Paul Kapustka's Blog

It's Big Ed's show here now, and don't you forget it. On Tuesday, we laughed when Ed told us to laugh. We nodded when he said Net Neutrality was an evil scheme. And we believed him when he said he wouldn't block any VoIP.

First off, the mea culpa: Never mind that Ed hisself started all the net neutrality fireworks with his comments more than a year ago about Vonage being a "freeloader" and then again this past fall when he told BusinessWeek that Vonage and Google were "nuts" to think they could make money off his pipes. Tuesday, Ed said some people out there were scared that Internet access was "at risk." (Gee, why, Ed?)

After a failed joke about Mark Twain and the speed of lies -- when it failed the first time Ed said, "you're supposed to laugh," which drew laughs and then more laughs when he repeated the joke -- see, we can learn to follow Ed, just like the FCC! Then Ed told the crowd it was time to "get behind the rhetoric." Umm, would that be rhetoric like "nuts?" Ah, never mind. Dinging Ed here at TelecomNext would be "few-tile," as he pronounces it.

Publicly, Ed tried to put all that "nuts" nonsense behind us by saying AT&T won't block services or apps, "nor will we degrade [services]. Period, end of story."

Well! No need to worry more about net neutrality then! And even though his talk was riddled with holes big enough to drive an AT&T disaster truck through, this was Ed's show and damned if he would let anyone else win the smackdown.
Score: 8.5 (bonus point for coming up with new "rhetoric" around the need for new national TV franchising processes; no longer will the telcos say that "if we get one [franchise] license a week, it'll take us 30 years." The new line from Ed is that "if we get one a day it'll take us 6 years." Sounds more reasonable, right?

OTHER SPEAKERS

Kevin Martin, Chairman, FCC
Wow, a real-live chairman Martin... and even a few cursory minutes for the unwashed press! For once, show host and overenthused pitchman Walter McCormick didn't just ask Kevin about the wife and kid during Martin's on-stage Q&A -- Walt even asked about net neutrality, albeit in a sniveling way, trying to soften the question with an ending that was something like, "this isn't really even an issue anymore, is it?"

Martin, even though he looked a little disheveled (hey, he's a new dad on a quick trip to Vegas... we'll cut him some slack on the "hair" issue) ignored Walter's softshoe and answered cleanly, claiming that the FCC does have the authority to "Madison River" anyone who tries to push the limits of the net neutrality principles. And after an exciting tour of AT&T's disaster-relief trucks (bet that just made the lifetime lawyer tingle with geek excitement, eh?), Martin deigned to stop in a hallway aisle to take a few shouted questions from a press mob. There, he said the commission does need to ensure transparency of services, but only could offer "public web sites" as a place where consumers could find out if service providers were giving them what they paid for. More on this topic later, but we give Kev a close silver medal for showing up and not just mailing it in. For a change.
Score: 8.25

And the rest of Tuesday's crew...

John Chambers, CEO, Cisco
Preacher John was out of his normal church, St. Enterprise of the Router Buyer, but he still produced a polished version (with some service-provider twists) of his stock "you need to use the network to move your business ahead" speech. Trademark walk through the audience? Check. Trademark funny demo with Jim Grubb, with a joke about Jim? Check. Trademark "you know where I'm going with this" line? Check. While he impressed several telecom types who hadn't seen him before, there was nothing special about this Chambers appearance.
Score: 5.0

getting late again here, so rapid-fire...

Dan Hesse, CEO, Embarq
Dan really knew how to grip the audience with that opening line about how breaking up AT&T was "this country's greatest regulatory blunder." Then he impressed us by reminding everyone he used to lead AT&T Wireless. ("and how well did that go?" asked the person next to me, snickering) Then Dan proceeded to whine about how VoIP providers don't have to pay as much as he does in interconnect fees or taxes. Instead of feeling your pain, Dan, we looked at your charts and said: "Hmm. Which business are the SMART people in?"
Score: 1.0

Stan Sigman, CEO, Cingular
The guy next to me (who may write this blog soon, if he keeps contributing great keynote one-liners) noted Stan's slow walk across the football-field stage and noted, "he looks uncomfortable out of his cowboy boots." Stan apparently gave some talk about how Cingular has some beliefs it follows to make it such a great business. When I heard we were going to hear about Cingular's operating principles, I took a nature break. (If you really need a gripping, no-holds-barred account of the speech, read here!) Guess I didn't miss much.
Score: 2.0

Robbie Bach, President, Entertainment and Devices Division, Microsoft
After Bach's demo, it's clear to see why after so many years of trying Microsoft has only signed up its second customer for its IPTV software: It's nothing exciting. Gosh, how exciting! Multiple panels on my screen! Live video windows in search! And if we move to Germany, maybe we'll see it in action, right after Vista ships this year! Wait... oh, never mind.
Score: 1.5 (half-point deduction for not being able to work the demo himself. C'mon, if you need to bring a flunky out to click a remote, "Robbie," how is Joe couch surfer supposed to cope?)