PolicyBlog

The New York Times has an article today discussing a new study by the Harvard School of Public Health on the benefits of the adoption of electronic medical records and networked information technologies in health care.   The article, entitled “Little Benefit Seen, So Far, in Electronic Patient Records” study is entitled contains the following key conclusions: “The research also underlines the challenge facing the Obama administration as it seeks to accelerate the adoption of electronic health... Read More

A question that keeps coming up in the net neutrality debate turns around business models.   Net neutrality advocates say that “openness” on the Internet is endangered and we need regulations to protect it.  We have argued that this is not true, that there has not been a threat to the openness of the Internet and hence no need for regulation.But what I have also pointed out in a recent blog post is that getting beyond standard, robust Internet connections, there are a range business models... Read More

I read through Harvard’s Berkman Center report which was led by Yochai Benkler.  Okay, it was 232 pages so I “mostly read through it” to paraphrase a famous movie “The Princess Bride” (see it – there is a great scene where the hero is “only mostly dead”.)   I did read the substantive analysis at the beginning (over 100 pages) and skipped only some of the country reports. Benkler and his team of investigators can be commended for the effort that went into what was no doubt a substantial... Read More

Our CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, gave a keynote speech today at the Supercomm conference.   Ivan gave an overview of the industry’s performance and our investment and product strategy at a high level and I thought he raised some interesting facts both as to where we are in the industry and the potential for the future. Some of his key points: “Four years ago, I stood on this stage and talked about how fiber and 3G mobile were transforming broadband and wireless.  Three years ago, we talked about how... Read More

One of the issues mentioned by Chairman Genachowski during this speech at Brookings a few weeks ago was network management.   Here is what the Chairman said: The fifth principle is one of non-discrimination -- stating that broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications. . . This principle will not prevent broadband providers from reasonably managing their networks. During periods of network congestion, for example, it may be appropriate for providers... Read More

Last week, the Chairman of the FCC, Julius Genachowski, discussed some proposals regarding net neutrality and some policies he believes need to be adopted to protect consumers and competition.   We expected the Chairman would initiate this discussion at some point and look forward to providing the facts the Chairman asked for during his speech. A wide number of blog posts were filed in response to the speech of the Chairman and the Washington Post published an editorial that strongly questions... Read More

Two events happened on Friday, September 25th, in Washington, D. C. that included lots of interesting discussion around the issues of network management and the evolution of the Internet, and broadband competition.  I want to cover both but let me start with the event where the “end-to-end” principle was discussed.  I’ll do a second post later this week that summarizes the second event. The  Information Technology and Innovation Foundation held a session to release a new paper by Richard... Read More

  There has been lots of focus recently on the issue of innovation in the tech world.   In fact, the Federal Communications Commission just issued a Notice of Inquiry to probe innovation in the wireless market. So what is innovation in the tech space?  Experts like Clayton Christensen and Pip Coburn have done lots of research on how innovation evolves and how consumers adapt to new and innovative technology.   To me, innovation is any advances or improvements in technology products or services... Read More

I appeared as panelist at the FCC’s Adoption and Use Staff Seminar on August 19th.  The panel was convened to look at patterns of broadband adoption, factors influencing adoption and ideas for increasing adoption.  My comments are outlined below.   I thought they might encourage further dialog and more ideas. LINK  Adoption and Use Panel – Discussion Points Broadband Adoption and Use Broadband is not just faster connections than dial-up.  It is also about “always on” connectivity as well. ... Read More