The 2012 version of the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) is history, and the next phase has begun, i.e., trying to figure out what it all means!  Many theories abound within the Twitter-verse, blogs and various email strings.  At a minimum, WCIT served as a lens that brought into greater focus the risks and opportunities that lay before us.  With only 89 countries thus far [...]

As I watched a bit of football the other day, it made me wish that we had a yellow flag for policy setting in this country.  If that were possible, I would throw the flag at our policymakers for failing to fix an out-of-date, broken tax system and at our national media for their off-base characterizations of those simply trying to work within the system. Our tax code is atrocious.  It is antiquated, [...]

Today, the President signed into law a bill establishing Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with Russia, bringing to closure years of work spent opening the growing Russian market to American goods and services.  The new law represents a victory for American workers and businesses, and will deliver a welcome boost to the U.S. economy at a time when it needs it most. The enactment of PNTR legislation [...]

Today, at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT), a majority of national delegations adopted revisions to the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) that could lead to significant challenges to a free and open Internet, as well to how global information and communications technology (ICT) companies offer Internet-based services.  The United States joined with other [...]

At ITI, we are always happy when our policy ideas are supported. That’s why we were pleased to see a recent article in the Economist that echoed many of our key suggestions for improving the U.S. economy. The piece is by two leaders of Harvard Business School’s United States Competitiveness Project and contains policy recommendations to get the economy on the right track in 2013. The article mirrors [...]

When the much ballyhooed Super Committee failed to reach an agreement to address the national debt last year, committee members put in place an automatic spending cut mechanism so draconian and unpalatable it was thought that Congress was certain to act before it went into effect.  The mechanism, in short, slashes nearly all of the federal government’s annual discretionary budgets by 8.4 percent.  [...]

This past Wednesday in Brussels, the European Union (EU) hosted a “Workshop on a possible comprehensive ‘EU initiative on minerals originating from conflict areas’.” This particular forum was limited to EU officials and invited experts from the OECD, academia, civil society and the business community. The EU will likely advance the initiative in 2013, first with a public consultation and subsequently [...]

Today, the tech industry celebrates another critical step towards normal trade relations with Russia as the Senate, by a vote of 92-4, decisively passed legislation to establish permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with Russia.  We commend the Senate for taking swift action today on a bill that ensures enforcement of Russia’s WTO commitments and puts the needs of American workers and businesses [...]

The U.S. National Broadband Plan famously asserted that “broadband and advanced communications infrastructure will play an important role in achieving [the] national goals of energy independence and efficiency.”  Now, a study released by the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI) offers new calculations on the size of the opportunity for using broadband and IT to maximize the efficiency with which [...]

At a time where we need bipartisan leadership that has a clear understanding of our country’s economic challenges, it is disheartening to see proposals that would create even more obstacles to economic recovery. Such was our feeling when we read the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) framework for tax reform. The framework contains outdated, discredited ideas, and policymakers would be wise to [...]