Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski is going to Vegas, baby.
Genachowski will be the headliner for the Consumer Electronics Association's SuperSession lineup at the 2010 International CES conference program, to run Jan. 7-10 in Las Vegas.
The FCC chairman will be interviewed by CEA president and CEO Gary Shapiro for what is promised to be "a candid discussion of the Chairman's policy priorities" at 12 p.m. (PT), Friday, Jan. 8 in the Las Vegas Convention Center North Hall, N255-257.
Network neutrality is among the topics expected to be on the table. Genachowski wants to codify principles that Internet networks should remain open and nondiscriminatory into FCC-enforceable rules, while allowing for "reasonable network management." The cable industry is against the proposal, arguing that it's unnecessary and potentially harmful.
Others issues to be covered in the Q&A with Genachowski are the national broadband plan -- due from the FCC on Feb. 17, 2010 -- competition policy, wireless spectrum scarcity and other issues that affect the consumer-electronics industry.
Genachowski's predecessor, Kevin Martin, participated in the same interview-format discussion with Shapiro at the Vegas confab for three years in a row.
Among the other panels scheduled to be part of the SuperSessions program is "Global Perspective on Retail." Also moderated by Shapiro, participants are to include Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn; Gary Severson, Wal-Mart Stores senior vice president general manager of entertainment; Gilbert Fiorentino, chief executive of Systemax's Technology Products Group; and X-cite CEO Srikant Gokhale.
