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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

February 3, 2016

HIGH TECH POLICY

2016 Cisco Mobile VNI: Reporting on the Data

Over the last decade, the Cisco Mobile Visual Networking Index (VNI), our rolling five year forecast of Internet trends has delivered some amazing and eye-popping predictions. Today’s VNI Mobile Forecast update, for example, shows that the deployment and adoption of 4G is accelerating even faster th…

January 28, 2016

HIGH TECH POLICY

IoT: Using Technology for the Developing World

As we enter 2016, I can’t help but reflect on the staggering success and take up of the Internet of Things (IoT), which refers to any device able to connect to the Internet. Mobile penetration is booming, broadband access continues to soar, more and more devices are being developed with sensors and…

September 25, 2015

HIGH TECH POLICY

As Two Digital Divides Close, A New One Threatens

Five years ago when it was created, the UN Commission for Digital Development stated that “the digital divide continues to be a development divide that must quickly be bridged.” Since then, huge progress has been made in closing the digital divides in the adoption of information and communication te…

April 23, 2015

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

No Inclusive Growth Without Women and Girls in ICT

Last week we partnered with the WEF in launching the 2015 Global Information Technology Report highlighting the importance of closing the gender gap in ICT to ensure everybody benefits from ICTs. Today as we celebrate the ITU’s Girl in ICT day all around the world, we recognize the challenge in fron…

April 14, 2015

HIGH TECH POLICY

The Paradox of ICT’s Impact on Growth and Inequality

Thirty years ago a UN commission published the Maitland Report, proposing that by the early 21st century, every individual on the planet should “be within easy reach of a telephone” given the economic benefits. That was interpreted as being within a one day walk of a phone. Anyone suggesting back th…

January 20, 2015

HIGH TECH POLICY

Who’s Got (Networking) Talent? Launching the 2014 Global Talent Competitiveness Index Report

“Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of the conditions of men – the balance wheel of the social machinery.” – Horace Mann, 1848 Mann, is he right. Education paves the way to opportunity and higher living standards. And today we recognize a technology with a…

November 26, 2014

HIGH TECH POLICY

The Multi-Stakeholder Open Internet: Safe for Another Year

The multi-stakeholder Internet Governance process is safe from being replaced by a government-only top down process. At least for now. The Internet as we know it has added huge social and economic value to the world as well as to our personal lives and is governed by a broad multi-stakeholder proces…

April 23, 2014

HIGH TECH POLICY

Global IT Report Identifies Key Policies for the Internet of Everything

Note: The full report can be found here as well as chapter 1.2, “The Internet of Everything: How the Network Unleashes the Benefits of Big Data“ The World Economic Forum launched the 2014 Global Information Technology Report (GITR) today, and the annual assessment provides insight into…

March 15, 2014

HIGH TECH POLICY

Cisco Supports U.S. Department of Commerce Decision to Transition Internet Management Functions

On Friday, March 14, the US Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced its intent to transition key Internet domain name functions to the global multi-stakeholder community.  As the first step, NTIA is requesting the Internet Corporation for Ass…