INCOMPAS NEWS -- September 5, 2017

You can learn about the hottest trends, latest technology and important policy topics impacting your business at The INCOMPAS Show: Fall 2017 featuring ChannelVision Expo West and the NEDAS Symposium taking place October 15-17 in San Francisco. Here's a close look at our educational agenda:

Sunday, October 15

Marketing Workshop: Five Steps to a Successful Marketing Plan - 3 p.m - 4:45 p.m. - In this workshop led by Theresa Caragol, founder and CEO of Achieve Unite, LLC and Ilissa Miller from iMiller Public Relations, learn the importance of building an effective marketing plan with key elements designed to positively engage a target audience. This interactive experience will focus specifically on the importance of effective marketing as it relates to starting or building a channel program.
Keynote: Rep. Anna Eshoo - 5 p.m.-5:30 p.m. - Rep. Eshoo (D-Calif.) represents Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area, and served as Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications and Technology for six years.

Monday, October 16

C-Suite Breakfast - After the Deal: Keys to Successful Integration (invitation only) - 7:45 p.m.-9 a.m. - With M&A activities on the rise, this panel of experienced industry leaders will discuss the keys to success in integrating communications companies. The breakfast is being sponsored by Axcent Networks.
Untangling the Web: The Impact of the Current Net Neutrality Debate - 9 a.m.-10 a.m. - The debate regarding the Open Internet continues to dominate public and policymaking discussions. With the FCC expected to move forward with a new Open Internet policy and the potential for Congress to offer a legislative solution, this session will address what companies need to know regarding the impact of a change in policy.
SD-WAN: Killer App in the Making - 1 p.m. - 1:50 p.m. - Service providers have long sought a singular solution for multi-location customers wanting to reduce the cost, complexity and operational overhead of branch connectivity. SD-WAN is emerging as a formidable tool to address this application and a platform for an entirely new category of revenue-producing products and services that will not cannibalize existing provider revenues. Learn from panelists about service provider deployment of SD-WAN as a Service and the ways in which SD-WAN produces significant value for customers and service providers alike.
New Business Cases and Revenue Streams: The Impact of SDN on Fiber Management and Orchestration - 2 p.m. - 2:50 p.m. - Advancements in fiber transmission technology have yielded sustainable transmission speeds of more than 1Tb/s on deployed fiber and over 56 Tb/s in the lab. As their fiber deployment strategies and business cases turn on a dime, facilities-based providers need to find ways to monetize this new flexibility. Network management management and orchestration capabilities have become a new service category that supports customers' dynamic, ever-changing network requirements. This panel will explore emerging business cases and new service provider revenue opportunities offered by the flexibility of SDN-controlled fiber management and orchestration.

Tuesday, October 17

Women's Networking Breakfast Women in the Channel (WiC) presents Confidence and Connections: Elevating Each Other - 7:45 a.m. -9 a.m. - This breakfast program will focus on women in tech and explore how they can develop meaningful connections and build confidence to become leaders. WiC Founder Nancy Ridge, executive vice president for Telecom Brokers, will lead a discussion about the challenges women in tech face in becoming leaders as well as specific strategies for meeting these challenges head on.
Keynote Panel: Executive Insights: The Truth Behind Converged Network Solutions - 9 a.m.- 10 a.m. - The cloud, IoT and emerging technologies are changing the way companies use, deploy and build out networks. Co-hosted by INCOMPAS and NEDAS, this panel will examine how today's wireline and wireless executives are working with one another across the technology aisle to better enable mobility among users, enhance connectivity to the edge, and develop technology solutions that make it easier for companies to deploy, manage and operate converged network solutions.
Network Deployment Workshop: Opportunities and Impediments for Network Builders - Noon-1 p.m. - Network builders are reshaping communities around the nation. In places where vanguard broadband companies deploy new fiber networks, prices drop, speeds increase, and new businesses flourish. The market needs faster connections and greater capacity to accommodate business and consumer needs in the midst of a streaming revolution. Yet, regulatory roadblocks to competition continue to slow fiber deployment efforts, and Washington has taken notice. This interactive workshop will explore how companies are executing on business opportunities within the current regulatory scheme and address regulations that create a barrier to entry for companies that build networks and what what individual companies can do to address and overcome these obstacles. This workshop will also address policies that - if enacted - will promote broadband networks by facilitating and advancing fiber and infrastructure deployment.

On Tuesday afternoon, INCOMPAS Show participants also are invited to attend NEDAS Symposium sessions:

Small Cell Synergies - 1:15 p.m.-1:55 p.m. - Learn how small cell deployers have found added success and the tools they use for engagement with the cities and municipalities in which they are working to improve ease of access and reduce complexity and costs by proactively communicating with authorities, especially as it parallels with Smart Cities efforts.
Network Solutions Implemented to Enable Ubiquitous Connectivity - 2 p.m.-2:45 p.m. - A variety of technology solutions are required to ensure end-users can access data anytime, anywhere and from any device. During this panel, members of Women in Tech will discuss how their companies are addressing key challenges to enabling ubiquitous communications in the converging wireline and wireless worlds.
Hot Tech Highlights - 3 p.m.-3:30 p.m. - 10-minute technology presentations focused on bridging the gap technologies.
The Edge for Tomorrow: How the Edge will Continue to Re-Shape the Network - 3:30 p.m.- 4:15 p.m. With IoT driving end-users' insatiable demands, the network edge is getting harder to define as the edge moves closer to end-users and end-machines. This panel brings together industry-leading experts to provide insights into what is shaping today's network edge and the challenges companies face as they implement solutions leveraging the new edge. The panel also will explore what tomorrow's edge may look like and the technologies we need today to plan for it.

Register Now and Book Your Hotel by September 15

Register now to ensure you don't miss a minute of The INCOMPAS Show: Fall 2017.

And, don't forget to book your hotel at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis to be in the middle of all the action! You must be registered for The INCOMPAS Show to take advantage of our exclusive hotel room rate of $294 (plus tax) per night. Act soon - you must book your hotel room by September 15.

INCOMPAS Says FCC Heading Down Dangerous, Anti-Consumer, Path on Net Neutrality

On August 30, INCOMPAS filed reply comments in the FCC's proceeding on net neutrality and the 2015 Open Internet order. In its filing, INCOMPAS demonstrates that prior governmental findings, from both the FCC and the Department of Justice, establish the continuing threat to an open internet. INCOMPAS relies upon an economic review authored by Dr. David S. Evans that outlines the incentive and ability fixed broadband providers have to harm edge providers and consumers in the absence of open internet protections.

INCOMPAS previously filed one of the most substantive comments in the record, which lays out the legal arguments as to why the FCC's proposal, if adopted, would be headed towards defeat in an appeal. The FCC is legally obligated to consider the relevant facts in its proceeding, including findings and economic analyses from past proceedings.

A complete record will show decisively that today's large, wireline broadband providers serve as gatekeepers with the ability and incentive to harm both consumers and edge providers by unfairly interfering with internet traffic.

"The FCC must focus on the public interest, not the investment plans and revenue goals of a handful of large phone and cable companies. The current open internet rules are saving consumers money, creating jobs and unleashing innovation and investment. Big ISP's claim that they would never do anything to harm an open internet. But both the Department and Justice and the FCC have found this to be untrue in prior merger proceedings, including by looking at these companies' own internal documents. Papering over history will not prevail in court," said INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering. "We cannot rollback the consumer protections enshrined in the Open Internet order. The FCC is pushing the internet down a very dangerous path, one that is anti-competition, anti-consumer and anti-streaming."