Faculty Publications

Communications Policy in Transition: The Internet and Beyond
edited by: Benjamin M. Compaine and Shane Greenstein

Until the 1980's, it was presumed that technological change in most communications services could easily be monitored from centralized state and federal agencies. This presumption was long outdated prior to the commercialization of the Internet. With the Internet, the long-forecast convergence of voice, video, and text bits became a reality. Legislation, capped by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, created new quasi-standards such as "fair" and "reasonable" for the FCC and courts to apply, leading to nonstop litigation and occasional gridlock.

This book addresses some of the many telecommunications areas on which public policy makers, corporate strategists, and social activists must reach agreement. Topics include the regulation of access, Internet architecture in a commercial era, communications infrastructure development, the Digital Divide, and information policy issues such as intellectual property and retransmission of TV programming via the Internet.

--Telecommunications Policy Research Conference

From Shane Greenstein's Preface:

Since 1973 there has been an annual conference on communications policy in the greater Washington, D.C. area. This conference has been known as the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, or TPRC for short. Its primary purpose is to promote a dialogue among policy makers, industry participants, and academics. This dialogue acquaints industry participants and policy makers with the best of recent research and familiarizes researchers with the needs of policy makers. When these conferences first began the gatherings were small. In the most recent decade the number of participants has grown to well over 300 people. This book presents fifteen papers from the 28th gathering of this conference in Alexandria, Virginia, in the fall of 2000. I write this preface as a longtime participant and as the chair of the Program Committee for that meeting.

This volume draws from over 80 papers presented, which, in turn, were selected from over 200 submitted. Reflecting the conference itself, this book mixes both ephemeral issues and perennial questions, comparing heterogeneous policy perspectives. As with the conference, this book aspires not only to teach others and continue a dialogue, but also to bring positive change. Hence, not only should the book be enjoyed for its contributions to this dialogue, but the book's most important contribution also may be intangible, manifest later in more informed policy decisions or path-breaking research.