present
SPENDING THE BROADBAND STIMULUS: Maximizing Benefits and Monitoring  
Performance
FEBRUARY 19, 2009
9:00am - 12:30pm

National Press Club
529 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC
$6 billion or more of the overall economic stimulus package will be  
allocated towards the deployment and use of broadband communications  
services. The bill, directed the FCC, NTIA, and the Department of  
Agriculture's Rural Utility Service (RUS) to adopt quickly the rules  
and regulations that will govern how the money will be spent. The  
implementing rules and regulations will determine who gets how much,  
what is built and how the stimulus will affect the broader economy.   
These agencies also control billions of dollars in other programs,  
such as the Universal Service Fund, grants and rural loan programs,  
which could also be focused on broadband stimulation.  This symposium  
will consider how these considerable sums should be spent to achieve  
the greatest impact on jobs and economic growth.

 Agenda

9:00 SETTING THE STAGE: Introducing the Issues
John Mayo – Professor, Georgetown Univerity’s McDonough Business  
School and Executive Director, Georgetown Center for Business & Public  
Policy
Eli Noam – Professor, Columbia Business School and Director, Columbia  
Institute for Tele-Information
9:25 – 9:45 THE BROADBAND STIMULUS PACKAGE
Summary of the plan
    -How much is available?
    -Statutory goals
    -Implementation process
9:50 – 10:25 ECONOMIC AND POLICY ANALYSIS OF THE STIMULUS
Are there any relevant lessons from earlier US broadband acceleration  
efforts?
What can learn from other nation’s broadband programs (i.e, Japan,  
Korea, Sweden)?
How might broadband stimulus programs affect:
    -Telecom and internet competition?
    -Applications and content?
    -US telecom equipment suppliers?
What are likely to be the most effective ways to stimulate:
    -Deployment in unserved/underserved areas?
    -Availability of higher speed services?
    -Adoption by consumers not currently using broadband?
How will accelerating broadband deployment create US jobs?  What kind?  
How many? How quickly?
Can the economic impact of a broadband stimulus plan be estimated?
What are the job-creation and other multiplier effects benefits to the  
broader economy of:
    -Deployment of broadband to currently unserved areas?
    -Higher speed broadband to already served areas?
    -Adoption of broadband by new users?
10:30 – 11:30  THE ALL-IMPORTANT RULES AND REGULATIONS: The Devil Will  
Be in the Implementation Details (once a statute is enacted)
What are the timelines for the implementing agencies? Can the  
schedules be met?
Are the statute’s broadband speed thresholds “most of the time”  
minimums, tested averages, designed “up to” speeds, or something else?
What is an “underserved” or an “unserved” area for purposes of  
stimulus support?
Will “open access” or “non-discrimination” be required and how will  
the requirement be enforced?
And many additional implementation issues once the bill is passed
11:35 – 12:15  SETTING GOALS AND MEASURING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE  
STIMULUS: How Will We Know If the Stimulus Is Working As Planned?
What useful lessons have been learned from RUS loan programs and  
Universal Service Fund and past social contracts?
How will the benefits of accelerated deployment be valued and measured?
Goal: numbers of additional homes servable and served with “broadband”  
in 9, 18 and 24 months
Goal: stimulus cost per additional home
Goal: price levels for various broadband offerings
Goal: increased usage in job-creating applications
Who will count the users in served and unserved, measure the speeds  
and determine the prices paid by consumers against the goals?
12:15 – 12:30 CONCLUSIONS Registration A complete speaker lineup will  
be announced shortly.

To register, please visit http://www.ersvp.com/r/broadbandstimulus.

For more information, please contact John Heywood, Assistant Director  
of CITI, at jwh2121 () columbia edu <mailto:jwh2121 () columbia edu> .   
Conference Organized by The Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at  
Columbia Business School & The Georgetown Center for Business & Public  
Policy at the McDonough School of Business







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