WITNESS INTRODUCTIONS

Oversight Hearing on DBS Competition in the Multichannel Video Market

Dec. 4, 2001

Mr. Charles Ergen

            Our first witness is Mr. Charles Ergen, the Chairman and CEO of EchoStar communications. Mr. Ergen founded EchoStar in 1980 to sell backyard satellite dishes to customers in rural Colorado. Since then, EchoStar has done pretty well. In 1996, Mr. Ergen founded EchoStar’s DISH Network, a full-service multichannel DBS video provider that currently serves over six and half million customers. He received his B.S. in General Business and Accounting from the University of Tennessee and his M.B.A. from the Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University.

Mr. Robert Pitofksy

            The Committee will then hear from Mr. Robert Pitofsky, a former commissioner and Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. Mr. Pitofsky is currently a professor of law at Georgetown University and is associated with the law firm Arnold and Porter. He has held faculty and resident positions at Harvard Law School, New York University Law School, and the Brookings Institution. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from New York University and was a member of the Columbia Law Review. Mr. Pitofsky is also the author of dozens of antitrust law review articles and co-author of a primary Antitrust Casebook.

                                                Mr. Robert Phillips

            Our next witness will be Mr. Robert Phillips, the President and CEO of the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative. The NRTC was founded in 1986 to bridge the multichannel video distribution digital divide between urban and rural America. Currently, the NRTC is a provider of multichannel satellite service to over a million rural customers. Mr. Phillips has served as President and CEO of NRTC since its founding. In his fifteen years with NRTC, he has been a vocal advocate for expanded multichannel video coverage in rural America and has frequently testified in Congress to highlight the lack of multichannel video option faced by those who live in rural parts of the country.

Mr. Gene Kimmelman

            Our final witness is Mr. Gene Kimmelman, the Co-Director of the Washington Office of the Consumers Union, a nonprofit organization established to provide customers with objective information about goods and services. Mr. Kimmelman specializes in deregulation and consumer protection issues, particularly those involving telecommunications. Prior to joining the Consumers Union, Mr. Kimmelman served for two years as chief counsel and staff director for the Antitrust Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Kimmelman is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University and received his law degree from the University of Virginia Law School.