U.S. Tech Leadership is so over....or is it?

Every three or four years, the world’s telecommunications industry converges in an extravaganza organised by its global coordinator, the International Telecommunication Union. These gatherings help identify the state of the industry at the time – unbridled exuberance in 1999; doom and gloom in 2003; and now, wireless and broadband expansion that is pulling the industry out of the doldrums, though much of it is run by the same large incumbent network firms which seemed passé just a few years ago.

In the cornucopia it is just as important to identify absences. And one such absence was US leadership. In the past, the direction of technology was strongly influenced by US firms - telecom networks were more advanced in US, policy discussions were shaped by US models, and US government officials offered visions of the future for countries both rich and poor. Not anymore.

On the governmental and policy level, the US has ceased to be the place to find new policy directions. True, much of what is happening around the world has been inspired by FCC policies of five or more years ago, but the next generation of ideas is coming more from London, Seoul, and Brussels than from Washington or the federal states, which were often the laboratory for US policy innovations.

America has been coasting on past glories. And given the long lead times of development and investment, all this will have negative long tem impacts. Already, a recent report by the National Research Council, entitled “Renewing US Telecommunications Research” documents the declining US role - both relatively and absolutely - in telecom R&D, and the void that has not been filled after the gradual demise of Bell Labs.

Leadership must come from the FCC in Washington, the de facto governmental policy setter in this field. But this agency has become highly politicised and divided on important issues. While technology progresses at the breakneck speed of Moore’s Law, the policy process has crawled to an even slower pace as the tone of the public debates has grown nastier on most important issues. Chairman Martin is politically capable and well-connected but also cautious and given to top-down management, and the agency spends some of its capital in stamping out four-letter words on broadcast television. The experimental role of the states has declined. And on top of it, Members of Congress have discovered that to engage in the micro-management of the industry can enhance their own importance.

This is the time to sow new seeds. Television is spreading to the internet. Users are rapidly adding their own content to the media mix. Smart wireless technologies are challenging the established system of exclusive spectrum licenses. Wireless and internet voice services are leapfrogging traditional telephony. Content access and geographic spread issues abound. Any of these trends generate issues, which, if unresolved, will slow and block development. Cellular mobile technology was originally substantially conceived in the US over 25 years ago, but American policy making choked on how to treat it. As a result, Europeans and Japanese forged ahead and the US still has not quite caught up.

The question now is who will set the tone, pace, and business models for the vital infrastructure of the information age. Four years from now, it will likely be set even less by America. This will be costly for its economy and for its “soft power” over global digital culture and politics. While one would wish otherwise, it seems unlikely that Congressional and regulatory leadership will emerge that is willing or capable to change a system that falls each year further behind the pace of technological change.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/9b48fa26-8f7f-11db-9ba3-0000779e2340.html