TPRC

The annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (http://tprcweb.com/) (TPRC) is a non-profit organization, which hosts an annual forum for scholars engaged in publishable research on policy-relevant telecommunications and information issues, and for public- and private-sector decision makers engaged in telecommunications and information policy. The purpose of the conference is to acquaint policymakers with the best of recent research and to familiarize researchers with the knowledge requirements of policymakers and industry. The conference consists of papers selected from reviewed, submitted abstracts, student posters, and selected panel submissions.

There is a call for papers in the fall. The tradition is that abstracts are due in March, although the Program Chair may choose to have these as late as May. In any case, the program committee will respond with decisions in June.

TPRC 2008

The [http://tprcweb.com/node/41 36th Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet] Policy was held September 26 - September 28 at The National Center for Technology & Law, George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia.

There were five tracks of peer-reviewed papers in addition to a number of panels. There were roughly 300 attendees. Research addressed net neutrality from legal, historical, and economic perspectives. Speakers included notables in law and networks, including Nicolas Economides, Eli Noam, Jon Zittrain. The newest topics were the political and economic analysis of IPv6 and the expansion of perspectives on network management.

TPRC 2007

The [http://www.tprc.org/TPRC07/2007.htm 35th Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet] Policy was held September 28 - September 30 at The National Center for Technology & Law, George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia.

Policy Research Subject Matter

Traditionally the TPRC call for papers falls into a subject matter tracks. For the purposes of review, in 2008 there were also orthogonal methodological tracks. These tracks create a very high level guide for the direction of the current program committee of TPRC. Because TPRC program committees tend to have scholars from the core of the community these don't change rapidly but are never identical.

For example, 2007 the subject matter tracks were as follows: Track A: Network Competition Policy and Management: Current and Future Battles Track B: Next Generation and All-IP Networks Track C: Spectrum Policy and Wireless Applications: Anywhere, Anytime Connectivity and its Implications Track D: Societal Issues: Universality, Affordable Access, and ICTs for Development and Growth Track E: The Future of Media Content: Living with YouTube in a Peer-to-peer World Track F: Intellectual Property and Digital Rights Track G: Privacy & Security: Building a Culture of Trust in an Online World

And in 2008, the subject matter tracks were: 1. Network Competition, Policy and Management 2. Next Generation and all-IP Networks: Policy, Regulatory, Architectural and Societal Issues 3. Spectrum Management and Wireless Futures: Anywhere, Anytime Communications and its Implications 4. Societal Issues: Universality and Affordable Access; ICTs for Development and Growth 5. The Transformation and Future of Media in an Age of User- and Community-Produced Creativity 6. The Transformation and Future of Intellectual Property and Digital Rights 7. Privacy, Security, Identity and Trust 8. Internet Governance and Institutional Strategies for Information Policy 9. Other Emerging Topics

The conference had the same core themes. There was an inevitable difference in issues such as traffic management and the international papers were more grouped based on commonality of topic rather than jurisdiction or geography. The following section has details on these themes (obviously excluding "other") and by this describes the core content of the conference itself.

Network Competition, Policy, and Management

While in 2007 the focus remained on facilities-based competition made possible by rapid technological innovation, by 2008 the short, sad history of CLECs was indeed history. The hope was that one could eliminate heavy-handed, command and control regulation, because marketplace self-regulation would suffice. On the other hand, some countries are pursuing very different policies, for example, based on mandatory unbundling. The success or failure of these differing approaches had yet to be demonstrated conclusively.

As multiple platforms for voice and data services evolve, competition remains an issue. With migration to Internet Protocol-based networks, one network can handle many types of converged services. The versatility of a single network raises the regulatory stakes, because governments may have fewer discrete markets to consider what level of oversight to apply. Some market observers argue for even greater deregulation in light of increasingly robust competition among service providers. Others reject this assessment by emphasizing that most consumers acquire broadband access to the Internet via only two technologies provided by cable television and telephone company incumbents, and that increasingly versatile networks offering converged services can reduce the number of potential competitors. Such a dichotomy in perception drives vastly divergent views on the appropriate role of government regulation of the evolving network infrastructure and service markets.

