WASHINGTON-If James Crowe, chief executive officer of Level 3 Communications Inc., was king for a day and could have the Federal Communications Commission grant him one thing, he would have it award him “exclusive access to the wireless spectrum.”
Level 3 is a company that connects access networks, Crowe told reporters after his presentation at a CEO luncheon sponsored by the Progress & Freedom Foundation.
“We connect access networks. We view the world as two kinds of networks-access networks and backup networks,” said Crowe. “Wireless is an increasingly important and major contributor to access. We connect access networks. They are our customers. We have lots of wireless customers. The better they do, the better we do.”
Crowe believes “it is terrible we have beachfront spectrum that is so valuable that is lying fallow.”
Back to being king for a day, Crowe said he would take back that spectrum. “I would recover every bit of spectrum that I could, ignoring some of the politics of the past and the free giveaways and make more of it available to innovative companies who are using unlicensed technologies like Wi-Fi and WiMAX.”
While Crowe emphasized unlicensed technology during the luncheon panel, he told reporters afterward that licensed carriers are-or least should be-looking at WiMAX.
“People who are smarter than I am think that WiMAX particularly isn’t going to get very far if it is simply limited to what we define today as unlicensed. I suspect that it is going to require more spectrum to be available from folks who own it; who hopefully will become interested in WiMAX-certainly there is a lot of talk going into that-and new entrants,” said Crowe.
Crowe said the wireless industry uses market-based approaches to standard setting instead of the wired telephony method he believes “is glacially slow.”
“It is critical that we bring market-based standards to the forefront, and the quickest way I can think of is more access to spectrum,” said Crowe.
Wireless was critically important in the days after Sept. 11, Crowe said, noting that intermodal and diverse ways of communicating are essential to reliability.
“Prior to 9/11, the term reliability dealt with natural disasters. After 9/11, the term reliability meant directed attacks. For the first time it was clear intermodal networking was the key to reliability, not voice service,” said Crowe. “The way we make sure that our communications infrastructure is more reliable without spending more money than we will ever have is to have intermodal connectivity and redundant technologies and vendors.”
On the issue of universal service, Crowe believes the definition of “basic service” needs to be changed. “Voice is an outdated definition of basic service,” he said.
Paying into and receiving a subsidy from the universal-service fund should be non-discriminatory with the goal of making broadband universal, said Crowe.
“Access to a broadband network better be a key matter for all citizens, and if they cannot afford it, we should think of a way to help them pay for it,” he added.
