Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that after an earthquake devastated Haiti, Catholic Relief Services, like many other relief organizations, sought donations through cellphone texts.

Unlike other relief groups, however, Catholic Relief Services added an innovative “twist on the technology” of donations via cellphone — When contributors sent a text message to donate, they got a reply offering to connect them via phone to the charity’s call center.

Three days after launching the “text-to-call” effort, however, the charity received word that Sprint Nextel was demanding Catholic Relief Services abandon the feature or lose access to millions of Sprint customers.

According to The New York Times, “The conflict underscored a problem that public interest groups asked the Federal Communications Commission to address more than two years ago: the hazy legal status of text messages, which are controlled by telephone companies without any real government oversight. The laws that prohibit phone companies from interfering with voice calls do not apply to text messages, a fast-growing medium.”

Last June 11, 2010, Public Knowledge and the Mobile Internet Content Coalition (MICC), sponsored a half-day conference at the Washington, DC offices of Arent Fox, LLP, to explore the challenges, frustrations and barriers faced by innovators and entrepreneurs in the industry and lay out proposals for greater government oversight of the mobile market.

The program moderated by Michael Hazzard, the chairman of the Arent Fox Telecommunications Group and feature panel discussions of some of the leading innovators in the mobile market.

Presentation:

• Introduction - Mike Hazzard
• Jed Alpert, CEO, Mobile Commons
• Jared Reitzin, CEO, mobileStorm
• Jeff Sass, Vice President, Myxer

Video:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4