In its most recent Telecommunications Market Review and Forecast, the Telecommunications Industry Association of the United States (TIA; www.tiaonline.org) commented that U.S. government funding for communications research is on a steady decline. In contrast, the report says, countries in Asia and Europe are increasing their communications research funding.
“The federal government has allocated only 0.3% of the total $137.2 billion of its total research-and-development budget for fiscal 2007 to large-scale networking research and development, of which communications is part,” stated the report, which is authored annually by Wilkofsky Gruen Associates (www.wilkofskygruen.com). “In fact, government funding for large-scale networking research, which includes both computing and communications research, has steadily decreased in the United States over recent years.
“By contrast, European and Asian countries are ramping up their communications research, leading American companies to move their research facilities overseas to other countries that provide greater support. The European Union has tripled its funding of R&D of information society technologies (IST) over the last few years. In fact, IST research is the largest funding priority in the entire EU research program.”
The report also points to China’s recent announcement that it is shifting resources to make communications its leading industry, noting that “in absolute terms,” only the U.S. and Japan devote more money to R&D than China does. Additionally, Korea has set the objective of doubling its R&D spending between 2001 and this year.
“Many European and Asian governments are providing greater incentives than the United States for private companies to advance their research efforts through generous tax allowances,” the report says.
While noting that some positive funding measures are taking place-particularly the American Competitive Initiative and increased budgets at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology-the report opined, “more funding must be focused specifically toward communications research, which is the principal source of fundamental advances in the digital technologies powering vital U.S. defense and homeland security capabilities.”
The report states that the TIA’s Communications Research Division advocates more funding and research activities, and also advocates coordinating communications research more closely across all relevant agencies and programs.
These comments were made in a section of the report focusing on public policy developments in the U.S. The section covers policy issues that include: the Universal Service Fund; the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act; enhanced 911; consolidation among wireless carriers, wireline carriers, and equipment vendors; local competition; video franchises; net neutrality; municipal broadband deployment; wireless spectrum issues; and first responders.
Of particular note were some of the comments on consolidation among equipment vendors. After explaining that the carriers’ consolidation has spurred the same trend among equipment vendors, the report says, “AT&T and Verizon are looking to create unified networks that will enable subscribers not only to access landline and wireless networks, broadband and television, but also to migrate seamlessly among these channels ... The ability of carriers to obtain equipment quickly and at attractive prices and to be able to maintain, repair, and support that equipment on an ongoing basis is becoming increasingly important.
“Equipment vendors that can meet these demanding requirements will likely compete more effectively than those who cannot. Toward that end, major equipment companies are merging to fill gaps and expand their equipment and service offerings to provide a full range of equipment for the carriers.”
