Rob Frieden serves as Pioneers Chair and Professor of Telecommunications and Law at Penn State University. He also provides legal, management and market forecasting consultancy services and has written four books, most recently Winning the Silicon Sweepstakes: Can the United States Compete in Global Telecommunications published by Yale University Press. Rob has written over one hundred articles in law reviews and telecommunications policy journals and has provided commentary in a variety of trade periodicals. He updates a major communications treatise: All About Cable and Broadband (Law Journal Press).
Rob has held senior policy making positions in international telecommunications at the United States Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. In the private sector, he practiced law in Washington, D.C., and served as Assistant General Counsel at PTAT System, Inc. where he handled corporate, transactional and regulatory issues for the nation's first private undersea fiber optic cable company. Professor Frieden holds a B.A., with distinction, from the University of Pennsylvania (1977) and a J.D. from the University of Virginia (1980).