WASHINGTON-FCC Chairman Michael Powell used the recent example of a National Football League player who made a mobile-phone call from the end zone after a touchdown to demonstrate the impacts of the digital migration.
“There on the gridiron, in the middle of the game, Joe (Horn of the New Orleans Saints) was going to make a call. With the fine he got, it cost about $30,000 per minute, not too different from the rest of us. But then I really did say to myself, ‘We’ve arrived.’ Even as end-zone shows go, we’ve come a long way. Just last year, Terrell Owens of the 49ers pulled out a pen and signed the football. Now, that’s digital migration-from pen on pigskin to digital wireless phones in one football season,” said Powell.
Powell appeared Wednesday at the National Press Club where he said that the digital transition is well on its way to being a reality.
“But one need only to pause and look around to see the signs. Few people would even think of leaving home without their cell phone today. One’s cell phone is more personal and intimate than the traditional phones most of us grew up with. Features that allow customization abound-personalized ring tones, faceplates, interfaces and styles,” said Powell. “The Blackberry that we see today is one of the most talked about personal communication devices around. It was the hero of Sept. 11, allowing many people to communicate with their loved ones during a crisis. It is a communicator’s Swiss Army Knife we so long for, allowing someone constant access to e-mail, voice calls, address books and schedules.
During the question-and-answer period, Powell said he hopes the Federal Communications Commission will issue rules meant to decrease public-safety interference in the 800 MHz band during the next couple of months.
“I think in the next couple of months we’ll probably issue the orders in that case. But I think we are very, very close to getting that in a shape where we’ll give it to our colleagues on the floor of the commission, and we’ll start to deliberate an answer,” said Powell. “Sometimes interference is just a crackly signal. Sometimes interference is somebody’s life, and you don’t place the same value on them when you are working in these proceedings.”
John Muleta, chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Thursday backed away from this estimate, telling FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin that the bureau hoped to complete the proceeding in three to four months.
During Powell’s speech, he said a big indicator of how the world has gone digital is the emergence of voice over Internet Protocol, which he says turns voice from being what the telephone network does to being a computer application.
“It’s important to see that VoIP is an application that runs over the Internet, in contrast to a telephone call that you buy as a service integrated into a specialized network. If you see voice more as an application, then your field of view opens appropriately wide to see its implications and its potential to enhance our lives. Plain old telephone service performs one basic function really, really well. It sets up a telephone call from point A to point B. A voice application can do that, but it can do so very much more,” said Powell.
Powell said he didn’t want to regulate VoIP, but he also does not want to end universal service, which many fear is threatened by VoIP especially if long-distance calls-which fund universal service-migrate to VoIP and off the traditional landline network. There is already concern as wired long-distance calls move to wireless, but wireless carriers pay into the fund while VoIP, at least currently, does not.
“I believe it is a sacred duty to continue to protect important social values through the digital migration. First among equals is the unflinching commitment to universal service. We must make sure that the digital migration brings the technologies of today and tomorrow to every single American at affordable prices,” said Powell.
