LAS VEGAS — The possibility of cybersecurity regulation wasn’t exactly a skunk at last week’s celebration of wireless communications, but the issue hung over a massive three-day industry convention here and revealed ongoing anxieties about how it should be addressed in the cyberspace.
The annual CTIA “Super Mobility” conference drew thousands of participants to behold the wonders of rapidly advancing wireless technologies, and to hear from industry leaders and stars like Mark Cuban, the tech-savvy owner of the Dallas Mavericks, on how the future is shaping up.
Verizon’s executive vice president John Stratton called the gathering “a celebration of the vitality” of the wireless industry, while also cautioning that addressing public policy issues like customer privacy and digital security are key challenges. “Our industry is well-positioned to do this,” he declared.
The showroom floor at the Sands Expo convention center teemed with displays featuring the latest lines in drones, sharply accessorized “smart homes” and the services coming soon from the “Internet of Things,” the quickly unfolding world in which devices of all kinds communicate with one another in homes, cars, the streets and virtually everywhere.
Conference-goers were also given a taste of what policymakers in Washington are thinking when it comes to implementation of the next great technological step forward.
That would be the fifth-generation, or “5G” telecom system which is expected to provide the backbone for the Internet of Things, beginning as soon as 2018.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Thomas Wheeler, in an opening speech, stressed industry’s leading role and the FCC’s commitment to supporting private-sector innovation.
Wheeler was CEO of the CTIA for a dozen years, but his tenure at the FCC has often been marked by confrontation with his former industry over multiple regulatory issues, including in the cybersecurity space.
In his speech here, Wheeler was mostly all in for collaboration and industry leadership.
The commission can encourage competition, make spectrum available and “stay out of the way” as industry innovates, Wheeler said.
But he cautioned that cybersecurity must be addressed in the design phase of the new technologies behind 5G, while Internet service providers must have robust privacy policies in place.
The emphasis throughout the convention was on government-industry collaboration, with an underlying message that government regulation could throttle this most successful corner of the economy.
During her opening presentation, CTIA president Meredith Baker called for fair play in privacy rules, which should apply equally to all stakeholders as the FCC pursues a controversial privacy proposal.
Later, the message to the next administration from an industry panel on the cybersecurity ecosystem was simple: Don’t undermine partnerships and collaboration, or rush to regulation.
On another panel, the FCC’s associate public safety chief Nicole McGinnis said “public-private partnerships are fundamental to the work we’re doing” and that Wheeler “has made clear” that cybersecurity efforts should be industry-led.
McGinnis said the commission is taking special interest in reaching out to small and mid-sized telecom companies.
Glenn Reynolds of the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration said his agency is engaging in a nonregulatory fashion with industry on cybersecurity and privacy, for instance, as well as security patches for Internet of Things devices.
“Things are changing so rapidly and so dramatically, there’s potential for some win-wins,” Reynolds said. The NTIA wants to “bring folks together and find common ground where the market is not yet working.”
That message echoed throughout the convention — aimed, as much as anything, at the administration that will take power next January.
Charlie Mitchell is editor of InsideCybersecurity.com and author of “Hacked: The Inside Story of America’s Struggle to Secure Cyberspace,” published by Rowman and Littlefield.
