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  by Mark Uncapher
1. ONLINE COMMERCE ATTRACTING MORE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ATTENTION Commerce Department Secretary Daley said that the government will begin publishing figures for the first showing the impact of online shopping on retail activity, considered a major indicator of the country's economic health. Until now, the Commerce Department had lumped online shopping figures with catalog sales in its overall retail sales numbers. The new e-commerce numbers for 1998 and 1999 will be available in mid-2000, Daley said. The Commerce Secretary added that online shopping is booming, with consumers surpassing expectations by spending some $9 billion last year. The proportion of retailers selling on the net tripled in just one year, from 12 percent in 1997 to 39 percent in 1998. The Department added that e-commerce is expected to generate $30 billion in the year 2000. At the same time Commerce Secretary Daley, joined by Federal Trade Commission Chairman Robert Pitofsky, stressed the importance of establishing strong and sound consumer safeguards in the networked economy. Both Daley and Pitofsky warned that the Internet would not reach its full potential as a driving force in the U.S. economy unless consumers feel confident that the privacy of their transactions is protected. According to Daley, though, online sales "will not keep going up if businesses fail to act responsibly. Consumers have to feel as comfortable doing business in cyberspace as they do on Main Street. Right now, they do not -- for two main reasons. "First, many are concerned about privacy. Eighty-six percent of Net users who buy products and services are concerned about threats to their personal privacy -- with more than half very concerned. If 86 percent of Americans can agree on something, you know this is a serious matter. And they will stop shopping if their private data is abused. Chairman Pitofsky and I have asked businesses to step up to the plate on this issue and to regulate themselves. It has taken some prodding." "The second worry people have is consumer protection. Consumers want to know they are dealing with a reputable company. Never having heard of it, or buying from it before -- they are skeptical. "And this past holiday season, not every consumer had a positive experience shopping on-line. One survey showed 74 percent of customers were satisfied, but that was down from 88 percent last summer. There were many problems. Sites were too slow. Selection was thin. Orders were not filled properly" according to Daley. Daley noted, however, that progress has been made, citing industry self-regulation efforts such as the On-line Privacy Alliance. He noted that OPA has signed up more than 80 companies and associations that have adopted privacy protection principles. "Establishing consumer confidence in the electronic commerce marketplace can best be done by government, business, and consumer advocates working together to minimize fraud and deception online," said Pitofsky. 2. FCC & TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT WIN KEY ROUND IN THE COURTS Coming just weeks before the third anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the regional Bell telephone companies lost key aspects of a Supreme Court battle with the long distance companies over the rules governing deregulation of the $100 billion local phone business. The ruling marks the second time in January that the Court has upheld federal regulators' powers to set the rules for deregulating the phone industry. Taken together, the two decisions sharply set back the big local phone companies' efforts to overturn or modify the law forcing them to open their local markets to competition. The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) cheered a Supreme Court ruling strengthening the hand of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in establishing the ground rules for competitive local telecommunications services. "This is a victory for consumers, competition, and the information technology industry," said ITAA President Harris Miller. "We hope the FCC will move quickly on standards for unbundled network elements so that new entrants have the widest possible choice in creating innovative, cost effective telecommunications products and services. Today's decision levels the telecom playing field and we're all for it." The Supreme Court concluded that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 lets the Federal Communications Commission, not the states, to set the pricing methods for the entry of new competitors into the market dominated by local Bell operating companies. The local Bells had hoped that state regulators would be more accommodating to the incumbent local carriers than federal rule makers. The decision also clears up some uncertainty inside the FCC as to how much power the commission has to rule on issues like calls to local ISPs. The court also ruled on additional pricing issues, focusing on how the Bells are required to lease pieces of their network to competitors. On a third key issue, the justices took a middle ground. The justices upheld an FCC rule barring the Bells from physically disassembling individual elements of their networks--such as the line that runs from the street to a house and the box that connects the outside lines to the inside of a house--before leasing them to a potential rival. The high court, however, gave that clause a narrow interpretation, concluding that it was "ambiguous" as to whether the Bells operating companies had to offer the elements