Welcome and Opening Thoughts Lawrence J. Spiwak President The Phoenix Center 2005 Phoenix Center Annual U.S. Telecoms Symposium December 1, 2005 Washington, D.C.

What’s New at the Phoenix Center… Phoenix Center Papers:  Phoenix Center Policy Paper No. 21: Competition After Unbundling: Entry, Industry Structure and Convergence  Phoenix Center Policy Paper No. 22: The Consumer Welfare Cost of Cable “Build-out” Rules  Phoenix Center Policy Paper No. 23: The Impact of Video Service Regulation on the Construction of Broadband Networks to Low-Income Households  Phoenix Center Policy Bulletin No. 12: Franchise Fee Revenues After Video Competition: The “Competition Dividend” for Local Governments

What’s New at the Phoenix Center… Academic Publications:  Set It and Forget It? Market Power and the Consequences of Premature Deregulation in Telecommunications Markets, 1 NYU Journal of Law & Business 675 (Summer 2005).  The Economics of Build-out Rules in Cable Television, Hastings Communications and Entertainment (Comm/Ent) Law Journal (forthcoming Winter 2006).  American Bar Association’s Antitrust Telecom Handbook (June 2005).

What’s New at the Phoenix Center… Examples of Phoenix Center Staff Presentations in 2005:  Pike and Fisher Broadband Conference  National Consumers League Cable Conference (Washington)  National Consumers League Cable Conference (Los Angeles)  Americans For Tax Reform Wednesday Meetings  VON  Interconnection Summit – Prague  Conservative Political Action Committee Annual Meeting  Citizens Against Government Waste  MARC  MACRUC  US Telecom Conference  NATOA  FCC Consumer Advisory Committee Conference  NCSL

What’s New at the Phoenix Center… Phoenix Center Sponsored Events:  Congressional Briefing with keynote address by Rep. Marsha Blackburn  NARUC Breakfast Briefing – NARUC Summer Meeting, Austin  NARUC Breakfast Briefing – NARUC Annual Meeting, Palm Springs  Annual Phoenix Center State Educational Retreat

Conference Theme: The New Frontier… 2005 will go down as a landmark year  Embracement of “facilities-based/inter-modal competition”  No more unbundling  No more independent IXCs  Emergence of managed VoIP as real competitive substitute  Technology is rapidly turning “single use networks” into “multi-use” networks What will the structure of this market look like and will we be happy with the results? Yet, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Industry still characterized by high fixed and sunk costs  “Policy-relevant” barriers to entry remain.  Need for rigorous and cohesive analysis remains