WASHINGTON-Telecom manufacturers today asked President Bush for more help-including freeing up additional spectrum-in revitalizing an industry sector that lags behind other segments of the recovering U.S. economy.
“While some signs of life have appeared, the bottom line is that the telecommunications sector remains on unsure footing with no assurance of achieving long-term stability and growth,” said Telecommunications Industry Association President Matthew Flanigan in a Dec. 15 letter to the White House.
In the letter, Flanigan called for a national strategy that would include encouraging deployment of national, advanced, next-generation communications infrastructures; completing the Federal Communications Commission-framework for broadband deregulation; establishing tax incentives for broadband deployment; reducing the myriad taxes on communications services; creating a zone of concise, minimal and national regulation of Internet Protocol communications; making additional spectrum available for advanced wireless services (including spectrum for interoperable public-safety communications and commercial advanced wireless services); and appropriating and budgeting for additional targeted federal funding for communications research.
“TIA is convinced that your leadership on this framework will lead to a return to strength and growth for the telecommunications industry and provide a long-term boost to the nation economy,” said Flanigan.