on a packaged basis. The ruling closes a long chapter of Supreme Court appeals for the big local telephone companies. But the legal issues in the case are far from dead. The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) marked the third anniversary of the signing of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which will took place on Tuesday, February 9th. "To paraphrase Winston Churchill, we have now reached the end of the beginning with the Telecommunications Act. After three years, our industry sees more and more that the law is working. Telecommunications markets have been opened to increasingly robust competition. While enforcement is always a concern, much progress has been made," said ITAA Information Services & Electronic Commerce Division Vice President & Counsel Mark Uncapher. ITAA pointed out significant gains in competition for the industry resulting from the 1996 Act. For example, competitive telecommunications providers, such as commercial local exchange carriers, have gained market share, with new companies entering the marketplace; and wireless and long distance competitors continue to drive costs to consumers down through price based competition, with cost per minute for these services going down. 3. FCC ISSUES REPORT ON BROADBAND DEPLOYMENT The Federal Communications Commission in late January approved a report on the current availability of broadband to all Americans. The Commission prepared this report pursuant to section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which directed the FCC to examine whether advanced telecommunications capability, or broadband, is being made available to all Americans on a reasonable and timely basis, and to report its findings by the third anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Commission concluded that the consumer broadband market is in the early stages of development, and that, while it is too early to reach definitive conclusions, aggregate data suggests that broadband is being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion. The Commission based its conclusion, in part, on the actual deployment of advanced telecommunications capability in this nascent market. The Commission found that at least 375,000 residential consumers are purchasing broadband services, and that substantially more have access to broadband capability. The Commission compared broadband to other communications-related technologies, such as black-and-white and color television, and cellular services. The Commission found that, in terms of actual users, broadband deployment is exceeding the rollout of these other technologies at a similar point in their deployment. The Commission noted, however, that deployment of the other technologies accelerated after the first few years. The Commission stated that it anticipates that broadband deployment will similarly accelerate in the coming years. The Commission further noted that there is a significant initial consumer demand for broadband capability and stated its expectation that demand will grow substantially in the near future. The Commission was encouraged by the large investments in broadband technology that numerous companies in virtually all segments of the telecommunications industry are making. The Commission stated its expectation that these investments will lead, in the near future, to greater competition in the broadband market and to greater deployment of this capability in a manner that is more efficient and more inclusive. The Commission also examined the deployment of broadband capability to specific segments of the population, including people in rural and low-income areas, and schools and classrooms, in order to ensure that broadband is being deployed to all Americans. The Commission found that some companies are starting to build and deploy broadband facilities to serve numerous rural and low-income areas. The Commission concluded that, although much of the evidence is anecdotal, specific examples indicate that these areas do not appear to present an intractable barrier to deployment. Regarding schools and classrooms, the Commission stated its expectation that, as the implementation of the universal service support mechanisms for schools and classrooms continues, deployment of advanced telecommunications capability will become even more widespread. The Commission stated, however, that, if the potential for broadband deployment in these areas is not realized, it would take immediate steps to accelerate deployment of broadband capability. The Commission also stated its intention to continue to closely monitor the deployment of broadband capability to all Americans and to issue an annual report on this topic. The Commission further indicated that, where necessary, it would not hesitate to reduce barriers to competition and infrastructure investment to ensure that market conditions are conducive to investment, innovation, and meeting the needs of all consumers. In a related development, several companies have announced the formation of OpenNET, a coalition to promote openness, consumer choice, and competition on the Internet. The coalition believes that competition in "last-mile" services will lower prices, spur innovation and advance the benefits of the Internet. The coalition will lobby lawmakers for open access to cable systems and will focus on Congress, targeting debate on rate regulation and the coalition's concern that cable companies favor their own Internet Service Providers at the expense of competition. Coalition participants include MCI WorldCom, America Online ("AOL"), Netscape, U S West, Prodigy