Last week was the NXTComm conference in Chicago. I wasn’t there; I was in Sauk Centre talking to businesses about web sites and I hope to tell you more about that later. But over the summer I am trying to track various conferences via new and blog for all of us. It’s the homebody’s version of professional development.

NXTCOmm is a conference and trade event for telecommunications and ICET professionals. Here are their keynote speakers – and various notes I could find on their presentations. I’m going to try to give fairly factual accounts but I fully admit that the resources I used below may be pretty biased.

AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson –
AT&T actually archived an audio of the presentation. Apparently this is Stephenson’s first presentation at CEO of AT&T. According to Macenstein, touched on the iPhone, AT&T’s new Video Share service, and how AT&T will evolve in the coming years.

Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers –
According to Light Reading, Chambers spoke on Web 2.0, apparently a recurrent topic for him. OK, Light Reading author Craig Matsumoto, does not hold back on his opinion – but it makes his description very entertaining with comments such as “Today, Cisco’s market cap is like $299 gajillion, and the competitors’ is about 37 cents. There may be a rounding error in there.” I kinda like Cisco and Web 2.0 and it sounded like Chambers touted both, so I probably would have liked the presentation.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin –
ZDNet talks (author Russell Shaw) about Martin’s presentation, which was apparently made via satellite hookup. Topics included: the need to reassess universal service to include rural broadband, reverse auctions (assumingly of spectrum) was mentioned at a way to kick start that effort, net neutrality is touted as tool to keep broadband available although Martin also mentioned the need to help infrastructure players to be able to recoup some of costs of this investment.

GE Vice-Chairman and Executive Officer and NBC Universal Chairman Bob Wright –
According to Russell Shaw, Bob Wright talked about the need to create new advertising models that reward the distributors of content as well as the telecommunications companies. We talked about the challenge of protecting content on the Internet, rewarding ISPs that educate customers that copying videos is theft and also mentioning the companies that facilitate such theft.

Motorola Chairman and CEO Ed Zander –
According to xchange online, Zander claims that video is the next killer app. Tools are being developed and the network is getting stronger to support video creation and upload as much as download.

Verizon Communications Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg –
Verizon posted the presentation (in text!) on their site. Woo hoo for Verizon. Podcasts and video are nice – but I can read a heck of a lot faster than I can watch or listen. He talks about social networking and digital devices being increasingly ubiquitous and the need for the network to keep up.

Other Presentations

Apparently there was a panel discussion (I found through this article Policy Leaders Square Off; 700 Mhz Still Under Debate) with that discussed current broadband policy and the 700Mhz spectrum auction.

It sounds as if the debate between the current US broadband standing was contrary with some saying we’re falling behind and other saying that the policy is there to support the industry’s growth. As far as spectrum it sounds like they’re not sure that they would get a nationwide taker for spectrum so they plan to offer smaller, regionalized chunks of spectrum available for new entrants, or perhaps some kind of open access policy.

OK now I’m going back to enjoying the Bingham Hall Bed & Breakfast in New Ulm. Tomorrow I’m joining the New Ulm Chamber of Commerce to talk about some upcoming training sponsored by Blandin’s Get Broadband program. (More on that and my recent travels to Todd County later…)