Partying While the Phone Business BURNS
But the most amusing comments came from the man inside the Beltway who holds the keys, the newly crowned Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell. Powell vowed that the FCC would cut the Baby Bells some regulatory slack. "We were charged [by Congress] to make sure the Bells were effective wholesalers, and that's all," said Powell.
Mostly, though, Powell was a cheerleader on stage for half-an-hour. The phone business is "on a great journey," he said, as it turns into an Internet business. And Powell encouraged weary telco execs: "Sometimes settlers fall victim to perils along the journey," he observed, but "nimble entrepreneurs will find the path to success."
All these high-speed access technologies, however, pale beside the really new stuff, which is fiber optics. As you may have heard, billions have been sunk into the ground laying fiber, and some companies may themselves end up in the ground for it. But the technology involves real innovation. On the show floor at Supercomm, a company called Atrica of Santa Clara, Calif., was showing off router equipment that will transmit 100 billion bits per second over fiber, 10 times the fastest pipes in today's fiber links. The chip spinoff of troubled Lucent Technologies (LU), Agere Systems (AGR.A), was almost everywhere on the show floor, having built chips or circuit boards or both for not only Atrica but almost every other young equipment vendor there.
smartmoney.com
FCC, NTIA See Rocky Road Ahead for 3G Wireless Spectrum
It will be difficult to locate and reallocate spectrum for third generation (3G) wireless services, according to the FCC (www.fcc.gov) and NTIA (www.ntia.doc.gov), which have spectrum allocation authority in the United States.
Both federal agencies released reports March 30 that explain how tough ahead the road will be to get spectrum for 3G, which is intended to bring broadband Internet access to portable devices. The reports address two spectrum bands identified by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU, www.itu.int) 2000 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-2000) for possible 3G uses.
"Both reports conclude that substantial challenges lie ahead in any efforts to accommodate 3G systems in the bands studied," says Matthew J. Flanigan, president of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA, www.tiaonline.org).
There are significant obstacles to use spectrum in this band by 3G services, according to the NTIA report. Satellite control, for example, "could not be completely relocated until all satellites using this band have expired, which could be as late as 2030," according to the NTIA report
FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth said in a statement that the government shouldn't be making spectrum allocation decisions.
"When government intervenes to impose its own view of the highest valued use of spectrum, there is a significant risk that government will get it exactly wrong," Furchtgott-Roth said. "Ultimately we must have faith that the marketplace is the best mechanism to chose among commercial applications for spectrum."
FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell shares some of that same sentiment.
x-changemag.com
New ICO Seeks to Develop Land-Based Service, NYT Says (Correct)
London, April 2 (Bloomberg) -- New ICO Global Communications, the satellite venture that emerged from bankruptcy last year under cellular-phone pioneer Craig McCaw, has asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to allow it and other satellite companies to develop land-based mobile service, the New York Times reported.
London-based New ICO has proposed developing cellular service using radio-frequency spectrum reserved for satellite communications, the paper reported, citing a letter the company sent last month to FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell. The company said the system would operate in urban areas not served by satellites because of interference from buildings, the paper said.
news.cnet.com
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