CLOSING STATEMENT FROM DAVID J. BARRAM, DEPUTY SECRETARY FOR THE
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Thank you for participating in the National Telecommunications
and Information Administration's (NTIA) Virtual Conference on
Universal Service and Open Access.  We are delighted that so many
of you took the time to share your thoughts on these important
issues. 
 
Due to the overwhelming response, the conference was extended an
extra five days.  It will officially end this evening, Wednesday,
November 23, at Midnight, EST.  This conference was the first
time that any Administration has sought public input through
electronic networks.  We are pleased that it was such a success,
and we are thrilled with the volume of comment and quality of the
dialogue.  The Virtual Conference is a tremendous example of how
our information infrastructure can allow greater citizen
participation in the development of government policies.  

Over the 10 days of the conference, our web page was accessed
over 9000 and the six listservs averaged over 400 subscribers
each.  We heard from people in 15 countries, and had 80
libraries, schools, and other organizations participating as
public access points throughout the United States.  The
viewpoints expressed ranged as widely as the states and countries
they represented.  

We are in the process of constructing a searchable archive of all
of your comments.  We anticipate that it will be available to the
public in 7-10 days.  People researching universal service and
open access issues will be encouraged to use your comments in
their endeavors.  The archives will be located on the Information
Infrastructure Task Force's gopher or website.  (To access, see
instructions below.)

We'd like your feedback on the Virtual Conference and whether or
not you found your participation to be useful.  We'd also like
you to tell us how we can improve the quality of future virtual
conferences.  Please e-mail any comments you may have in this
regard to nii@ntia.doc.gov.   

For our part, the Virtual Conference was an enormous success. 
The opinions you shared and the ideas you expressed contribute a
lot to the Administration's National Information Infrastructure
(NII) policy discussions.

We appreciate your participation.  Thank you, again, and Happy
Thanksgiving!
  
Instructions for access to IITF Gopher Server:  you can gopher,
telnet (login = gopher), or anonymous ftp to iitf.doc.gov. 
Access is also available at the same address for World-Wide Web
(WWW) clients.