* The implications of convergence for competition (including VoIP and IPTV)
* Access, interconnection, and unbundling in a converged world
* The need for, and viability of, structural safeguards to promote fair competition
* Empirical studies on the actual extent of facilities-based and resale
* Competition and the factors that promote or retard competition
* Multi-platform competition: policies and implications for prices and services
* Whether, and how, governments should create incentives for investment in the next-generation infrastructure
* Regulation of interconnection of IP and circuit-switched networks
* Application of telecommunication regulation to new convergent services
* Pricing
* Deployment of broadband and other advanced infrastructure and services

Next Generation and all-IP Networks and Devices

This topic was also included in 2008. This section includes material from both years.

Technology continues to deliver new generations of devices, which raise novel policy and management questions. The widespread use of a variety of small devices with wireless communication capacity (intelligent sensors) will open up the possibility of novel communication systems; say through ad-hoc networks. Will they allow groups of users to bypass traditional service providers? Or will those service providers develop new systems, in directions that will allow them to control what customers do to an unprecedented degree?

Sessions in this track will explore the issues raised by these new developments. How do current laws apply to these developments, and in what ways should the existing legal and regulatory regime be reformed? Do new problems require similarly innovative regulatory responses? Can they be addressed by nations individually and, if not, what type of international coordination is required or desired? To what extent can they be addressed through architectural design or self-governance rather than regulation? In addition, we are interested in the dynamic effects of policy choices on management decisions and vice versa.

* Next Generation Networks (NGN)
* Sensor networks and ubiquitous video
* Ubiquitous computing
* RFID and location services
* Implications of privately owned, publicly shared infrastructure (e.g., ubiquitous home wireless)
* Traffic shaping and net neutrality
* Regulatory challenges of NGN
* Alternative architectures, management and policy implications
* Social implications of these technologies
* The implications and social architecture of GENI
* Peering, tariffs, and ad-hoc networks

Spectrum Policy and Wireless Applications: Anywhere, Anytime Connectivity and its Implications

The concept of spectrum auctions was an early TPRC innovation. Currently, several countries (including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Guatemala, and New Zealand) have increasingly emphasized spectrum management based on market principles using models akin to property rights, in lieu of traditional government administration. At the same time, many questions remain as to how these property rights should be defined, for example there is a need for a workable legal definition for standard of protection from harmful interference. Common elements among these emerging market-based spectrum management approaches typically include some combination of: initial allocation based on auctions wherever feasible; flexible and well defined spectrum rights maintained for long periods of time; and rights to transfer, trade, or lease spectrum.

In parallel with this evolution is an increased interest in improving the effectiveness of spectrum utilization. Methodologies of interest include collective use or sharing (either in unlicensed or in licensed spectrum), secondary use easements (overlays or underlays), and general liberalization of interference management techniques. The emergence of software-defined radio and cognitive radio offer the promise of greatly enhanced real-time optimization of spectrum resources.

Meanwhile, there are profound unresolved questions regarding institutional arrangements. What is the most appropriate allocation of responsibilities between the government, the regulator, the courts, and the standards bodies? How can governments be encouraged to act efficiently in their own use of spectrum? International organizations (notably the ITU) and other bilateral and multilateral arrangements play an important role in promoting economies of scale and international interoperability (e.g., roaming), but this same standardization may interfere with market-based flexible use - what is the proper balance in the emerging environment? There are also notable political economy issues that hamper many reform efforts, including an obsession with auction revenues and concerns about windfalls to incumbents who might benefit from liberalization.

* Alternative spectrum assignment and use models, including market-based models for managing flexibly licensed or license-exempt spectrum
* Institutional arrangements and political economy challenges to reform
* Encouraging efficient use by the government, without short-changing national security or public safety
* Collective use, including license-exempt use - next steps
* The definition, specification, and enforcement of property rights in spectrum
* Models for management of secondary markets for spectrum
* Interference management
* Harmonization versus flexibility
* Cross-national analysis of market performance for wireless services
* Software-defined radio and cognitive radio
* Ultra wideband (UWB) impacts and policy models
* Empirical estimates and models for valuing spectrum and interference rights
* Experience with new services in license-exempt and licensed bands

Creative Solutions for Connectivity and Access: ICTs for Development and Growth

In 2008 this track was renamed and focused onto "Societal Issues, Universality and Affordable Access in the 21st Century: ICTs for Development and Growth". This change was to indicate that there is no clean line that distinguishes between universal access in depressed areas in the so-called developed world and developing world concerns. In both domains, it is clear that formation and communication technologies (ICTs) have positive impacts on the economic, social, and political development of a country, region, or community. Today governments around the world are attempting to realize the benefits of ICTs and are making efforts to ensure widespread access to these networks and applications. These initiatives can transcend levels of government, ranging from national initiatives to local programs and from mom and pop virtual stores to city-wide connectivity efforts.

