WASHINGTON-All the turmoil, chaos and confusion of merging two major trade associations and sponsoring a huge industry conference in a year’s time might drive one to write one of those heart-felt country and western songs that Personal Communications Industry Association President Jay Kitchen likes so much.
But Kitchen is taking it all in stride as the trade group kicks off its annual meeting this week in Orlando, Fla.
“Certainly, there’s been more time on the road and longer hours, but I’m having the time of my life,” said Kitchen. “We’re bright and sunny as far as the future goes with the merger of the two organizations.”
PCIA’s conference is no Mickey Mouse operation, mind you. Nearly 10,000 attendees, including 300 wireless equipment suppliers and service providers-large and small-from the United States and abroad will be on hand.
Who knows, you might catch the bearded Kitchen wearing a pair of his favorite cowboy boots at the show. Talk to him a while and he might tell you a new joke he’s heard or repeat an old one.
Affable, with a gift of gab that allows him to mingle with the modest and mighty of the business and political worlds, Kitchen has built a solid reputation as a highly effective wireless industry advocate.
The ability to connect with people-be they managers he has empowered with delegated responsibility, regulators like those he used to work with at the Federal Communications Commission from 1968 to 1977, technicians at small two-way radio shops or corporate bigwigs in Brooks Brothers suits-has made Kitchen an effective administrator and voice for the wireless telecommunications industry.
PCIA last November joined forces with the National Association of Business and Educational Radio, creating one of the largest and perhaps the most diverse trade association in the wireless telecommunications industry.
The common bond that drew the two organizations together was paging. Until recently, the industry operated under two sets of rules-one for private carriers and one for common carriers.
Congress in 1993 ordered the FCC to unify paging regulations as part of a sweeping overhaul of mobile communications laws so that related wireless services are treated similarly.
Otherwise, the trade group’s 3,000 members represent a cross section of an industry in the midst of historic change: narrowband and broadband personal communications services firms that have spent billions of dollars to operate next-generation paging and pocket telephone systems, respectively; specialized mobile radio operators; technicians; manufacturers; antenna site owners and managers; and large firms such as Federal Express, Union Pacific Railroad and United Airlines that operate massive radio communications systems internally.
“We are very, very membership driven-more than perhaps any other telecommunications trade association in Washington,” said Kitchen.
Kitchen, who headed NABER since 1981, became president of PCIA as a result of the merger. Today, he oversees a staff of 110 and a budget of $14.7 million.
“One of the biggest challenges we’ve had is to bring two groups of very talented people together and develop a single culture for the organization,” Kitchen stated.
Paging companies historically have dominated PCIA’s membership. Business radio users were NABER’s bread and butter. The convergence of wireless technologies and the trend toward deregulation have removed these barriers, though. Distribution channels are changing. Marketing is becoming more important as wireless products and services are directed at consumers.
As a result, Kitchen has had to alter his message to take account of small businesses who now sit nervously beside telecommunications giants in PCIA.
“Our key goal as we step into any of these battles is to develop consensus on the industry side so that we’re moving as a unified group,” stated Kitchen.
In instances where different license groups within PCIA cannot agree, the association’s bylaws allow those segments to speak for themselves.
The PCIA-NABER merger also entails major administrative tasks, including relocating to new headquarters in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.
A broad membership base, a strong trade show and frequency coordination work (NABER prepared 40,000 business radio applications last year) puts PCIA on strong financial ground, according to Kitchen.
It wasn’t always that way; PCIA in the days it was called Telocator went through rough times in the mid-to-late 1980s before shoring up its membership and sharpening its focus.
PCIA has a strong track record at the FCC, Congress and in the courts. It played a major role in getting the PCS industry off the ground.
But for all its influence, PCIA is not the only game in town.
Kitchen bristles at the suggestion that the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association has been out front in 1995 on the major issues of the day: antenna siting, numbering, state regulation and wireless resale. He counters that NABER and PCIA, individually and combined, have influenced policy direction on all key wireless issues.
“I think there are those that want to make a lot out of the competition between the two organizations,” said Kitchen.
He said PCIA is a broad-based wireless trade association already.
“The only group that’s really new to us is broadband PCS and we started representing [that sector] four years ago when CTIA was opposed and fought broadband PCS because it was going to introduce competition into the cellular industry,” Kitchen added.
As such, he says PCIA represents most bidders who together paid $7 billion for broadband PCS licenses in the auction that ended March 13.
Kitchen opposed auctions at NABER, where his constituency was comprised of many small mobile radio users. But he gives FCC Chairman Reed Hundt credit for the PCS auction in terms of getting licenses in the hands of firms fast and raising huge sums of money for the U.S. government.
But Kitchen believes auctioning SMR and private spectrum below 512 MHz is ill advised. “There’s really nothing here to auction,” he said.
Kitchen’s particularly irked by FCC plans to give away digital TV broadcast spectrum for free.
“If the commission feels the SMR spectrum can be auctioned off because the SMR rules are changed to incorporate some type of wide-area licensing scheme and some type of exclusivity, and therefore those frequencies are now auctionable, then that same rationale ought to apply to the broadcast spectrum when they assign this additional six megahertz for HDTV (High Definition Television), which is an entirely new service,” he explained.
“I think the commission is really going to have to do some soul searching and develop a level playing field with respect to auctions,” continued Kitchen. “It’s either appropriate under a set a guidelines or it’s not, but [the agency] can’t keep changing rules in the middle of the game depending on who’s political ox is going to be gored.”
More recently, PCIA has been outspokenly critical about what it describes as hard-line negotiating by fixed microwave licensees that PCS operators must pay to relocate off the 2 GHz band onto higher frequencies.
The association also wants to make sure the paging companies are not discriminated against insofar as having accessibility to 1-800 toll free telephone numbers.
PCIA’s board will consider a three-year strategic plan at its annual meeting. Kitchen said five tenets by which he wants PCIA governed are entrepreneurship, sound business practices, balance, trust and respect.
