If the Federal Communications Commission were eliminated, as some self-proclaimed know-it-alls advocate, who would figure out how the nation’s 4 million hearing aid wearers and the wireless telecommunications industry coexist?
Two separate issues, you say? Not really.
FCC Chairman Reed Hundt’s recent focus on potential interference to hearing aids from digital pocket phones has advanced the dialogue on the issue far beyond the mean-spirited and meaningless debate that the wireless industry and hearing aid community have engaged in for months.
The free market is good at doing a lot of things; addressing important social needs is not one of them. Government has a role in this regard.
In leaning on the wireless industry to work with the hearing impaired community to fix the problem, Hundt is attempting to stay out of the way if possible.
Apparently he’s not willing to wait for results from hearing aid interference research at the University of Oklahoma, funded by the cellular telephone industry to its credit.
But if the warring factions fail to meet the challenge, the FCC chairman may step in. That’s what hearing impaired advocates want and industry dreads. Better that Hundt browbeat industry; the threat of government intervention has at least produced a plan of action. Whether the hearing impaired community can embrace it is another question.
By stepping in, the FCC chairman showed leadership.
There was a time when that was in question. Hundt early on dismissed the issue, perfunctorily responding to former Senate communications subcommittee Chairman Bob Packwood, R-Ore., that he didn’t intend to stop PCS licensing because “we don’t believe there is a serious risk of interference to hearing aids” from digital pocket phones driven by Global System for Mobile communications technology.
And perhaps there isn’t, given that PCS phones in the United States will operate at a lower power and on higher frequencies than digital cell phones in Europe, where the problem began. But it’s worth checking out before the more than 2,000 PCS systems get on the air.
Too bad the hearing aid interference issue has become a political football that’s been tossed around and reduced to hyperbole, misinformation and superspin by carriers and manufacturers who have a huge monetary stake in signing up PCS customers and selling digital pocket telephones.
It’s entirely understandable, though not acceptable from a public policy perspective if you believe the information superhighway should be open to all.
The hearing impaired community is not without fault in this brouhaha, either. They didn’t help themselves by having someone with a strong commercial interest in one of the competing wireless technologies (CDMA) champion their cause. When the messenger’s credibility was questioned, their message got muffled and an us-against-them war ensued.
What a shame. Managing electromagnetic compatibility in the digital age is a challenge, but answers are within reach of the wireless industry and hearing impaired community. Wireless technology has immense potential to improve the quality of life for all disabled Americans.
Though one side in the debate hears better than the other, both sides have the ability to listen.
