About Us Quick Links: Our Mission Members Chairman Scott Cleland Our Mission: Create a forum to promote competitive Internet choices for consumers through an open, rigorous, and illuminating discussion and debate of "net neutrality" legislation/regulation. Netcompetition.org e-forum members share a market vision of a: A constantly-improving Internet that functions most efficiently, effectively, and productively so consumers and the economy can enjoy maximum benefit, productivity, and growth; A consumer-driven, on-demand Internet where consumer demand, not government fiat, ensure consumers are not blocked from the legal content, applications, and devices of their choice; A vibrantly growing and competitive broadband market free of government micromanagement that maximizes economic growth, job creation, and U.S. competitiveness; and A win-win growth dynamic where everyone on the Internet: network operators, device makers, application developers, and content providers -- enjoy the freedom to innovate, invest and differentiate to best serve their customers and advance our economy. Netcompetition.org e-forum members believe: Market-based competition benefits consumers more than government-managed competition. Times have changed; consumers enjoy a wide range of broadband providers and technologies. Moreover, technology is the primary enabler and driver of competition -- not government Antitrust is the appropriate and sufficient mechanism for addressing anti-competitive behavior. Regulation is appropriate for homeland security, law enforcement and public safety. Consumers should retain their freedom to choose among different broadband services and technologies. All broadband providers have an interest in developing good solutions to the challenges posed by applications and services demanding increasing bandwidth. Innovation to meet consumer demand should be encouraged, so that consumers experience the best Internet possible. Customers collectively in the marketplace make better decisions than government because: immediate customer feedback efficiently deters customer-unfriendly practices; and economic incentives of success and disincentives of failure have real consequences. The marketplace is more effective than regulation in promoting efficient use of bandwidth and maximizing value to consumers. Marketplace arrangements can reduce the costs of Internet service to consumers. Effective management of bandwidth is vital to ensuring that consumers can continue to access the content and applications that they desire. Marketplace arrangements are far more capable than rigid government regulations of promoting efficient use of bandwidth and delivering ever more innovative Internet content and applications to consumers.   Members: The following members support the mission and efforts of the NETCompetition.org e-forum. American Cable Association Cellular Telecommunications Association National Cable and Telecommunications Association US Telecom Association at&t Comcast Qwest Sprint Time Warner Cable Verizon Verizon Wireless WCA International   Chairman's Bio Scott Cleland Chairman, NetCompetition.org Founder & President, Precursor, LLC Summary: Scott Cleland is one of nation's foremost techcom analysts and experts at the nexus of: capital markets, public policy and techcom industry change. He is widely-respected in industry, government, media and capital markets as a forward thinker, free market proponent, and leading authority on the future of communications. Precursor LLC is an industry research and consulting firm, specializing in the techcom sector, whose mission is to help companies anticipate change for competitive advantage. Cleland is also Chairman of NetCompetition.org, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Precursor LLC and an e-forum on Net Neutrality funded by a wide range of broadband telecom, cable and wireless companies. He previously founded The Precursor Group Inc., which Institutional Investor magazine ranked as the #1 "Best Independent" research firm in communications for two years in a row. I. Capital Markets Expertise: Scott Cleland has testified before three different Congressional Subcommittees on different forward-looking capital markets issues. He was the first expert witness to testify before Congress analyzing Enron's collapse. He also testified on both conflicts of interest and accounting tricks that contributed to telecom bankruptcies and fraud during the market bubble. Fortune Magazine profiled Cleland as "ahead of the pack in raising questions about WorldCom's debt, profitability, and survival." Then-WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers tried to discredit Cleland's prescient and hard-hitting research on WorldCom by deriding him as the "idiot Washington analyst." Cleland also served as the lead source and primary analyst for Hedrick Smith's Emmy Award winning PBS Frontline Special, "The Wall Street Fix." Scott Cleland has extensive professional and entrepreneurial experience in capital markets. He founded and built the Precursor Group Broker Dealer from scratch to the #1 Institutional Investor-recognized independent research firm in communications in four years. The Precursor Group Inc. served most of the top investment institutions in the U.S, including 39 of the top 50. Overall, he has 13 years experience in the institutional investment business including working for Legg Mason and the Schwab Washington Research Group. In 2002, Cleland conceived and was the Founding Chairman of the Investorside Research Association, the first and only trade association of independent research firms, which has over 70 members. He also was Investorside's point person with the industry, SEC, Congress and the Administration on regulatory and legislative matters relating to soft dollars. In 2002, Institutional Investor Magazine called Cleland "the de facto spokesperson for the independent research community." II. Public Policy Expertise: Cleland has testified before Congress several times on the 1996 Telecom Act and competition issues. He is widely respected in Washington as one of the foremost analysts and observers of the Federal Communications Commission and regulatory policy. Cleland has extensive public policy experience in and out of government. He served President George H.W. Bush as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for telecom trade matters, and served as a Senior Policy Advisor for Legislative Affairs to then Secretary of State James A. Baker III. Cleland received the Superior Honor Award for his role as the lead congressional briefer to Secretary Baker on all foreign policy matters during the first Gulf War and the dissolution of the former Soviet Union. Cleland is also a Member of the United States Department of State, Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy. In addition, he has Federal government experience as Director of Legislative Affairs for the U.S. Department of the Treasury and as a Budget Examiner for OMB in the U.S. Executive Office of the President. Cleland has a Masters of Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in Political Science from Kalamazoo College. III. Techcom Industry Change Expertise: Cleland also has testified several times before Congress on forward-looking industry issues, such as the impact of the AT&T-SBC and Verizon-MCI mergers, the Echostar-DirecTV merger and the future of cable competition. In 2004 and 2005, Cleland was voted #1 independent researcher in communications Institutional Investor Magazine. In addition, Cleland has been interviewed three different years by Barrons Magazine on the future of the telecom industry. Cleland has a high-profile track record of foreseeing change before others do. He was the first researcher to publicly predict a wide variety of industry developments accurately including that: local franchising would slow Bell video entry; UNE-P price regulation would not be ruled legal; the decline and ultimate bankruptcy of Worldcom; the "Datatopia" burst of the fiber bubble from hyped data traffic growth; Department of Justice's blocking of the Worldcom-Sprint merger; the failure of the regulatory-dependent CLEC model; the importance of the techcom growth dynamic; the Sprint local spin-off leading to a new cable alliance; the new viability of Broadband over Power-lines (BPL); the Telecom Act would lead to Bell consolidation and a radio industry rollup, and originally that the 1996 Telecom Act would pass.