Alternative Broadband Platforms

Can They Compete With Fiber Optics? Where?

Friday, March 18, 2005

10:00am – 4:00pm

105 Jerome Greene Hall (Law School)

116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue

Columbia University

New York, NY

 

AGENDA

10:00         Introductions

 

10:15 - Noon   Broadband Over Power Lines (BPL)

Prof. Rahul Tongia - Carnegie Mellon University [Presentation]

Walter Adams - President, Power Line Communications Association (PLCA) and  Vice President, COMTek (operator of Manassas, VA. BPL network) [Presentation]

David Sumner - CEO & EVP American Radio Relay League (ARRL) (implications of interference caused by BPL) [Remarks] [Video] [Editorial on BPL]

Joe Cufari – VP, Business Development, Current Communications Group (operator of BPL networks) [Presentation]

Brett Kilbourne- Director of Regulatory Services, United Power Line Council (re internal use of BPL by utilities and BPL standards) [Presentation]

 

Comments:       Prof. Christiaan Hogendorn - Wesleyan University, Visiting Scholar - CITI

 

Noon - 12:30   NARUC’s BPL Task Force and Report

                        Hon. Thomas Dunleavy, Commissioner, NY Public Service Commission

                       

12:30 - 1:45    LUNCH  

1:15 -1:30 Alan Scrime, Chief, Policy and Rules Division, Office of Engineering and Technology, FCC [Presentation]

 

1:45 - 3:45    Wireless Alternatives

Lou Slaughter – Founder and CEO, GigaBeam Corp. (provider of 70-90 GHz “WiFiber”) [Website]

R. Gerard Salemme, EVP and Director, Clearwire (provider of WiMax broadband to consumers) and Principal, Eagle River Investments [Website]

Jeff Thompson- Founder and COO, Towerstream (provider of fixed wireless broadband for business)

Robert Fitzgerald- CEO, Terabeam Wireless (designer of Millimeter Wave, Free-Space Optics, and other wireless broadband equipment) [Presentation]

 

Comments:       David Allen - co-principal of World Collaboration for Communications Policy Research

                        Heather Hudson- Professor, School of Business and Management, University of San Francisco [Presentation]

 

3:45 - 4:00    Conclusions and Wrap Up

Prof. A. Michael Noll - University of Southern California, Director of Technology Research - CITI