NEWS@CISCO : MEDIA RESOURCES : PUBLIC POLICY INFORMATION

Laura Ipsen

Cisco's Worldwide Government Affairs (WWGA) group is a strategic team committed to driving public policies that grow and protect the use of technology through traditional means and by using the Internet. Led by Vice President Laura Ipsen, the group works with governments and agencies at the local, national and regional levels.

Cisco's Government Affairs work focuses on issues ranging from pursuing policies on e-learning, promoting Cisco's Network Academy Program to government leaders, advancing innovation through defending stock options, defending VoIP from onerous regulation and accelerating broadband - including IP/digital rights management, wireless spectrum management and security issues.

Looking to 2004, there will be many political and policy issues around the world that will affect technology policy - issues from a U.S. presidential election to legislative and regulatory issues in the EU, Asia and elsewhere. There will also be opportunities to further partnerships with governments around the globe to improve digital access. News@Cisco asked Laura Ipsen to share her thoughts on the role of her team and what Cisco's public policy focus will be in 2004.

What is your philosophical approach regarding government affairs?

Laura Ipsen: Our mission is to develop and influence public policies that will directly and indirectly accelerate the adoption of IT and further opportunities for innovation. Through the use of networking tools, countries can grow their economies, develop and train their workforce and create more jobs.

One of our ultimate goals is to be a trusted advisor to government leaders and to share our technical and policy expertise in areas such as networking, wireless, security and broadband. We also provide our technical experts as advisers to government - in order to help them better understand these technologies. We want to help guide governments on the policy issues that will help expand the use of technology. Rather than focus on line-item, parochial policies, we look at a bigger, more global picture.

What areas do you plan to focus on in 2004?

Laura Ipsen: Our top priorities in 2004 are a moratorium on regulations on advanced technologies, including Voice over IP; preserving tools, such as stock options, to attract the best and brightest to industry; and promoting the acceleration of broadband infrastructure.

I'll touch on each briefly.

First, VoIP: Governments around the world are reviewing how to account for a new technology in a regulated world. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is launching a review of VoIP to consider how it should be regulated. Other countries are also looking at VoIP and how to treat it. Cisco believes it is far better to encourage nascent industries and technologies - rather than stifle them by regulation. In 2004 we'll work with regulators and policymakers to demonstrate to them that this new service should not be regulated, especially at the beginning of its growth.

Workforce tools and Training: To attract talented workers to the industry, a strong education system is crucial. Cisco has its own best practice in e-learning with our Cisco Networking Academy Program - the largest e-learning lab in the world - and we encourage educators and policymakers to study this model.

Preserving broad-based stock option plans is also a vital component for innovation. It gives employees at all levels a chance to own a piece of the company, increases productivity and helps keep companies competitive in recruiting and retention. Policies to expense stock options would have a very negative effect on a company's ability to compete internationally and we have spent a great amount of energy on this issue in 2003 and will continue to do so in 2004.

Broadband: It's clear that governments that take broadband seriously are serious about future economic growth. One way to take a step forward is for government to invest in and adopt broadband internally, using the technology for internal efficiencies and productivity as well as moving to customer/citizen-facing applications. The United States is currently among the top five nations in terms of broadband technology adoption, but without a national broadband plan, it's slowly but steadily falling behind other nations. The US is the only G-7 nation that doesn't have a national broadband plan.

You mentioned that advanced technologies should not be heavily regulated. Can you offer a little more detail on this policy?

Laura Ipsen: Cisco would like to see a moratorium on new regulations for advanced technologies, which we believe will make it easier for companies of all sizes to access new markets. Investments are made when there is certainty in the market, or at least a high level of probability. If regulations of a certain market are in flux, then industry is less sure of investing in that space and new services are slower to reach consumer.

Let's look at two key areas - wireless and voice. With wireless, two approaches to spectrum management have evolved. In the first, government divides spectrum into non-overlapping blocks and grants exclusive transmission rights to the licensee in a given geographic region. This avoids overlap, but it leaves critical spectrum unused for blocks of time. In an unlicensed spectrum system, no license is granted and any device is allowed to transmit. This approach has been very successful for certain types of usage - allowing for a range of mobile services. Sharing spectrum increases efficiency and eliminates the potentially lengthy and expensive license distribution process, thereby promoting experimentation and innovation. We, of course, are cognizant of interference issues and that clearly is part of the final analysis for unlicensed spectrum allocation.

Regarding voice, our position is that VoIP is an information service and should not be regulated. Cisco believes that VoIP represents an opportunity to use communications in a different way - one that, if left alone, will accelerate the adoption of new technologies in the data, voice and video space.

How does your department go about promoting your viewpoints with government officials and agencies?

Laura Ipsen: The people on our team - whether based in here in San Jose, Washington, D.C., Sacramento, Brussels or Beijing - educate and influence through direct contact with legislators, regulators and their staffs as well as through relationships with other companies or industry associations.

We work to build relations with policymakers worldwide. We explain how technology works and look to drive thought leadership on issues that are good for the industry as a whole. In the United States we work on the local, state and national levels. We also collaborate with multinational organizations like the European Union (EU), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and others.

Industry connections are important, too. We actively seek to build a relationship between Cisco and others in the IT industry, to provide ideas and opportunities to better understand the issues that are important to industry growth as well as to regional and national economies. We know that government leaders look for consensus when preparing to move on an issue. If industry can coalesce around a direction for a policy, it has a much better chance of becoming the official government policy.

As we see technology permeate every facet of industry, we find we have more partners in other industry sectors, like health care, education and traditional communications providers. And this is just the beginning; as advanced technologies develop, there will be even more opportunity for collaboration with industry and government.