Will Obama Address The Hemorrhaging of Telecommunications?

The entire world is changing in many ways, from the new economy to the new presidency, and the resulting impacts of each. Everybody wants a piece of the economic and attention pie, with multi-billion dollar industries and companies faced with the threat of extinction without immediate reform. While the financial services and automotive industries have received federal aid for their nearly-empty pocketbooks, it’s incredibly important to note that the entire telecommunications industry’s needs must not be ignored. Inter-carrier networks that make up the telecommunications infrastructure of the nation are mission-critical infrastructure components, and all of America’s business, trade, and commerce relies on the success and availability of this industry. Without a stable, resilient, available, and affordable telecommunications infrastructure, we all fail. Infrastructure cannot be ignored. It impacts every aspect of every industry. Let’s focus on the mass-services and infrastructure that affect everyone, before drilling down into industry-specific issues, shall we? I recently had the wonderful opportunity to discuss several ideas for Barack Obama’s upcoming tenure in office, as it applies directly to the IT industry. Joining me on the Network World round table chat titled “Bloggers give Obama marching orders for the IT industry”, were NetworkWorld’s Jamey Heary (Cisco Security Expert), Craig Mathias (Nearpoints), Curt Monash (A World of Bytes), and Computerworld’s, Dan Tynan (Culture Crash). We had an excellent hour-long discussion on several key issues related to the future of Obama’s potential IT agenda. What struck me as most important, however, was the need to maintain critical infrastructure to ensure national security. Please check out the roundtable transcript for our discussion. Jamey Heary also wrote a follow-up blog that identifies the key conflicts with Obama’s Blackberry and national security. Very interesting!