Some governments are doing this by promoting access in schools, libraries, and communal facilities. Various mechanisms finance these initiatives. Some have done so through universal service programs that use public funds to catalyze private investments that are not commercially viable on their own. Others require the incumbent to expand the network to certain locations. Municipal networking initiatives are an important class of public sector initiatives. Numerous examples can now be found in the US, Canada, and other developed and developing countries. The private sector has also taken the lead in providing WiFi hotspots to access information networks, in public places such as airports, coffee shops, and fast-food restaurants.

It is uncertain whether governments or private sector entities will ever fund ICT initiatives for lack of resources or potential rewards. Therefore, NGOs are coming up with creative solutions to the national and international digital divide problems.

Connectivity nonetheless is not the only issue. In many communities there is also a need for training and content development that would allow them to fully take advantage of these technologies.

In addition, the notion of universal service is expanding and in developing countries this services go beyond basic connectivity. In Europe, for example, the notion of access expands to a much larger category of users such as the elderly and disabled, and aim to improve not only access to information but also improve quality of life. Even in LDCs governments need to consider whether innovative technologies such as WiFi can be considered as part of universality initiatives supported by government programs.

* ICT initiatives for economic, social, and political empowerment
* Municipal networks
* Community-based networks
* Technologies for social networking
* Funding sources and mechanisms
* The economic rationale for public sector support
* User studies
* Government, private sector and NGOs roles in addressing the digital divide issues
* Assessments of the experiences with public, private, and NGO initiatives
* The role of international organizations
* Social implications of these technologies
* Evidence of the impact of ICT on development

The Transformation and Future of Media in an Age of User- and Community-Produced Creativity

Digital technology and the Internet are transforming the platforms for delivering news, entertainment and other information in significant ways. Today, individual users are increasingly becoming creators: they can share their perspectives with one another via blogs; inexpensively remix traditional media into individual visions; and collaborate with one another via wikis. This wave of creative works is distributed broadly over new peer-to-peer and many-to-many distribution systems. In addition, users have more control over what they watch and when they watch it through "on demand" technologies such as YouTube, MySpace, and other Internet-based distribution platforms.

Wikipedia was not mentioned in the 2008 call for papers. But papers on the collective creation and management of Wikipedia, esp those with data, would be clearly within the scope of the conference. In the discussion of user-created content, Wikipedia has been used as an example.

* The decreasing editorial role of programmers and the question of signals consumers follow regarding what to watch, read, and listen to
* The implications of user-produced creative works and commentary for traditional media producers, the public and creators, themselves
* Whether and how vertical integration between major developers of video programming and distribution platforms affect the marketplace of ideas
* How current regulations must adapt to the increasing variety and interchangeability of sources of content
* Old media outlets (newspapers, local broadcasters) use of new media opportunities ( e.g., podcasts, blogs)
* How the new media environment transforms the delivery of news and information to the public
* Assessments of the dynamic relationships between old and new media, including the issues of how to assess competition between old and new media
* Costs and benefits of public participation in the production and dissemination of news and entertainment
* What types of user characteristics predict involvement in the new emerging participatory activities
* Whether there is equality in access to the new types of tools and resource
* Whether we are seeing a diversity of views represented in new conversations and content creation
* New media, old media, and advocacy

The Transformation and Future of Intellectual Property and Digital Rights

Novel ideas and innovation are essential inputs in the modern information economy. The technologies that allow digital reproduction, storage, and transmission of information continue to reshape the balance between providing sufficient returns to support production of information and ensuring the public’s unfettered access to that information. This transformation is creating new challenges for regulators, firms, and individuals. This session seeks empirical or theoretical papers exploring the complexities of adapting traditional intellectual property models to digital works, technologies, and networks. Issues of particular interest include the legal and economic status of open-source software; regulatory or legal models for encouraging innovation and creativity; the effect of technology on the economic incentives of intellectual property rights; digital rights management; the potential for technology to extend protection for digital works beyond the limits of traditional intellectual property law; the tradability of intellectual property rights; the impact of intellectual property rights on public participation in the production and dissemination of news and entertainment; the Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Broadcast Flag; the implications of vigilante copyright protection; liability for indirect infringement online post-Grokster; software and e-commerce patents; international and trade issues; and the relationship between intellectual property and related doctrines of contract and antitrust.

