Spectrum Policy and Auctions: Best Practices from Around the World
 

Speaker Biographies

Erik Bohlin
Professor
Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

Erik Bohlin is a Professor in the Department of Technology Management & Economics at Chalmers University of Technology, and he is Editor-in-Chief of Telecommunications Policy. He obtained his graduate degree in Business Administration and Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics (1987) and his Ph. D. at Chalmers University of Technology (1995).

At Chalmers, Professor Bolin was the Head of Division (2004-2012), Chair of the Department Faculty Council (2007-2014), and participated on many academic committees. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses and supervises Ph. D. dissertations. He has published articles in a wide range of refereed publications. His publications relate to policy strategy for the information society and management.

Professor Bohlin has extensive experience contributing to several international networks including the International Telecommunications Society, where he served as Chair from 2004 until 2016. The international networks are also an integral part of his role as Editor-in-Chief of Telecommunications Policy where he is engaged in identifying several hundred reviewers and deciding on more than 300 submitted papers per year. He also receives frequent invitations to evaluate academic peers for promotional decisions, to present papers at conferences around the world, to contribute articles and book chapters, and to serve as an advisor to governments, regulators and companies. Additionally, he has achieved success in securing grant and consulting funding with an emphasis on information and communications technology development.

 
Nick Bone
Senior Expert Auctions & Commercial Mathematics, Vodafone Principal Engineer
Vodafone Group R&D

Dr Nick Bone has worked for Vodafone for twenty years, and is the company’s leading strategy expert and game theorist for spectrum auctions. He has advised, trained and participated in bid teams in over 60 auctions and 25 countries since 2010. Nick has seen regulators play with almost every conceivable auction design while the cost of spectrum climbed, with a cumulative bill to Vodafone of more than 35 billion US dollars over the decade. This trend is now straining even the strongest and best-advised operators to the limit. Nick obtained his doctorate in Mathematics from Oxford University (1998) and when not advising on auctions, develops new industry solutions and standards for security and advanced cryptography.

 
Martin Cave
Visiting Professor, Law Department
London School of Economics

Martin Cave is a visiting professor in the law department of the London School of Economics, and the chair of the UK energy regulator, Ofgem. He is an economist specialising in competition law and the regulation of network industries. He has formerly held chairs at Brunel University, at Warwick University, and at the London School of Economics. From 2012 to 2018 he was an inquiry chair at the UK Competition and Markets Authority. He has undertaken independent regulatory reviews for the UK and other governments and regulators in the field of spectrum management. He is co-author, with William Webb, of Spectrum Management – using the airwaves for maximum economic and social benefit (Cambridge University Press 2016; Chinese and Spanish editions 2018). Martin Cave is a visiting professor in the law department of the London School of Economics, and the chair of the UK energy regulator, Ofgem. He is an economist specialising in competition law and the regulation of network industries. He has formerly held chairs at Brunel University, at Warwick University, and at the London School of Economics. From 2012 to 2018 he was an inquiry chair at the UK Competition and Markets Authority. He has undertaken independent regulatory reviews for the UK and other governments and regulators in the field of spectrum management. He is co-author, with William Webb, of Spectrum Management – using the airwaves for maximum economic and social benefit (Cambridge University Press 2016; Chinese and Spanish editions 2018).

 
Oliver Chapman
Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs
GSMA

Oliver has worked in the mobile industry for over a decade in a range of policy and marketing roles. He is currently Policy Director in the GSMA’s spectrum team where his focus is on major and emerging spectrum policy issues including 5G, spectrum sharing, the Internet of Things and spectrum pricing. Prior to joining the GSMA in 2013, Oliver worked in communications campaigns for major telecom industry bodies, operators and vendors. They included the Small Cell Forum, the Wireless Broadband Alliance, Vodafone, ZTE and start-ups like Flarion, Kineto Wireless and Ubiquisys.

 
Eric Dagenais
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Spectrum and Telecommunications Sector
Innovation and Economic Development (ISED), Canada

Éric Dagenais was appointed Acting Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Spectrum and Telecommunications Sector in June 2019. Mr. Dagenais has held the post of ADM at ISED since 2015 within various other sectors and has directed many high-profile initiatives relating to Defence Procurement, Skills and Training, Broadband Connectivity and the Information and Technology sector.

Prior to this, Mr. Dagenais was the Director General of the Small Business Branch at Industry Canada, Director General, MacKenzie Gas Project Office at Environment Canada and Director General, Investment Review at Industry Canada.

Before joining the senior management cadre, Mr. Dagenais held various positions within Industry Canada and the Privy Council Office (PCO).

Éric holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Ottawa and a Masters in Economics from Carleton University.

 
Jan-Hendrik Jochum
Spectrum Policy & Projects
Deutsche Telekom AG

Mr Jochum is expert in Spectrum Policy at Deutsche Telekom AG (DT), where he is responsible for spectrum management and projects. He is an expert for spectrum auctions and is leading all kinds of projects for airspace connectivity from a regulatory perspective within DT. He participated in many auctions within DT’s footprint in recent years.

