International Institute of Communications

2009 ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Centre Mont-Royal, Montreal, Canada, Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 October 2009

Trends in Global Communications: Wrestling with unpredictability

Outline programme: click Sessions for detail

MONDAY 26 OCTOBER 2009

08:15   Registration and refreshments

• Focus group of young users providing ‘lifestyle’ and ‘work style’ insights into how they are consuming and treating communications technology and applications in different, innovative and sometimes unexpected ways
• What key discernable trends (if any) are emerging and what are the implications? What do the ways in which young users use communications technology reveal about future challenges to be faced by industry and government?
• To what extent has full-blown convergence between voice, video and data arrived or does it remain in the near or distant future?

• How is the user changing the process of content creation, distribution and consumption? On balance is the user empowered or overwhelmed?
• How are incumbent telecommunications and media industry players having to adapt their business models because of increased competition or consumer substitution based on new platforms, such as over-the-top TV or new technologies, for example VOIP? Or for other reasons eg copyright?
• In an ‘always on’, anywhere and anyhow environment is deriving value from content an essential element in a viable telecommunications business model?
• For cable and satellite operators in relation to content what is the appropriate mix of creation, aggregation and distribution?
• How to distinguish long term underlying trends in technology and user behaviour from changes brought about by the shorter-term impact of the current economic crisis?

• Broadband has already proved itself critical to the flow of information, entertainment and communications. What future demands are likely to be placed upon it?
• How much does advanced wireless and wire line broadband infrastructure contribute to economic growth? What is the role of the market, public policy and regulation in stimulating broadband investment?
• What are the perceived benefits and disadvantages of current national broadband strategies? How critical a factor is a country’s level of development?
• How high a priority should universality have in public policy – by comparison for example, with speed and capacity? If governments insist on universal access what are the implications for pricing and for investment returns?  

Breakout Groups: click individual tab heading to expand for detail

Breakout Group 1: Communications and the economic crisis – taking stock

• What has been the impact of the crisis on consumers, and on the telecommunications and media industries?
• What challenges and opportunities has the crisis presented for industry and government?
• What actions have been taken to mitigate the effects of the crisis on the communications sector and how effective has it been to date?  What else could be done? What lessons can be learnt?

17:30   End of day one

18:30 for 19:00            Gala Dinner
Mount Stephen Club, 1440 Drummond Street, Montreal

TUESDAY 27 OCTOBER 2009

08:30   Refreshments

• How can broadcast and telecommunications regulation designed in the pre-internet age be made fit for the digital age? Is a fundamental change required in regulatory models in the light of new and continuously evolving technology, market, investment and competitive realities?
• What challenges do multi-platform players pose for regulators? Would a competition law solution deal with all aspects?
• Given the globalisation of communications and the example of pan-EU regulatory intervention, is there scope for regulators generally to exploit the opportunities of international collaboration or regional regulatory coordination?

Breakout Groups: click individual tab heading to expand detail

Breakout Group 4: Will mobile or wireless prove to be the broadband delivery solution for developing countries?

• Current experience in mobile and wireless deployment  – what does the evidence suggest about the future? What are the comparative advantages of mobile and wireless? Will wireless broadband replace mobile voice?
• What are the market drivers and impediments? Which technologies offer the best chance of success in establishing widespread mobile wireless availability and utilisation? What prospects for next-generation network roll-out?
• What impact will decisions about the digital dividend have on broadband delivery options?
• What are the main regulatory and public policy constraints and enablers?

Breakout Group 5: Social media, networking and the public space: what are the implications and future?

• How is social networking evolving and what is its relevance, utility and impact? Is it changing how we think about communications as a whole and if so, how?
• What makes social media different from other kinds of more traditional media, such as broadcasting, print, CDs or Web 1.0? And why is it significant?
• How important is user-generated content? Is it of any value in a creative economy or in the public space?
• How to assess the social, cultural, economic and political consequences?

Breakout Group 6: The internet – what are the limits to its openness?

• What pressures are being exerted to regulate the internet and why? Is the premise of an open internet threatened?
• Where there may be valid reasons (child pornography, hate speech) for regulating freedom of expression on the internet, to what extent is this practical? Granted its importance, how should difficulties be overcome?
• To what extent should ISPs be permitted to engage in reasonable traffic management and how to determine what is reasonable?
• What impact might measures to promote or protect content online have on internet openness?

• How much at risk is ‘high quality’ content because of its high production costs, declining advertising revenue and audience fragmentation?
• In a world where consumers have substantial control, what role if any should government retain in defining or targeting high quality content?
  
• Does the current diversity of content production and distribution remove or at least reduce the need for public broadcasting?
  
• Under what conditions could a contribution to support high quality content properly be demanded from the taxpayer or from industry or both? How would the subsidy claims of high quality content rate against others such as broadband expansion, universality and access to emergency services?

15:45  Concluding remarks, end of conference and refreshments
© International Institute of Communications 2009