So Thanksgiving is only a few days away. But for days, weeks and months leading up to the great pheasant feast folks have been talking turkey in telecom and political circles.
For example, if you’re an aide to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt or even a dedicated civil servant making the world safe for auctions, you might think he’s talking turkey when declaring he’s here for the long haul.
If you’re Jack Fields (R-Texas), outgoing House Telecom czar, you might think Hundt is talking turkey when he says he’s carrying out congressional intent of the telecom act.
Or, if you’re FCC publicists Kara Palamaras and Susan Sallet, you might think the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association was talking turkey when they invited you to a pizza powwow with Tom Wheeler and then dis-invited you.
Or, if you were a reporter at the same Friday gathering at high noon, you might think Wheeler was talking turkey when he said anything spoken was just table talk and could not be used unless confirmed elsewhere.
Or, you might think Wheeler and Personal Communications Industry Association President Jay Kitchen talk turkey when they say there’s really no competition between the two trade groups.
You might even think Congress is talking turkey when-amid SBC-PacTel, Nynex-Bell Atlantic, BT-MCI and Nextel-Pittencrieff-they say competition is ready to break out in the post-telecom act era.
If you’re the wireless telecom industry, you might think Hundt & Co. are talking turkey when they say universal service-new and improved-is technology neutral. And that the Wireless Telecom Bureau is talking turkey when it proposes a nationwide license for the 2.3 GHz auction. (The idea is dead, lobbyists say.)
Industry can’t be faulted for thinking the Environmental Protection Agency talked turkey when it supposedly vowed to take a low profile if wireless signed onto the new hybrid radio frequency safety standard.
If you’re the Wireless Telecom Bureau, you might think the industry is talking turkey when it opposes the 2.3 GHz auction on the one hand and on the other trumpets the virtues of competition.
If you’re Wall Street, you might think NextWave is talking turkey when it promises its highly leveraged personal communications services play will take America by storm.
If you’re a scientist, you might think George Carlo is talking turkey when he say’s 90-day RF rat exposure experiments must precede life-time studies and that the industry-funded, 5-year, $25 million program is not compromised.
If you’re a 2 GHz microwaver, you might think WTB is talking turkey when it says it wants to revamp microwave relocation.
Gobble, gobble, gobble.
