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Robert Pepper

No Longer with Cisco

 

Robert Pepper leads Cisco’s Global Technology Policy team working with governments across the world in areas such as broadband, IP enabled services, wireless and spectrum policy, security, privacy, Internet governance and ICT development.

He joined Cisco in July 2005 from the FCC where he served as Chief of the Office of Plans and Policy and Chief of Policy Development beginning in 1989 where he focused on issues cutting across traditional boundaries and led teams developing broadband policy, implementing telecommunications legislation, planning for the transition to digital television, designing and implementing the first U.S. spectrum auctions, and developing policies promoting the development of the Internet.

Before joining the FCC, he was Director of the Annenberg Washington Program in Communications Policy. His government service also included Acting Associate Administrator at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and initiating a program on Computers, Communications and Information Policy at the National Science Foundation.

His academic appointments included faculty positions at the Universities of Iowa, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, and as a research affiliate at Harvard University. He serves on the board of directors of the U.S. Telecommunications Training Institute (USTTI) and advisory boards for Columbia University and Michigan State University, and is a Communications Program Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He is a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, the UK’s Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board and the U.S. Department of State’s Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy.

Pepper received his BA. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Articles

July 1, 2013

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Formal Broadband Plans Spur Economic and Social Development

3 min read

Two Asian nations – Korea and Singapore — have managed to leapfrog multiple stages of economic development and have transformed into economic miracles.  This comes as no accident, in part, because both have taken a planned approach to technological development, starting with national broadband plans, which has led to increased broadband adoption, and successive waves […]

April 10, 2013

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Global IT Report 2013: Broadband Investments Bring Growth and Jobs

2 min read

Can broadband lead to economic growth and employment? This year’s edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report (GITR), sponsored in part by Cisco, tackles this critical question and the answer is a decisive ‘yes’. Launched today (April 10) in New York, this year’s GITR, titled “Growth and Jobs in a Hyperconnected World”, […]

April 5, 2013

HIGH TECH POLICY

Broadband for Development: Taking it to the Next Level

1 min read

The United Nation’s (UN) Broadband Commission for Digital Development has clearly demonstrated the link between broadband and achieving the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The UN set out these important goals for global development in 2000 with a target for 2015. With one thousand days left, it is time to focus on what is […]

March 14, 2013

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Mobile World Congress 2013: Coping with Exploding Data Demand

2 min read

A dominant theme for the mobile networking industry at this year’s Mobile World Congress was how to cope with exploding demand for mobile data. Part of the answer is new...

February 18, 2013

HIGH TECH POLICY

VNI Shift Driven by Smartphone Adoption and Offloading to Wi-Fi

For the fifth year, Cisco has released its updated Mobile Visual Networking Index Forecast.  This year, we’ve seen dramatic changes in consumer behavior as well as continued explosive growth...

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