Net Neutrality Panel

From Alumni

Net Neutrality has been canceled.

The GTAN and Computing Alumni Group regret to announce that the Network Neutrality Panel discussion has been canceled. We have had anemic early registration and would not have covered our costs for food, beverages, and other expenses. We are sorry for the inconvenience. If you have pre-registered, you should receive a refund.

There is interest in putting together a panel session to discuss and debate the Net Neutrality issue. We would like to gather some industry experts from technical, business, and legal/policy perspectives and create an interactive session. The event is being organized by Kipp Jones (kippster@yahoo.com), if you are interested please contact him.

See http://www.gtalumni.org/site/Page/GTAlumniNetwork/ for more information and registration.

Thursday, September 27 6:00 – 8:30 p.m. Klaus Advanced Computing Building – 266 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332. $10 per person. Please register on-line at the above URL.

1 Concept
2 Potential Panelists
3 Date
4 Venues
5 Marketing
6 Costs
7 Articles & References

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Concept

The idea is based around thoughts that networks should be open/neutral to devices and traffic in a non-discrimanatory way. A single definition is hard to come by, which makes the discussion that much more interesting. One concern is the idea that network providers can somehow reduce the QoS of certain traffic -- with the thought that they would do this for a number of possible reasons including:

Competition - if they can reduce the QoS of their competitors services/content, their content/services will be that much better for the consumer and thus they win (examples of this include blocking/limiting VoIP traffic).
Money - there are thoughts that the network operators would like to 'extort' or 'recoup costs' (depending on your perspective) money from high-profile sites such as Google by charging them more. This can be seen in a number of ways, perhaps requiring the big-boys to pay more to reach the same level of QoS -- or from another view, it could limit the ability of the little players to compete, making the default QoS bad, and only those with deep pockets are able to buy real QoS...
Business models - perhaps the current business model of the operators is flawed and the method by which they sell their 'pipes' is not sufficient to recover their costs, especially as their traditional money makers are impacted by newer models of communication.

This is just a tip of the iceberg, so there are plenty of hot-buttons that could make for a lively discussion...

The format will be a panel discussion. Likely have the moderator give a quick overview, then a short presentation from each of the panelists, followed by a Q&A session involving both the moderator and the audience.

Check out the Image:NN-gt.pdf

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Potential Panelists

Ellen Zegura - Associate Dean, School of Computer Science, College of Computing (moderator) - CONFIRMED
Mike Best - Assistant Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs/College of Computing -- to represent international, CoC, and public policy - CONFIRMED
Tim Wu - Columbia Law School
~~Satish Menon - GT PhD, 1994, Chief Architect, Yahoo! Media Group - cannot participate~~
Barry Loudermilk - GA Representative on the Science and Technology Committee (via Juan)
~~Jim Pitkow - GT PhD, '97, CTO Attributor -- can't do the date, but if we move it would be interested (as of July 12)~~
Hans Klein - GT Public Policy Professor doing telecom/Internet policy work - CONFIRMED
Earthlink CTO (Juan to contact)
Google - contact on CoC board (Juan to contact)
AT&T/BellSouth - any contacts?

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Date

Thursday, September 27 6:00 – 8:30 p.m in the Klaus Advanced Computing Building – 266 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332.

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Venues

Klaus Building
Capital City Country Club

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Marketing

In order to make this appealing to a broader audience including those not intimately familiar with the issues surrounding Net Neutraility, the idea was put forth to create an introduction video that would be included as a link in any communications regarding the event.

The video would be a short demonstration of the issues with explanations and descriptions. We can work with the Living History Group to produce the video. Kipp will contact to see about putting it together.

Additional groups we can work with to spread the word:

GTBN
Legislative Network
Center for Entreprenuership

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Costs

The Alumni Association will help with marketing and funding the event. They will also help with logistics and determining the costs. The Computing Alumni is not expected to foot the bill, however if the AA determines that it will be, say $15 per person to cover the costs, we can pitch in money to lower the cover charge.

The Computing Alumni will be responsible for putting in the time and effort to put the event together (with the able assistance of the CoC and AA of course).

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