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ICFC 1998
Internationally Known Speakers |
Robert W. Crandall, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, Brookings Institution “Liberalizing Telecommunications Markets: Is the U.S. Still Leading the Way?
Although the United States led the way in opening telecom markets to competition in the 1970s, it may soon be eclipsed by countries who only began this process in the 1990s. The 1996 Telecommunications Act was supposed to complete the opening of U.S. markets, but two years later it appears to have created a new regulatory web from which participants cannot extricate themselves.
Perhaps the U.S. should learn from the market-opening approaches used by the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Chile, and even some smaller nations. A much less regulatory approach with greater incentives for facilities-based competition utilized by other countries should work better than one which relies too much on entrants’ use of incumbents’ facilities.
Robert W. Crandall is the author of Talk is Cheap: The Promise of Regulatory Reform in North American Telecommunications (with Leonard Waverman); Cable TV: Regulation or Competition? (with Harold Furchtgott-Roth); After the Breakup: The U.S. Telecommunications Sector in a More Competitive Era, and numerous journal articles.
Dr. Crandall was a Johnson Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution and has taught economics at MIT, Northwestern University, The University of Maryland, George Washington University, and the Stanford in Washington Program. Prior to assuming his current position, he was Acting Director, Deputy Director and Assistant Director of the Council on Wage and Price Stability.
Dr. Alan Pearce, President, Information Age Economics, Inc.
“Internet and the World Wide Web: Business, Political and Policy Implications for the Next Millennium”
The Internet and the World Wide Web are again attracting the attention of politicians and policymakers in Washington D.C.—and throughout the world! Major U.S. political and policy questions to be tackled include:
- What long-term effect will mergers and acquisitions between long-distance carriers and Internet providers such as WorldCom, MFS, and UUNET have on U.S. and global markets?
- How should the telecommunications infrastructure be upgraded to provide higher levels of service at affordable prices?
- How and in what ways, can the FCC, with its Notice Inquiry assist in improving the reliability of the Internet and the World Wide Web?
- What kind of Global Information Infrastructure is needed for the future and who will build it?
As one of the prime architects of public policy at the Federal Communications Commission in the 1970s, Dr. Alan Pearce helped lay the foundation of a new information era. Before establishing IAE in 1978, he held a series of positions in the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.
Dr. Pearce also is a part-time faculty member in the Marshall Graduate School of Business (Center for Telecommunications Management) at the University of Southern California. His latest book, The U.S. Telecommunications Market (co- authored with Alan Stewart), was published by Advanstar. He is also a contributing editor to two leading trade publications, Network World and America's Network.