Communications Corp., Cable & Wireless USA, Mindspring Enterprises and others. The National Cable Television Association reacted to the formation of OpenNET by accusing AOL of taking a "regulate your enemies" approach to competition and has speculated that the regulatory path advocated by OpenNET would hamper broadband deployment. For more information, go to: http://www.opennetcoalition.org/ 4. ITAA ENCOURAGES MEMBERS TO POST PRIVACY POLICIES ITAA, as a member of the Online Privacy Alliance, encourages member companies engaged in e-commerce to post privacy policy on their websites. Now, with the announcement of a new web sweep in March to assess the state of online privacy, and with the results reported to the Federal Trade Commission, posting policies is crucial. The alternative may be unwanted regulation. The Georgetown University Internet Privacy Policy Survey will be conducted by Professor Mary J. Culnan of the McDonough School of Business, and is expected to provide a fresh look at the number of sites that have posted privacy policies since the FTC conducted highly-publicized web sweeps last spring. The FTC report last spring generated awareness that corporate America needed to do more to protect consumer privacy in cyberspace. Since then, the Online Privacy Alliance (OPA) has conducted business-to-business outreach to increase corporate awareness of the need to post privacy policies that preserve individual privacy and promote consumer trust. Results from the survey will be included in the FTC's next report to Congress on the state of online privacy. "If it turns out that (the results) are as dismal as…last year, Congress is going to have to act," FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky was quoted as telling reporters at the Media Institute earlier this month. Within ITAA, the growing attention to privacy issues is being tracked by the Information Services & Electronic Commerce Division's Information Policy Committee chaired by Jean Cantrell of Dun & Bradstreet. 5. EU AND US AGREE TO NEW PRIVACY DEADLINE U.S. and European Union officials on January 27 set a new target deadline of June for concluding discussions over the European Union's privacy directive. David Aaron, the US Commerce Department's undersecretary for international trade, and EU negotiator John Mogg, the European Commission's director general for the single market, set the deadline during their meeting on January 27 in Brussels on the EU's privacy directive, which would ban the flow of data to third countries that do not have adequate privacy protections. Because the United States does not have broad regulatory privacy protections written into law like the European Union, US industry and government officials are concerned that the directive may disrupt business between the United States and Europe. Aaron has been negotiating with EU officials on developing a safe harbor for U.S. businesses that agree to comply by certain privacy principles. Aaron and Mogg hope to conclude discussions in time for the June EU-US summit in Germany. While there were no major breakthroughs at the January 27 meeting, some progress was made on one of the major sticking points: what type of access US companies must provide EU citizens to information the companies may have about individuals. However, they did not make much progress on another major issue, enforcement. The EU wants to ensure there is effective third party enforcement of whatever privacy principles are agreed to. But the United States has expressed concern during all the discussions that US companies not be subject to a higher standard than European companies. Mogg and Aaron agreed to continue the negotiations again in early March. 6. DIGITAL PLANET NOW AVAILABLE FOR SALE The worldwide information and communications technology (ICT) market was responsible for $1.8 trillion in spending in 1997, representing about 6% of total global gross domestic product. This is greater than the GDP of France and almost twice the size of the GDP of the state of California. In addition, the World Information Technology and Services Alliance Digital Planet findings suggest that national GDP grows when Information and Communication Technology (ICT) spending increases and that even in the face of worsening economic conditions, the effect on ICT spending is muted. ICT spending is growing at an 27% faster than overall worldwide GDP, and ICT spending has grown in every economy worldwide, regardless of population growth rates or GDP. The Digital Planet: The Global Information Economy, the first global comparative study of the ICT market, provides an in-depth look at Global ICT spending and expansion in over 50 countries worldwide. Free Executive Summaries of the study are available through WITSA's website, http://www.witsa.org/. Filled with important statistics, charts and information on global spending, the Digital Planet study is for all companies competing or hoping to compete on a global scale. The study results are clear. Spending on information and communications technology (ICT) is a critically important element of the global economy. More information on the Digital Planet, including an order form, can be found at http://www.witsa.org/press/digplan.htm. For ITAA members, the full study is available for U.S. $300 plus shipping and handling, and $500 plus shipping and handling for non-members. BILLS DELIVERED BY E-MAIL? JUPITER RESEARCH PREDICTS GROWTH IN MARKET With more than 15 million US households expected to receive their bills online by 2002, banks and other financial portals are faced with a significant opportunity to capture the