[Air-L] CFP: "The End of the Phone System"

Richard Taylor rdt4 at psu.edu
Sat Jan 7 05:32:19 PST 2012


Colleagues,

With apologies for cross-postings.  Please feel free to direct any questions
to me at rdt4 at psu.edu. 

Prof. Richard Taylor
Institute for Information Policy
The Pennsylvania State University


Call for Paper Proposals
 
The End of the Phone System
A by-invitation Experts' Workshop to be held at
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA, May 16-18, 2012

The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and the collection of
technologies known as Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) are the foundations
of communications policy throughout the world.  As traffic and industry
activity migrate to Internet protocol-based communication, wireless
networks, video, and other systems, however, the obsolescence of these
infrastructures is in sight.  The transition from the phone system to
converged IP-based networks raises major regulatory, technical and economic
questions.  Legacy rules do not address the role of regulation in the coming
all-IP marketplace.  The Internet was never designed to serve the many roles
that the traditional phone network plays and there is no plan in place for a
managed transition as with digital television and number portability.  The
time has come to tackle these questions.

The Institute for Information Policy at Penn State University, The Mack
Center for Technological Innovation at the Wharton School at the University
of Pennsylvania and the Donald McGannon Communication Research Center at
Fordham University are pleased to announce this call for paper proposals in
which "The End of the Phone System" serves as the main theme.  Authors of
selected papers will be invited to present them during a two day (May 17th
and 18th) by-invitation workshop designed to bring together up to a dozen
American and international experts and to be held at the Wharton School of
the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. The workshop will open
with a reception on May 16th. This Workshop is one of a series of events on
"Making Policy Research Accessible," organized by the IIP, with the support
of the Ford Foundation. Presenters at the workshop will be invited to submit
their completed papers for review by the Journal of Information Policy
(www.jip-online.org). 

Invited topics include, but are not limited to: 
     
.	The future of common carriage in an all-IP environment
.	The need for, and specifics of, a "date certain" sunset of the PSTN
.	Technical and marketplace dynamics of the transition
.	Impacts on universal service, disability access, emergency services
(911), and public safety
.	Interconnection and interoperability issues 
.	Interaction of technical standards and public policy
.	Network reliability, quality of service, and security in a post-PSTN
world
.	Wireless as a "baseline" communications mechanism
.	International comparisons
.	Implications for the National Broadband Plan
.	Impacts on rural and other under-served areas
.	Treatment of carrier and non-carrier stranded assets
.	Consumer protection and device replacement considerations 
.	Impacts on states and the state/federal regulatory balance
.	Transition from the inter-carrier compensation system

Abstracts of up to 500 words and a short bio of the author(s) should be
submitted to pennstateiip at psu.edu by February 15, 2012. Please write
IIPWDMTWS: YOUR NAME in the subject line. Accepted presenters will be
notified by March 10, 2012.



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