Earlier this week, NCTA’s President & CEO Michael K. Powell, spoke at one of The Media Institute’s Communications Forum luncheons. Powell, a former FCC chairman, spoke about the topic of simplicity, especially as it applies to telecom regulation.

Broadcasting & Cable‘s John Eggerton reported some of the key points made in his remarks.

“Congress and the FCC are on the verge, perhaps for the first time, of declaring that the highest and best use of spectrum is not broadcasting, but broadband,” [Powell] said in a speech to the Media Institute in Washington. While a speech about communications and jobs is common these days, Powell’s was linked to Steve Jobs and his mantra of simplicity. Like the less-is-more approach to Apple products’ elegant functionality or rail thin TV sets, regulators should also look to pare back, he suggested.

Powell’s speech touched on broadcasting, the Internet, spectrum availability, common carriage. He also addressed concerns about broadband speeds.

Powell suggested that the rap that current broadband speeds are not fast enough, no matter how fast they are, is a bad one. “Internet evangelicals constantly profess the end of the world because there is not enough capacity for some future magical set of applications that they have imagined and drive us to feel national shame because we don’t measure up to some otherwise unremarkable Baltic Country,” he said, as laughter erupted in the room. “If you really want to go to Latvia for broadband, go down to Dulles airport and head on out.”

You can read the entirety of his remarks on NCTA’s website. You’ll also find references to the world-renowned designer John Maeda, Barry Schwartz’s book Paradox of Choice, William of Ockham, and Talladega Nights‘ NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby.

NCTA President & CEO Michael Powell is the featured guest on C-SPAN’s The Communicators program this week, the weekly series focusing on the policy makers, opinion leaders and others who are shaping our digital future. The video is now available online, and will air on Saturday at 6:30pm on C-SPAN. It airs again Monday on C-SPAN2 at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. ET. You can also subscribe to the show’s podcast.

John Eggerton offered a preview of the show in Broadcasting & Cable yesterday.

Today, the film, television, music and ISP industries announced a landmark agreement on a common framework for “Copyright Alerts” – a state-of-the-art system similar to credit card fraud alerts – that will educate and notify Internet subscribers when their Internet service accounts possibly are being misused for online content theft. This voluntary system, which will educate subscribers about potential content theft on their Internet accounts, benefits consumers and copyright holders alike.

Until now, there hasn’t been a common framework of best practices for alerting Internet subscribers about possible content theft. This new system will send up to six warnings to consumers, alerting them that their broadband accounts may have been used to steal digital media.  The agreement between content providers and ISPs also establishes the Center for Copyright Information, whose mission will be to further educate consumers about issues around online content theft.

In the news release announcing the agreement, James Assey, NCTA’s Executive Vice President, had this to say:

“Consumers have a right to know if their broadband account is being used for illegal online content theft, or if their own online activity infringes on copyright rules – inadvertently or otherwise – so that they can correct that activity.  We are confident that, once informed that content theft is taking place on their accounts, the great majority of broadband subscribers will take steps to stop it.  That’s why the educational nature of this initiative is so critical.”

NCTA worked in an advisory capacity with ISPs to help complete the agreement.  You can read the announcement here or read some of the news coverage.

• Entertainment and Broadband Companies Partner to Curb Online Content Theft
• Cable, Telcos Join Digital-Piracy Crackdown Effort
• Labels Reach Deal With ISPs on Antipiracy Effort
• Major ISPs agree to “six strikes” copyright enforcement plan
• Entertainment giants and broadband providers team up on piracy effort

Back in November, you may have read our post on the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).  The IETF is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet.  It is open to any interested individual.

The organization’s stated mission is to make the Internet work better by producing high-quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use and manage the Internet.

The entire Internet ecosystem benefits from open Internet standards, especially when developed in a standards-based, self-governing environment like that provided by the IETF. That’s why we’re pleased to announce that the U.S. cable industry will be sponsoring the 85th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force, scheduled to take place in November, 2012, in Atlanta, GA.

The event sponsorship will be shared by some of the nation’s leading broadband providers, including Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable, Bright House, Cablevision Systems Corp., Charter Communications, and Cox Communications, along with Cable Television Laboratories (CableLabs®) and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. The announcement was made in Prague, Czech Republic, as part of the ongoing 80th IETF meeting.

We’re very pleased to play a role in this multi-stakeholder forum that will bring together over one thousand of the best and brightest Internet engineers from around the globe, working together for five days in order to come to a consensus on solutions to the pressing operational and technical problems of the Internet.

The IETF covers a wide variety of technical topics.  It’s made up of major working group areas:  applications, Internet protocol, operations and management, real-time applications and infrastructure, routing, security and transport.  It covers such topics as Internet congestion control, IPv6, DNS issues, real-time communications, and many, many more.

The IETF’s stated mission is “to make the Internet work better.” One of the “founding beliefs” of the IETF is embodied in an early quote about the organization from David Clark, one of the Internet pioneers: “We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code.”

The U.S. cable industry supports the work of the IETF, and we look forward to sponsoring this prestigious meeting in Atlanta in 2012.

Every year Multichannel News honors the top women executives in the cable industry as “Wonder Women.” This week in New York, twelve women were honored as Wonder Women at a lunch, cosponsored by the New York chapter of Women in Cable Telecommunications. Among those honored this year was NCTA’s own Jadz Janucik.

As SVP of Association Affairs, Jadz directs NCTA’s federal grassroots and third party outreach, and works with state and local intergovernmental groups. She also closely collaborates with state cable associations on legislative issues. During her tenure, NCTA has created key programs such as the Key Contact program, the Cable Academy and the State Leadership Conference.

But Jadz’s contributions go beyond the everyday tasks. She has an incredible institutional knowledge of the industry and its key players. Her wonderful sense of humor clearly comes in handy as she expertly manages relationships both inside and outside the industry. And as everyone around her knows all too well, Jadz is a trusted leader, mentor and friend to many at NCTA and throughout the industry.

Congratulations once again to Jadz, and the 11 other cable industry women who now share the title Wonder Woman.