Industry leaders debate telecom policy at VON Town Hall

San Jose – Don’t say we didn’t warn you. This was Larry Irving’s word of caution to service providers at the VON.x conference in San Jose. Speaking at the Town Hall meeting kicking off the conference, Irving, co-chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA), said something has to be done to increase bandwidth or better utilize existing bandwidth today. The answer, he said, lies in enacting public policies that encourage competition and broadband build out.

A study released last month by Nielsen’s online service found that the heaviest consumption of Internet video is during weekday lunch hours between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. – when most people are at work. The news sent many IT departments scrambling to block popular sites like YouTube and MySpace and others to reevaluate their limited bandwidth capacity and the ability to support these kind of surges. Online video files on average are about seven times as large as audio files, and 100 times as large as email. As video watching becomes more popular, the “exaflood” of traffic going over the Internet is poised to potentially surpass the network’s capabilities in the next few years.

There are about 45 gigabytes of data generated for every person in the world, Irving said, and this number is only increasing as video apps like Juiced and Hulu gain traction. His organization, the Internet Innovation Alliance, a non-profit coalition focused on making broadband widespread, is determined to answer the question: How do we ensure we do the right things from a policy perspective for broadband build out?

“In Washington, you hear the word broadband at the State of the Union and everyone says they want it, then you don’t see any activity in making sure the policies are in line,” he said. “We think we need to see more focus--but smart focus and thoughtful focus--to make it happen.”

Even more urgent than the net neutrality debates – another topic of discussion at the Town Hall – is the fact that almost 60% of rural America does not have access to broadband technology, Irving said. But while, as a country, the US lags behind Europe and Asia in broadband access, there are states that are doing things right, he said. When you break the country into its individual states, as Europe does when accounting for separate countries, some states fare significantly better than others.

For example, the Connect Kentucky program brought its broadband penetration from 60% to now more than 90% connected. Irving wants to see this kind of success story emulated across the country – a Connected Nation program of sorts. This means allowing for investment and allowing for more bandwidth to eliminate the traffic-induced problems.

“I think you’re going to see exponential increase in the use of the net,” Irving said. “And millions in investment. We want to make sure regulatory policy isn’t in the way now. Telecom is right after alcohol and gambling in how we tax it…We need to look at all those issues. If we get those straight, we can get all the capacity we want.”

The Town Hall also featured Link Hoewing, assistant vice president of Internet and technology at Verizon, Lowell Feldman, CEO of Feature Group IP, and Rick Whitt, the Washington Telecom and Media Counsel for Google. The panel fielded questions from VON attendees on FCC policy. Hoewing said that Verizon is working on a lot of applications that ride on the broadband networks now, most importantly concerning health care and education. He stressed the innovation for broadband can happen in a lot of ways, and in that respect, the US it not so far behind.

“I think one of the intriguing things on the broadband front is that even though there is a big debate, if we are behind other countries--Southeast Asia and Europe specifically--the fact is, the US is actually seeing more fiber to the home buildouts than any European country,” Hoewing said. “Countries deploying it in Europe have a similar platform as we do. That is a very positive aspect of where our market is going. That is an important success story.”