role of aggregator, consolidating and presenting these bills to consumers on one site. New research, released the Jupiter Communications to its Strategic Planning Services (SPS) clients, shows that although in consumers' minds bank Web sites are well positioned for the online bill presentment aggregator role, they will need to aggressively pursue the market or risk losing the opportunity to portals that already are consolidating many utility functions for online users. Online bill presentment--the electronic delivery of bills to consumers for easy online payment--is one of the critical links for widespread consumer adoption of online bill payment and other financial applications. Jupiter expects that by the end of the year, the average US online household will be able to receive three to four monthly bills (29 percent) through online bill presentment. This number will grow to approximately eight monthly bills (65 percent) in 2002, with bills from utility and telco companies already being offered online. However, the war over which Web sites will aggregate and present these bills to consumers has yet to be won. "Consumers associate their banks with financial functions," said Marc Johnson, director of Digital Commerce Strategies for Jupiter Communications. "However, in reality, these bills can be aggregated and presented to consumers by any number of online players--from banks to brokers to portals." A recent Jupiter/NFO consumer survey shows that 42 percent of online consumers would prefer to receive bills from their bank's Web site over other market players, such as personal financial management software providers (37 percent), America Online (13 percent), portals (seven percent), and brokers (one percent). Only a few portals have begun to pursue the online bill presentment opportunity, but according to Jupiter they pose a serious threat to banks. "For banks, online bill presentment offers the last chance to drive recurring contact with customers. This is critical for both customer retention and cross-promotion of other bank products and services," added Johnson. "Portals have been very successful delivering utility-based functions, and online bill presentment would provide them with the huge win necessary to capture financial portal status." http://www.jup.com/ 8. Y2K COMPLIANCE: DEAR PARTNER: COMPLY OR DIE Reprint of an Internetweek story by Tim Wilson - Year 2000 and the networked economy If business partnerships are like marriages, the Year 2000 problem is fast becoming grounds for divorce. Failure to achieve Y2K compliance could send many business partners out the door in the next few months--even in the next few weeks--as an increasing number of companies end relationships with longtime suppliers and online trading partners. "We are planning on dropping suppliers that are not going to be Y2K-ready, [particularly] suppliers that provide the critical equipment that we need in our product," says David Babler, staff engineer at AG Communication Systems, a $400 million telecommunications equipment manufacturer owned jointly by Lucent Technologies and GTE. "If we do not get a positive response [on compliance] by June 30, we will begin looking for other suppliers to certify and purchase from," Babler says. Some suppliers already are losing contracts because of their lack of Y2K readiness, according to consultants that work on the problem, though they declined to release company names. "We have one client--a multinational firm that depends on its telecommunications supplier to do business--that will make the switch to a new telecom supplier next month," says Ed Yourdon, chairman of the Cutter Consortium, a Y2K advisory organization. "The CIO of our client company went out to visit its telecom supplier, and after reviewing the supplier's progress, he came out with a queasy feeling. So he decided to make the switch." Incidence of such sudden divorces could escalate rapidly, according to a study by Cap Gemini America, a Y2K services firm. In a survey of 110 IT managers at Fortune 2000 companies, Cap Gemini says the number of businesses "likely" or "potentially likely" to cut ties with noncompliant suppliers has risen to 69 percent. Others agree these splits will happen quickly over the next five months. "The question is how long it takes for a company to change suppliers," says Kate Kaiser, senior adviser at Giga Information Group's Year 2000 IT Practices unit. "If it takes six months to terminate one supplier and add a new one, you need to make a decision by June. We have one client in the garment goods industry that has a lead time of one and a half years. They were looking at this issue six months ago." Yourdon agrees that deadlines are pressing: "If you're going to change suppliers, it's likely to happen in the next six to 12 weeks, not the next six to 12 months." Over the past year or two, relations between business partners and suppliers regarding Y2K were fairly amicable as companies requested information about their respective progress in fixing the date bug. But now, frustrated by the unresponsiveness of their partners, some are losing confidence that those partners will finish their remediation before glitches begin to impact the supply chain. "The primary goal of our Year 2000 project is to ensure there will be no interruption in service delivery to our members and customers," says Mary Taschner, Year 2000 project manager at AAA Arizona. "If a vendor is not responsive to our requests to provide Y2K-compliance status, and if we determine that they could have a critical impact on our business, we will certainly look at replacing them