In a recent filing at the FCC, Cisco provided its thoughts on how the FCC might evaluate policies to promote and accelerate the use of smart grid technologies across the country.  As it turns out,  a portion of our filing was misrepresented in a blog and elsewhere on the internet, stating that we do not support additional spectrum allocations for utilities. In fact, we believe this is a critical issue at the FCC that goes beyond the boundaries of technology and should be evaluated based on business models and the need to accelerate smart grid deployments. 

For example, while steel is important for nation building, steel production is not something that very country can do or need to do. Instead, they buy what they need from whomever offers them the best value for money. Air travel is essential to international commerce, but not every country can produce their own aircrafts. Today’s main producers are Boeing and Airbus, and most airlines buy aircrafts from them. Extensive reliance on purchasing aircrafts from Boeing and Airbus has not limited the competitiveness and distinctive service level offered by globally successful airlines such as Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific. In the same breath, although many countries started with national carriers, not many have survived today, e.g. Swissair collapsed and the successor national airline Swiss was bought over by the German Lufthansa. Domestic production does not appear to be not a criteria for success.

What about the ICT sector?

There was overwhelming consensus in that one of the best policy determinations Governments could do to foster the development of wireless mobile broadband networks is putting spectrum to work.

The presentation is available in the following url: http://www.oas.org/en/media_center/videos.asp?sCodigo=09-0287&videotype=&sCollectionDetVideo=7

or click on READ MORE to view the video.

This afternoon,  it became clear that Irish voters have accepted the Lisbon Treaty by a decisive majority and are satisfied that by retaining their EU Commissioner and local control over matters such as taxation,  Ireland is ready to continue as a strong participant in the European Union.

This is great news for the citizens of Ireland and for companies like Cisco.  Ireland has played an important part in the development of some of our most innovative technologies. The future of Cisco’s unified communication portfolio is being researched and developed in Galway. 

Technology will play a central role in Ireland’s stated ambition to become a “Smart Economy”.   Being a strong and participative member at the heart of the European Union, combined with an open business environment for global technology companies, will undoubtedly help Ireland realise this ambition. 

Ireland has always prided itself on being a gateway to Europe for many global technology companies, including Cisco. Today’s result will ensure that important role continues for decades to come.

This Friday, Irish voters will vote in a referendum to approve or reject the EU Lisbon treaty which would create a permanent EU presidency, more unified EU-wide laws and improve the overall efficiency of the EU’s operations. Ireland must approve the Treaty in order for it to take effect across the 27-EU member bloc. Irish voters rejected the Treaty in a referendum last year after widespread debate and some confusion. After rejection, Ireland received important concessions from Brussels, including the right to retain an Irish EU Commissioner.

Cisco employs approximately 200 people in Ireland across its Dublin and Galway R&D Centre locations…

The Irish referendum this week is seen as the key hurdle to adopting Lisbon, which will reform the current institutional set-up of the EU.  With the likes of Ryanair, Intel and Microsoft lining up behind the ‘Yes’ campaign, the question I’m interested in is why so many in business, and the high tech sector in particular, are supporting the Treaty?

In Part 2 of this blog series, I’ll focus on a couple of the more IT-related areas of the 20 Smart Grid components noted in this report.  (Caveat: I am from Cisco, and our role in Smart Grids is to leverage our experience in IT and communications to better enable both utilities and energy customers by bringing end-to-end communications + security to Smart Grids)

It’s pretty amazing when you think about how far we’ve come in a mere 150 years. 

During the industrial revolution, railroads and steam engines connected farmers and merchants with distant markets. Today, connecting the world involves broadband instead of boats, cable instead of coal, and spectrum instead of steam.
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President Kikwete clearly understands the transformational power of connectivity.  Connectivity is the enabler for the world to grow and help solve each other’s problems. Just like the railroad in the 1800s, the network has transformed how people connect. 

But it has gone even further by transforming how we communicate and collaborate; from both an innovation and sustainability perspective.

In Part 1 of this blog series, I’ll focus on those areas rated Moderate today and/or have a Moderate to High trend rating.  (Note: the 20 Smart Grid components are grouped into categories of Coordination Regimes, Distributed Energy Technologies, and Transmission/Distribution Infrastructure)

By placing climate change high on his domestic and foreign policy agendas, President Obama has changed the dynamics of climate discussions with the EU and in global climate negotiations, generally. His administration is fully re-engaged in UN negotiations and, along with Congress, is moving forward with domestic cap-and-trade legislation. Domestic legislation would impose mandatory caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and set a target to cut emissions by 17% by 2020 and 83% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. The recent economic stimulus package includes $15bn for alternative energy development, more fuel efficient cars and a “smart grid” to bring them together.

The US and European are taking different approaches to solving global warming. While the Obama Administration presents reducing greenhouse gas emissions in terms of opportunities through the power of technology and the creation of a green economy, the EU is mainly focused on shorter-term opportunities to conserve, reining in electricity consumption and using less fuel by driving less and using more fuel-efficient, smaller cars, etc.

There is, however, a convergence of EU and U.S. long-term goals on climate change, and this is good news.