The federal government has put a Ball State-based organization into the national digital policy conversation.
The Digital Policy Institute was reappointed in April to the Consumer Advisory Committee of the Federal Communications Commission by FCC’s chairman. Members of the DPI, including Ball State professors and graduate students from different departments, will research issues and provide the research to legislators, which will aid in education for future legislation.
Robert Yadon, director of DPI, said they focus on a number of issues, including spectrum auctions. Spectrum auctions sell radio frequencies to companies to broadcast on. The FCC will host another auction on Jan. 11.
Yadon said they also focus on IP, or internet protocol, transitions, which would move the current communication practices onto an internet-based network.
The first project the organization worked on was research for the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. Yadon said the DPI had to give the commission a report on trends in national telecommunications policy.
“In Indiana, [the DPI’s first report] got the endorsement from the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the unions and the editorial pages of both the Indy Star Press and then the Ft. Wayne paper,” Yadon said.
Deregulation legislation ended up passing with bipartisan support, and Indiana became the second state to deregulate telphone company’s service rates, with first being Texas.
“From that, we kind of got the reputation of ‘You want someone to help you deregulate and help you do research on reform legislation, then you ought to get a hold of the DPI at Ball State,’” Yadon said.
Yadon said he does not think digital policy should be regulated.
“It’s not very efficient for us to regulate this industry,” Yadon said. “It would grow a lot faster if it was deregulated. We said back in 2004, ‘It’s time.’”
Yadon, Dom Caristi, a professor of telecommunications, and Alan Richardson, now-retired professor of telecommunications, started the DPI in 2004.
It started under a Provost Initiative Grant by the three founders as they felt a need to push for adapting legislation to the ever-changing technological landscape.
Although the Institute began at Ball State, it is financially self-sustaining. The DPI sells research that it publishes once or twice a year, Yadon said.
According to its 2011-2012 annual report, the group’s main source of income included sales from research and workshop sponsorships. The income is then used to pay for travel expenses that the Institute accumulates.
The audiences from the workshops and conferences that the DPI traveled to have included public figures such as the Prime Minister of France.
“This is Ball State, right?” Yadon said. “And we have a seat at the table internationally as well.”
