The USC Gould School of Law and Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism are bringing together key scholars, policy makers and telecommunication industry leaders in Washington, D.C. to examine the state of wireless broadband deployment in the United States.

The October 25 conference at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill will examine a key question facing the industry: Are U.S.-government policies impeding the rollout or adoption of cutting-edge wireless broadband technologies?

Although new technologies are being developed at warp-speed, the United States often lags behind other nations in making these technologies available to the consumer. The conference will look at how the United States can catch up and become more cutting edge.

Keynote speaker, Andrew Viterbi, co-founder, QUALCOMM, will deliver the keynote luncheon address on "The Impact of New Technology."

Other participants in the conference include former FCC commissioner, Harold Furchgott-Roth, former FCC chief economists, Gerald Faulhaber of Wharton, Thomas Hazlett,of the Manhattan Institute and Simon Wilkie of USC; as well as Robert Pepper of Cisco Systems and former FCC head of policy development and academics from University of Chicago, MIT and Carnegie Mellon University.

Spearheaded by the USC Center for Communication, Law and Policy (CLP), the conference will help key lawmakers, industry sources and the public at large understand the state of broadband, said Wilkie, director of the center.

"This conference puts together leading academics who also have real world government and industry experience to address issues that confront policy makers in Washington today," Wilkie said. "We hope that this conference will have a positive impact on the agenda."

Wilkie is an internationally recognized scholar, formerly a professor at Caltech and served as chief economist with the Federal Communications Commission, where he worked on policy issues under former chairman Michael Powell.

The Center for Communication, Law and Policy – which is affiliated with the USC Gould School of Law and USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism - is known for its rigorous academic work on the crucial questions of communications law and policy facing the United States and the international community. This latest conference ties into the center’s overall mission, said USC Law Dean Matthew Spitzer.

"We have brought together a stellar panel of people who are leaders in wireless broadband and the latest cutting edge technology," said Spitzer. "This conference will shed a lot of light on the latest technologies and potential in broadband."

The conference is sponsored by Verizon, Catapult Communications, Emmis Communications and Caltech.
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Conference agenda