April 23.2008

National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor
Washington, 20045

The two symposium sessions, Infrastructure access: Fairness and Efficiency, and Serving the Public Interest in the Next Generation Media, and the keynote speech by FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell are dedicated to an examination of the current and emerging policy challenges as media and communication industries migrate to IP platforms.

Next-generation IP-based networks will most likely be more strongly differentiated into a transportation layer and an application and services layer. In the emerging environment of inter-modal competition between multiple broadband platforms, the interests of platform providers and content providers will often be aligned but may sometimes at odds. Is the possibility of such frictions sufficient reason to mandate certain nondiscrimination principles or may they be dealt with more efficiently on a case by case basis? Will the absence of non-discrimination bias the evolution of technical network architectures toward more closed approaches that may hamper innovation in the long run? How will we best handle massive amounts of traffic as multimedia applications proliferate? Under which conditions will there be sufficient investment in next-generation infrastructure to close the gap that has opened to other nations?

With new media, users are both sources as well as recipients of information. What are the policy interests in the types of services and user-to-user relationships this new functionality has unleashed? Failures of commercial media to adequately supply socially-important information services is the traditional rational for public broadcasting. Will there be similar unmet public needs in a future dominated by IP-based services? If so, how should policy respond?

More information about the schedule is availible here.

The symposium is free to the public but prior registration is requested. Register Now.