Communications Crossroads - Fall 2008 - (Page 22)

straight talk Recently, USTelecom President and CEO Walter B. McCormick Jr. delivered remarks to The Media Institute. Here are some excerpts. Just a few years ago, the Media Institute probably would not have been interested in having the president of what was then the United States Telephone Association address media issues. But it’s a different world today. With blogs and You Tube and the Internet, journalism has changed. The media have changed. They have evolved. So, too, the United States Telecom Association. Our industry is not one of 20th Century telephone companies—today, the companies we represent are 21st Century broadband companies. And there is no industry more central to the new media—to the converged media—than the wireline and wireless network service providers that are making broadband Internet communications possible. At USTelecom, we are proud to represent this highly competitive and innovative marketplace that is of central importance to the nation’s 21st century, informationbased economy. Delivering the On-Demand World This greater participation in our democracy is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what broadband makes possible in our lives today. In entertainment and news and sports, we see the emergence of a new on-demand environment—content that ﬁts into your individual schedule and your way of life. You can watch a show when it airs, or later on a network Web site, or record it to your DVR. Technology is advancing toward converged, multi-platform offerings, with wireless offering seamless mobility to access the information you want whenever you want it. It is news, information, entertainment, e-mail and voice communications, and the Internet all while on the go. infrastructure; that’s more than three times the annual investment in the original interstate highway program and seven times the annual investment in Apollo. We Are Broadband What we advocate—what we believe to be in everyone’s interest—is a policy environment that encourages investment and deployment. An environment where anyone who wants to invest and compete in the provision of broadband services has the freedom to do so. Today, there is valuable synergy. The more people use broadband, the more investment that occurs in broadband infrastructure—from more companies. Today, we have very effective competition among cable, telecom, wireless, satellite and other providers. Consumers have lots of options, lots of choices. Just ﬁve years ago, we wondered what the killer app would be that would drive people en masse to broadband. Today, we ﬁnd that the killer app is speech. Speech in all of its forms: political speech, commercial speech, news and information, entertainment, individual speech, the sharing of pictures, social networking, e-mail and instant messaging. Imagine that. Speech is the killer app. Broadband communications: Advancing freedom of speech. The companies USTelecom represents are proud to be at the cuttingedge of this new medium. The Pivotal Role of Private Investment Consumers are responding to the many applications made possible by this next-gen web. They are buying broadband. High-speed Internet adoption is picking up across virtually all demographics, including working families and minorities. Three out of four U.S. households that access the Internet now do so via broadband. And, the speed and capacity of the nation’s broadband networks continue to grow with ongoing investment. Last year alone, private companies invested more than $70 billion in North American communications Enhancing Our Democratic Process Broadband is improving our democratic process. Thanks to broadband, candidates are getting their message out, direct and unﬁltered. And broadband is enhancing individual freedom of expression and diversity of views. If you look at a good portion of political ads shared on the Internet, they are not ads produced by candidates or national party committees but by individual Americans: individual voters, college students, entertainers and a fair number of amateur comedians. Thanks in no small part to broadband, a new generation of Americans is engaging in politics more actively and in greater numbers than we have seen in many years; competing themselves in the “marketplace of ideas” and participating directly in our in democracy in what many are calling the ﬁrst true 21st century campaign. JUST FIVE YEARS AGO, WE WONDERED WHAT THE KILLER APP WOULD BE THAT WOULD DRIVE PEOPLE EN MASSE TO BROADBAND. TODAY, WE FIND THAT THE KILLER APP IS SPEECH. 22 COMMUNICATIONS CROSSROADS www.ustelecom.org http://www.ustelecom.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Communications Crossroads - Fall 2008

Communications Crossroads - Fall 2008 Up Front Contents TeleBites The Urge to Merge The 700 MHZ Auction: Results and Speculation Industry Calendar Advertisers DotCom Index to Advertisers People Straight Talk

Communications Crossroads - Fall 2008

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