Full Future for Fiber - from Flatirons

This would have been a good conference to attend, I think. This summary below echoes the analysis I began last week in my white paper On Structural Change.

From the Silicon Flatirons website:

The Digital Broadband Migration: Information Policy for the Next Administration
@ University of Colorado at Boulder, February 10-11, 2008

The transformation of telecommunications from an analog, narrowband network optimized for voice to a digital, broadband network optimized for data traffic has created a myriad of challenges for businesses, policymakers, and academics alike. Consider that, in 2000, when then-FCC Commissioner Michael Powell coined the term "the digital broadband migration," the iPod had yet to be rolled out to consumers and Google was not yet a verb. Seven years later, the iPod has revolutionized the music industry, the iPhone is sending shock waves through the wireless world, and the Apple TV may similarly bring dramatic changes to video programming markets.

In 2009, the next President will take office with an array of information policy questions demanding attention. This conference aims to underscore the challenging policy issues that will be high on any new administration's agenda. In particular, we will evaluate questions related to changing broadband and wireless markets; challenges related to protecting privacy and security; and the optimal direction for intellectual property reform. With a thoughtful array of leaders from academic, industry, and governmental circles, we believe that this conference will continue the Silicon Flatirons' tradition of encouraging "bolder thinking" in Boulder. Like its predecessors, the proceedings from this conference will be published in the next volume of the Journal on Telecommunications and High Technology Law.

So, that from the academics at Univ. of Colorado at Boulder.

And check this out over at Harvard Law School, where there is an actual course on all this stuff - here's the syllabus, in fact: The Web Difference - Syllabus (ever evolving). David Weinberger is the collaborator and co-teacher of the course.

Of course, David is the Internet luminary - coauthor of the Cluetrain Manifesto - whose popular blog is Joho the Blog, yet another great website I don't read nearly enough of. I should go back and review that Manifesto, first published nearly nine years ago (April 1999), as no doubt it informed my thoughts On Structural Change. For that matter, I urge you to check it out at their website, here. It's hard to believe the Internet has come so far, so fast.