Jan joined DT in 2009 and works in the regulatory sector since 2014. Prior to joining DT he was working in different projects in Europe for a management consultancy. Jan holds a Master of Arts in Political Sciences from the University of Bonn, Germany.

 
Evan Kwerel
Senior Economic Advisor, Office of Economics and Analytics
U.S. Federal Communications Commission

Evan Kwerel is Senior Economic Advisor in the Office of Economics and Analytics at the Federal Communications Commission. He has worked on a broad range of spectrum policy issues and has been a proponent of market-based approaches to spectrum management. He conceived the “broadcast incentive auction” - the world’s first two-sided auction to repurpose spectrum - and helped shape the bill to authorize it. After Congress enacted authorizing legislation, he was the key policy advisor on the Incentive Auction Task Force. The broadcast incentive auction concluded in 2017, reallocating 84 MHz of television broadcast spectrum nationwide to meet the growing demand for mobile broadband services. In 1993, after Congress granted the FCC auction authority, he was the primary architect of the FCC's innovative simultaneous multiple round auction methodology. He was also a major intellectual force in the development of price caps as a replacement for rate-of-return regulation and reforming the regulation of international telecom facilities and rates. 

Dr. Kwerel received his B.A. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972 and his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976. From 1976 to 1982, he was an assistant professor of economics at Yale University. In 1981 he was a Brookings Economic Policy Fellow, and from 1982 to 1983, he was a senior economist with the President's Council of Economic Advisers. He joined the FCC in 1983. In 1995 he received the Federal Communications Commission’s Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Service. In 2009 the Federal Communications Bar Association awarded him the Excellence in Government Service Award. He received the Presidential Rank Award in 2012.

 
Dr. Dan Maldoom
DotEcon Ltd., UK

Dr Dan Maldoom is a Partner of the economic consultancy, DotEcon, which he founded in 1999. He was previously Fellow in Economics at University College, Oxford. Dan has advised many regulators around Europe on spectrum award design and spectrum policy, including Ofcom in the UK and ComReg in Ireland. He has designed and implemented high value auctions across telecoms, energy and environmental sectors and advised governments around the world on new applications for market mechanisms. Dan is regularly involved with competition and regulatory debates in the telecoms and media sectors, often providing expert testimony in leading cases. He undertaken cost-benefit analysis for regulatory bodies underpinning many of the key policy changes in telecoms, such as the introduction of spectrum trading and the opening up of unlicensed spectrum.

 
Stephen Schmidt
Chair
ITS

Stephen Schmidt is Vice-President, Telecom Policy & Chief Regulatory Legal Counsel at TELUS Communication, a major provider of wireline, wireless, Internet and television services, based in Vancouver, Canada. Mr. Schmidt leads a multi-disciplinary team of professionals responsible for (i) making policy and legal submissions to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Industry Canada, the Competition Bureau, the Federal Cabinet and other government bodies; (ii) conducting and directing appellate advocacy before the Federal Courts and the Supreme Court of Canada; and (iii) advising on compliance with public law frameworks for telecommunications, both in Canada and internationally.

Prior to joining TELUS, he worked at AT&T Canada and ACC TelEnterprises, with a focus on regulatory and legal matters respectively.

Mr. Schmidt holds a Bachelor of Arts (with Distinction) from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Manitoba. Mr. Schmidt’s publications on communications law and policy have appeared in Info, Canadian Business Law Journal, Telecommunications Policy, and International Telecommunications Law (Juris Publishing).

In June of 2016, Mr. Schmidt was elected Chair of the Board of the International Telecommunications Society (ITS), an international forum where academic, private sector, and government communities can meet to identify pressing new communications policy problems and issues, share research results, and develop new approaches to address these issues. Mr. Schmidt has been a Board member of the ITS since 2004.

 
Pat Sujarittanonta
Associate Professor
Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok

Pacharasut (Pat) Sujarittanonta is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. His research focuses on auctions and market design. He has worked on a variety of issues such as spectrum auction, antitrust and M&A. He has provided advice on auction design and strategy to governments and bidders in over 20 spectrum auctions across 10 countries. He led the design of all mobile spectrum auctions in Thailand. Sujarittanonta received Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Maryland and First Class Honor B.Eng. in Computer Engineering from Chulalongkorn University.

 
Janet Yale
Chair
Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel

Janet Yale, who chairs the panel, is currently the president and CEO of The Arthritis Society. She has a long history in the communications sector, having previously served as Executive Vice-President at TELUS and the President and CEO of the Canadian Cable Television Association. Ms. Yale also served as a Director General at the CRTC and as General Counsel at the Consumers Association of Canada. She is recognized as a leader in the not-for-profit sector, and currently serves on the boards of Samara, the Ottawa Art Gallery and Business for the Arts.