Supercomm showcases telecom industry for feds

The Supercomm show next week will in Chicago is drawing significant interest, and participation, from federal officials in Washington. In addition to a Thursday keynote by Aneesh Chopra, chief technology officer of the US and associate director for technology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Supercomm is hosting the top executives from the two agencies distributing stimulus funds and the man advising the FCC on its National Broadband Strategy.

Jonathan Adelstein, administrator of the Rural Utilities Service, and Larry Strickling, administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, will appear together on a morning panel Wednesday, and Blair Levin, executive director of the FCC’s Omnibus Broadband Initiative, participates in an afternoon Q&A session as part of the same conference.

“This is the gathering before the storm, so to speak,” said Grant Seiffert, president of TIA, co-sponsor of Supercomm with USTelecom. “It’s a great opportunity for individual companies, carriers and policy makers to share information and swap opinions. You won’t see any big announcements, but there will be a lot of networking.”

From the TIA’s perspective, the hope is that, as the federal government considers whether to regulate broadband and how to stimulate its deployment, any new rules are implemented fairly but swiftly, Seiffert said.

“We need certainty, and we need to get it quickly,” Seiffert said. “The rules need to be clear – and of course, they need to be equitable and sustainable. This is just the first steps the government will take that will impact networks that connect all Americans. I’ll give the government a lot of credit – the FCC and RUS have done a good job of reaching out to industry to collect a lot of information. They know what is on the industry’s mind.”

But given the impact the economy has had on the telecom business, Seiffert cautioned, the government must avoid any action that has a negative impact on telecom investment.

“This is the first time in 26 years that we have reported a revenue decline in the industry – we had a 3.1% decline in the growth of the industry this year,” Seiffert said. “They need to be thinking about how they are going to stimulate investment, how they are going to jumpstart this engine of growth that is the bedrock of the future economy.”