Now that school has started (at least for those with school-aged children), I would like to expand on that discussion to cover academic resources in greater detail. I would also like to cover email discussion groups.

UNIVERSITY SITES

August's article highlighted what I called the "granddaddy" portal for communications sites, located at http://china.si.umich.edu/telecom/telecom-info.html and which offers over 7,000 hypertext links to telecommunications resources on the Internet. This site is hosted by the University of Michigan and is maintained by Professor Jeffrey K. Mackie-Mason. Practitioners with an interest in Internet economics and analysis might also want to review his homepage, at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jmm/.

While that site is a worthwhile place to start telecommunications research, there are a number of other academic sites that may be of interest to practitioners. These include:

http://www.vii.org/ (The Virtual Institute of Information, maintained by the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia University)

http://commlaw.cua.edu/ (CommLaw Conspectus, hosted by Catholic University)

http://www.law.indiana.edu/fclj/ (The website for the Federal Communications Law Journal, a joint publication of Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington and the Federal Communications Bar Association)

http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/www/ (MIT's Communications Forum)

http://www.law.cornell.edu/ (Cornell University's website on various aspects of the laws and decisions that affect the communications industry)

http://www.tiap.org/ (The website for the Telecommunications Industries Analysis Project, a continuation and expansion of work that the founder, Carol Weinhaus, has produced over the past decade under the aegis of various universities)

For additional sites, log on to Anderson Publishing Company's directory of law reviews and scholarly legal periodicals. This site is compiled by Michael H. Hoffheimer, Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi. The URL is: http://www.andersonpublishing.com/lawschool/directory

EMAIL DISCUSSION GROUPS

Practitioners might also find it useful to participate in one or more of the numerous on-line "listservs" to exchange or monitor ideas regarding communications-related issues. Listservs are also referred to as law lists, mailing lists, electronic discussion groups, email lists, e-conferences and, sometimes, bulletin boards. A central computer maintains a list of subscribers, and when a subscriber sends an email to this computer (running the listserv program), the computer will forward it to all subscribers. In this way, membership lists only need to be maintained in one location. Moreover, subscribers are generally able to control the delivery of messages and unsubscribe at any time.

It is advisable, though, to subscribe to the lists one-at-a-time for a week or two to see if the topics discussed are relevant and if the volume of mail generated is reasonable; some lists are relatively quiet, while others can generate over fifty messages a day.

For a complete list of law mailing lists, log on to the site hosted by Lyonette Louis-Jacques of the University of Chicago Law School, at . The list also explains the subscription procedures and indicates whether and where archives are maintained. These groups include the following:

CYBERIA-L (CYBERIA-L is the oldest and probably largest Internet discussion group for general on-line issues. It was started by Professor Trotter Hardy of the William and Mary School of Law to foster a discussion of the law and policy of computer communications among legal scholars, practitioners, students, and other interested parties)

To subscribe, send the message "subscribe cyberia-l Firstname Lastname" (without the quotes) to listserv@listserv.aol.com. For more information, visit http://www.lawlists.net/cyberia/.

CYBERTELECOM-L (This group discusses telecommunications regulatory issues facing the Internet, such as access charges, Enhanced Service Provider status, tariffs, competition with telephone companies, universal service, telephony, federal regulatory actions affecting the Internet, It is open to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), the Internet industry, Internet trade associations, public interest groups, scholars, professionals, and all other interested persons)

To participate, send the following message to listserv@listserv.aol.com: "subscribe cybertelecom-l Your Name." For more information, visit http://www.cybertelecom.org/.

EUROTELECOMREG (This discussion group focuses on European telecommunications regulations and laws)

To join, send the following message to listserv@nic.surfnet.nl: "subscribe eurotelecomreg Your Name."

LAW-EJOURNALS (LAW-EJOURNALS is hosted by the Warwick Law School in the United Kingdom)

To subscribe, complete the online form located at http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/.

ROUNDTABLE (This is a telecommunications policy forum).

To join, send the message "subscribe roundtable (Firstname Lastname)" to "listproc@cni.org." More information and archives at available at http://www.cni.org/Hforums/roundtable/.

TELECOM DIGEST (Telecom Digest is an electronic journal started in 1981 and edited by Patrick Townson)

To subscribe, send an empty email to subscriptions@telecom-digest.org. More information and current archives are available at http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/.

TELECOMLAW (This discussion group is restricted to lawyers, professors, government, law students, and journalists/press)

Subscribe by sending a blank email message to TelecomLaw-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or by applying online at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TelecomLaw.

TPR-NE (The website for the Telecommunications Policy Roundtable - Northeast)

To subscribe, send the following message to listserv@mitvma.mit.edu: "subscribe tpr-ne Your Name."

After surfing some of these academic sites or participating in class discussion, you can tell your kids that you, too, have gone back to school this fall. But, fortunately, you won't have any tests or homework.

______________________________________________________________________ Mr. DeSoto is an attorney at the law firm of Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP. He practices in the areas of wireless and wireline telecommunications, telephone company ratemaking, and equipment authorization. He previously worked in the FCC's Common Carrier Bureau. 9/2002


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