WASHINGTON-The head of the Federal Communications Commission told RCR last week he believed assurances he received from Europeans that they would not discriminate against American companies on third-generation wireless standards were lacking.
FCC Chairman William Kennard said the assurances were not “sufficient because basically what we need is for the standards-setting process, the [European Telecommunications Standards Institute] process, to be open and democratic so that all companies can have a fair shot.”
Earlier, Kennard said Europe believes in a “sort of industrial policy command-and-control approach to setting standards.”
These statements are significant because they indicate lobbying on this issue by American companies, most notably Qualcomm Inc., largely has been successful. Qualcomm maintains that Europe favors companies such as L.M. Ericsson and Nokia Corp.
This sentiment was echoed by the FCC chairman, who in July held high-level meetings with European Union officials at which the 3G issue was raised. “I have concerns about the ETSI standards-setting process because American companies do not have an equal voice in that process,” Kennard said. Kennard was joined in Brussels by David Aaron, Commerce Department undersecretary for international trade, and Vonya McCann, international telecom chief for the Department of State.
Kennard said the United States learned during the early days of the cellular industry that standards should be set by the market, not by policy makers. “We have seen the down side of trying to set a national standard. We saw that with cellular where the introduction of cellular was delayed in this marketplace for at least a decade because of administrative, legal policy debates about the appropriate technical standard,” he said.
There are three standards for personal communications services, “all of which have gained a significant degree of acceptance in the marketplace. And here is the important thing: They are competing not only for subscribers, but they are competing to innovate and improve those technical standards. And consumers benefit from that competition and innovation.”
Europeans and Americans have a “fundamental philosophical disagreement about the standards-setting process,” Kennard commented. “We, in the United States, fundamentally believe that the best way to select standards is to give maximum deference to the marketplace.”