with a supplier that at least will confirm that they have made their best effort to be compliant." The Cap Gemini survey bears out these concerns. "We found that about 92 percent of companies have already missed deadlines in their Year 2000 plans," says Jim Woodward, senior vice president and head of the TransMillennium Services unit at Cap Gemini. "As time winds down, there is greater recognition that some companies just aren't going to make it. So the companies that trade with them are getting more serious about deadline slippage." The largest companies are cracking the whip the hardest, according to Howard Rubin, president of Rubin Systems Inc., a Y2K consultancy. "I think there will be a good many relationships changed in the small to medium-sized business segment," he says. Large retail firms such as Wal-Mart and Sears, Roebuck & Co. are forcing suppliers to "comply or die," much as they forced smaller companies to deploy EDI software years ago, notes David Darnell, president of SysTrends Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in EDI and e-commerce implementation. Wal-Mart and Sears did not respond for comment. "The smaller companies will have problems," Darnell says. "For the big companies that are doing just-in-time inventory, there just aren't any allowances for suppliers that can't make the grade. I expect that the big retailers will weed out some of the smaller suppliers by midyear." Although large companies in industries such as retail and manufacturing may have the ability to switch suppliers to avoid possible Y2K-related failures, others don't want to change their business relationships--or in some cases, they have no alternative. "One problem we have is where we use a service/product that we cannot replace or cannot replace in a timely manner," says Debi Schaibly, president of MM Consulting Inc. and chair of the West Central Florida Year 2000 Users Group. For example, an auto manufacturer may have only one source for a certain part; or a garment retailer may have only one contact for a particular item. "It is becoming evident that there is a lot of uncertainty in what will and will not fail. We need some truth and reality on what we will be facing. The contingency plan for a service that will be down for a few days is a lot different than the plan for a few weeks or a few months of downtime," Schaibly says. If a company is leery of a partner's Y2K compliance but unable to switch partners, Y2K planners should factor that skepticism into a Y2K contingency plan, experts say. "Some companies may decide to stockpile a certain amount of the product they receive from that supplier to tide them over until the supplier can get up and running again," says Giga Group's Kaiser. Other companies simply eliminate redundant suppliers, she says. Y2K problems in the supply chain will affect some businesses more than others. "It could happen, but we aren't too concerned about it," says Joe Knowles, director of the systems department at The New York Times. In some cases, companies will tout their Y2K-compliance edge over slower competitors. According to the Cap Gemini study, more than half of the companies surveyed plan to incorporate Y2K compliance into their marketing messages this year. Y2K compliance "will certainly be a competitive advantage for [our] suppliers, and companies that are open to confirming their compliance status will likely position themselves to gain new relationships," AAA's Taschner says. "Those that do [Y2K remediation] first and best will have a distinct operational advantage over everyone else," says Lila York, director of special projects at Southwest Stars Corp., a Year 2000 services firm. And what if your company is one that will not be able to meet its compliance requirements? "At that point, you have two choices: You can lie about it and plan to leave town on New Year's Eve, or you can be up front about it and work on contingency plans," says Cutter Consortium's Yourdon. "A lot of companies don't want to end their partner relationships; they just want to know what the impact will be. Will the plant blow up? Or will there just be a delay in sending out some billing information? Sharing what you know is one way to keep your customers." Industry standards vary as well. Some have established standards for Y2K remediation variables, such as windowing--a way of fixing Y2K problems without expanding dates to four digits--while others have no concerted effort to set such standards. "There are some questions about standards," Yourdon acknowledges. The banking industry, for example, asks participants a lot of hard questions about the quantity and quality of the testing that has been done," he says. "But at this point, I think most of the questions really center around whether the partner will finish on time." 9. NEW INTEL CHIP GENERATES PRIVACY FLAP Reprint of Industry Standard story by Elizabeth Wasserman A powerful lobby forces Intel to modify its plans for unique identifiers on chips. Intel executives went on a road show two weeks ago. They visited San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C. They brought along a slide presentation about the company's forthcoming Pentium III microchip. They were prepared to blow a lot of hot air. But that's where similarities to other road shows end. Intel officials weren't meeting with stock analysts, financiers or the trade press. They were courting the privacy cabal. Prior to publicly unveiling the new chip, which contains an embedded electronic serial number that can identify individual computers during Internet transactions, Intel briefed a handful of privacy