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TechnologyDaily Mobile
The Social Side Of Telecom Policy
by Sarah Lai Stirland
Despite his training as a telecommunications lawyer, B. Keith Fulton, Verizon Communications' new vice president of strategic alliances, has carved out a career based on jobs that require strong social skills. And his latest job is no exception.
The job requires Fulton and his team of six to reach out to potentially underserved communities dealing with educational, multicultural, elderly and disabilities issues throughout the United States. He also must work to build alliances with organizations representing those communities to find solutions. Some of that work will involve helping members of those communities land financial grants, joining boards and participating in telecom pilot projects.
The other part of the job requires Fulton to help "convey the company's values, to show that we're not just about people buying our stuff," he said. Rather, "we recognize that people live in communities, and we must demonstrate to the community that we're making it a better place."
To do that, he has been put in charge of publishing Verizon's first corporate responsibility report by the end of the year.
Fulton joined Verizon from the Commerce Department, where he worked as a senior telecom policy analyst, one aspect of which involved writing a notice regarding rural, wireless, high-speed Internet access that was published in the Federal Register in 2004. The Bush administration has been working for several years to determine how to provide broadband access to underserved communities in rural areas. The administration's strategy includes providing incentives to encourage the rollout of wireless broadband services.
The Commerce job was somewhat of an anomaly in the trajectory of Fulton's career. The job required analysis of hard-core telecom issues such as spectrum policy, Internet telephony and Internet protocol version 6, which is the next protocol designed by the Internet Engineering Task Force to replace Internet protocol version 4.
Before his job at Commerce, Fulton held a similar position to his current job as vice president of the AOL Time Warner Foundation, where he created partnerships with government, business and nonprofit organizations. Before joining the foundation, he worked for the National Urban League and was founding director of the group's technology programs and policy department. In that position, he served as a technology advocate for underserved communities.
Fulton's return to the world of corporate social benefactors perhaps reflects the tugs from the opposing sides of law, policy and engineering that has pulled Fulton's career in different directions. He said that when he went to college as an undergraduate at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, he spent the first two years studying computer engineering, but he found the subject matter too limiting.
"I felt as if I was going to be a cog in a wheel instead of being a hub," he said.
After some discussion, his mentor at the university's school of architecture persuaded him to switch to urban affairs and planning, and that is how he became interested and more involved in policy issues. Fulton later obtained a master's degree from the New School's Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy in New York and a law degree from New York Law School. His studies focused on telecom, e-commerce and intellectual property law.
"I always was involved in technology policy, and each [job] opportunity was a move to affect technology policy on a grander scale," Fulton said.
Moving Up At NCTA
National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) Vice President Jill Luckett has been promoted to senior vice president of program network policy, and Vice President William Check has been promoted to senior vice president of science and technology.
"As leaders of the programming and technology policy segments of NCTA's business, each has been highly effective in helping NCTA achieve public policy objectives," association President and CEO Robert Sachs said in a statement.
Luckett has advocated for cable industry issues before Congress and the FCC for almost 10 years at the NCTA. She has led NCTA's efforts on issues such as digital carriage and "a la carte" pricing, a proposal that would let customers choose and pay for each cable channel separately. Before she joined NCTA, Luckett was a special adviser to then-FCC Commissioner Rachelle Chong. She also worked for former Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore.
Check has been with NCTA's science and technology department since 1998. He played a key role in developing the 2002 "plug and play" digital-television technical agreement with the consumer electronics industry. The agreement allows consumers to connect their cable connections directly to their televisions to receive digital programming without having to acquire separate set-top boxes.
Before joining NCTA, Check worked in the satellite and broadcasting industries on the development of packet data, video and audio communications systems.
In other news, VeriSign announced last week that the wireless trade association CTIA has elected VeriSign Executive Vice President and General Manager Vernon Irvin to the group's board of directors. Irvin will help CTIA establish policy positions on issues related to taxation, wireless "roaming," safety, fraud and technology.
"The communications industry is rapidly changing," Irvin said in statement. "Telecommunications and [Internet protocol] technologies are merging, over 1.2 billion mobile devices are now online, and consumers are demanding rich and secure communication services, including mobile content and commerce. I am thrilled to have been elected by CTIA's supplier members to help further CTIA's mission of expanding the wireless frontier."
Strow To Chair Telecom Board
The Association for Local Telecommunications Services (ALTS) recently announced that it has made Julia Strow chairwoman of its operating board.
Strow is vice president for regulatory and legislative affairs at Cbeyond Communications. She will continue to serve as ALTS' acting president as the organization seeks a new president.
John Windhausen, ALTS' former president, resigned in early October after a lobbying strategy letter he had written to the organization's members was accidentally published on the FCC's Web site. The letter included some blunt comments and observations about the FCC commissioners.
ALTS also has named Wanda Montano vice chairwoman of its operating board. Montano is vice president for regulatory and industry affairs at US LEC.
In other news, Hillary Brill, former legislative counsel for Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., has settled into her new job at eBay as legislative counsel. Brill joins a team of four other eBay staff Washington office.
She joined eBay after a short stint this summer working on the technology policy committee for Democrat John Kerry's presidential campaign. The job involved developing tech policy positions, as well as reaching out to people in the tech community for the campaign.
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