The papers from the conference 13-14 April are now available online - very heavyweight as this is the biennial telco regulator get-together.

Given the previous post, it’s notable that - though the majority of regulators kept to the ‘business as usual’ agenda - a good proportion, if a minority, were very animated about new business models, especially in tradeable/commons spectrum, and VoIP. The spectrum element of ERO-organised conferences is very important.

Ex-EC speakers from the U.S., Malaysia and other places made a big impact, partly because they’re better speakers: Scott Harris and Paul Margie told what a mess currently holds at the FCC, and Paul quoted Coase - quite a start on Day 1.

Personally, chairing the final session on investment (what investment?), I observed the regulatory track, where there were a lot of excellent presentations as well as rumours of NRAs coming under legal challenge to implement properly. Phillippe Defraigne, Martin Cave and Tom Kiedrowski’s papers in particular demand downloading.

Jorgen Andersen of the Danish regulator was great value, defending the most advanced of the regulators (though Finland might disagree, as it often does with the EC), and the 3 Baltic states have closer cooperation than any others. But for these 5 innovators, there are a lot of foot-draggers: Germany the obvious example at the conference.

One point: in Barcelona, don’t try to charm the ‘home crowd’ by speaking Spanish - the locals speak Catalan! It’s like talking about the emperor’s new clothes to converged regulators…