Wireless policy, public-interest group forms

A new, pro-market advocacy group has formed to focus on business, technological and social aspects of mobile communications.
The Mobile Future Coalition debuted yesterday at CTIA Wireless 2008.
“American consumers have been well-served by the robust competition in the wireless market,” said Mobile Future Chairman Jonathan Spalter. “This has resulted in lower prices, the emergence of new technologies, consumer choice and 80% market penetration. At the same time, added Spalter, “We are still in the very early days of mobile technology, and the limits are only just being explored. To assure its continued evolution and innovation as a force for economic, cultural, scientific and community advancement, all stakeholders who care about mobile technologies will benefit by learning from each other. Mobile Future aims to be an open educational platform to facilitate the sharing of information, a resource for policymakers, and a voice for consumers and the industry.”
Spalter previously held posts of chief information officer of the U.S. Information Agency, CEO of Snocap and senior manager of Vivendi Universal in France. He is the founder of Public Insight, an investment research company.
Joining Salter on the Mobile Future’s board of advisors are former Federal Communications Commission member Kathleen Abernathy, a partner in the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; Diane Smith, business affairs director for IPTV firm Avail Media, Inc; Hiram “Art” Contreras, former assistant chief of the Houston police department and a U.S. marshall for the Southern District of Texas; Jo-Anne Basile, a business consultant who for 14 years was a senior executive with CTIA; and Mobile Future’s executive director Teri Rucker, a journalist who reported for Dow Jones and National Journal’s Technology Daily before serving in public affairs capacities for AT&T Inc. and the Senate Commerce Committee.
Mobile Future’s membership to date includes a wide variety of entities including Alligator Planet, Analog Protocol, Asian Business Association, Asian Women in Business, AT&T, City Capture, Climate Cartoons, Goomzee, HTTP://, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, League of United Latin American Citizens, Mobile Commons, National Association of Neighborhoods, National Black Chamber of Commerce, National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, Platform Equity, Politics-360, Rivada, Scanbuy, University of Texas Medical Branch Center for Telehealth Research and Policy and Zuku.