advocates about the product. But the advocates swiftly condemned the identifier, which they argue would make it easier to compile electronic dossiers on consumers' Web activities. Within days of the product launch, Intel capitulated. Each chip will still come with a unique number, but Intel will issue software that requires users to switch the ID function to "on" instead of to "off," as the world's largest chipmaker originally had intended. Three groups - the Electronic Privacy Information Center of Washington, D.C., Junkbusters of Green Brook, N.J., and Privacy International of London - say the software isn't the appropriate solution for a "hardware problem." On Thursday they called for a boycott of Intel and computer manufacturers that use the chips, unless the chips are recalled. The company says the processors have already started shipping. Time will tell whether a company that grossed $26.2 billion in chip sales last year will cave in to public sentiment. Privacy is to the Information Age what environmental issues were to the Industrial Age. These days, when privacy advocates talk, it's as if E.F. Hutton had spoken. People listen. Companies listen. Monopolies even listen. "Yes, it came into play," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy says of privacy concerns that entered the decision to reverse the identifier's default position. "To pretend that it didn't have a role would be naive." The Internet's own Tylenol scares are still vivid in memory: Lexis-Nexis and the P-Trak database; America Online's decision to let telemarketers contact subscribers, AOL's "outing" of a gay Navy man; and GeoCities' use of member information for marketing, which violated its own privacy policy. Mulloy says Intel was testing the waters when it briefed privacy advocates and the press. Intel officials knew the "on" or "off" status of the identifier would spark controversial debate. Others say it's a sign of the times: More technology companies are trying to catch potential privacy nightmares in the design process, before products hit the market. "There is a privacy marketplace," says Jeff Richards, executive director of the Internet Alliance, who points out that some consumers take their business away from companies they don't trust with personal information. Two weeks ago, two Intel officials braved an ice storm in New York to meet with Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union. They invited John Gilmore of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Dave Farber, a telecommunications professor at the University of Pennsylvania, to a demonstration at headquarters. Alan Davidson and James Dempsey, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, saw a presentation while visiting the West Coast. They briefed the Online Privacy Alliance, the Progressive Policy Institute and TRUSTe. A scheduling snafu caused them to miss Marc Rotenberg and the Electronic Privacy Information Center until last week. "I've been contacted by any number of companies over the last couple of years to preview products to enhance free speech or consumer privacy or maybe become a critic," says Steinhardt. Some privacy organizations carry enormous clout with the public, the media and, as a result, industry. Companies shudder when Rotenberg focuses on them. "We have found a way, using the Internet, to stick to our principles and still make a difference," says Rotenberg, who founded EPIC in 1994 with colleagues David Banisar and David Sobel. "We weren't looking for some big deal with Intel. We're looking to fix the problem." Mark Uncapher, VP of and counsel to the Information Technology Association of America, says there is common ground between the industry and the advocates on such issues as encryption. On privacy issues, however, a greater divide exists because companies want to make money through personalizing, marketing and verifying transactions. Still, no company asks for trouble. "Every single time there is a corporate privacy flap," Uncapher says, "nobody saw it coming." On March 2 from 1-4pm ITAA Western Regional Vice President Amy Callahan and Information Services & Electronic Commerce Division Vice President & Counsel Mark Uncapher will conduct an E-commerce workshop at Computer Telephony Expo Spring 99 in Los Angeles at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The e-commerce program will include:
On the morning of March 2, Mark Uncapher will also conduct a session on
"Are you ready for Year 2000 " which will focus especially on the
readiness of telecommunications systems. To register on line or get more
information about CT EXPO contact: ITAA is hosting a series of Webcasts on topics on interest in
eCommerce. The schedule can be found at ITAA 1999 eCommerce Webcast
Schedule: http://www.itaa.org/ecomm/calpro/schedule.htm)
An ITAA Webcast is a multimedia presentation consisting of PowerPoint
slides, pushed over the Internet (visual), and a simultaneous conference
call (audio).
The user requirements are access to the Internet with a reasonably
current version of a popular browser and a long distance phone line. The
only cost to the member participants is the cost of the phone call to the
conference center. Upon registration for a Webcast, the registrant will
receive instructions and password for access to both the visual and audio
portions off the presentation.
Once the participant is logged on to the URL and the conference call -
no further action is necessary. The Webcasts generally last for one hour:
45 minutes for the presentation and 15 minutes for Q&A and Discussion.
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