This was expanded in 2008, to include the 2007 topics:

* Copyrights, patents, and trademarks
* Metadata
* Trade secrets and practices
* Technological controls
* Digital rights management
* Alternative specification of digital rights

and included:

* Ownership of social information and metadata
* Economics of owned content: use as complement, substitute, loss or revenue stream
* Open ownership models for code and content
* Technological controls and digital rights management
* Filtering technologies
* Alternative specification of digital rights

Privacy & Security: Building a Culture of Trust in an Online World

Renamed "Privacy, Security, Identity & Trust" for 2008 this track often includes material that would be appropriate for economics of security. Security and privacy issues constitute a complex web of inter-related. Concerns with cyber-threats have been increasing over the years. What are the policy issues that flow from this? Are economic incentives sufficient to motivate necessary investments, or are there some desirable network infrastructure security investments that are "public goods" for which private investment will most likely be insufficient to meet societal needs?

That privacy and trust are contested concepts has long been recognized. As the Internet and telecommunications become ever more deeply entwined with economics, enjoyment, politics and employment security and identity have also become more fluid. Identification in a digital world is made more problematic by issues of liability, and human conceptions of virtual spaces. The capabilities of humans to remember numbers and facts for self-authentication conflict with the need for security that cannot be defeated in less than ten minutes of computer processing time. As identity and security becomes more complex privacy cannot be simplified. The potential for surveillance that has been predicted in theory arrives in practice. The American presidential campaign halts for a day as Senators fight to maintain the requirement for warrants for digital searches. European, Asian and American concepts of free speech, privacy, and autonomy conflict and co-exist in the virtual realm. This theme of the conference invites domestic, international or comparative work.

Technology continues to deliver new generations of devices, which raise novel policy and management questions. Pervasive computing moves from the laboratory to the home, as seniors embrace home-based sensor networks which can function as loving daughter or Big Brother. How will access to these private recordings and private recordings in public places be regulated? Similarly, spread of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) as well as location services in wireless telephony will likely mean that where we have been at any time will be known with great precision. On line, increases in processing power and policy-based routing enable service providers develop new systems, in directions that will allow them to control what customers do to an unprecedented degree.

Current laws have proven insufficient to deal with phishing, pharming, spam, identity theft, criminal identity theft and other emerging threats. What additional concerns are raised by the borderless nature of cyber-space, the international nature of these threats and the ease with which the operations of these cyber-criminals can be moved from one country to another?
* Privacy
* Security, vulnerabilities and authentication
* Identity, including identity theft
* National, international and cooperative private efforts to address international networked criminal activity
* Data protection
* Governmental and private sector surveillance, including their interactions
* Surveillance in public places
* Private sector surveillance
* Social networks and information exposure
* Tracking, taxation and security in games
* Liability for security failures and losses
* Disclosure requirements for security failures and data loss
* Spam as international economic, criminal, technical and/or legitimate activity.

History

TPRC was founded in 1972 by a group of regulators, governmental researchers and diverse academic communities met at the first Telecommunications Policy Research Conference (subsequently renamed TPRC) organized by the Office of Telecommunications Policy in the White House. As communications policy has grown in importance, to where the very term “telecommunications” is inadequate, the conference has evolved and expanded. TPRC saw the birth of the discourse on spectrum auctions. TPRC offered the first panel on the social and political implications of e-commerce in 1994. This prestigious conference has increasingly emphasized the interaction between disciplines, including network science, economics, and social sciences.

See, From A Novel Conference: The Origin of TPRC, by Bruce M. Owen from the book: TELEPHONY, THE INTERNET, AND THE MEDIA Selected Papers from the 1997 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference. Edited by Jeffrey K. MacKie-Mason, University of Michigan and David Waterman, Indiana University [http://www.tprc.org/origins.pdf link title]

* Chair in 2008 L Jean Camp * Chair in 2007 and 2006 [http://ischool.syr.edu/facstaff/member.aspx?id=172 Martha A Garcia-Murillo] * Chair in 2005 [http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/a/105/about_staffer.asp John Horrigan] * Chair in 2004 [http://www.cybertelecom.org/cannon.htm Robert Cannon] * Chair in 2003 [http://www.cybertelecom.org/cannon.htm Robert Cannon]