Two senior members of the House telecom subcommittee urged the Federal Communications Commission to vote internally on Chairman Kevin Martin’s free wireless broadband auction plan, an initiative previously scheduled for agency action today at a meeting subsequently cancelled in response to congressional pressure.
“We request that you resolve this matter on circulation in the near term by immediately adopting rules for a free nationwide wireless broadband network that will provide all Americans with high-speed data services,” said Reps. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) in a letter to FCC members Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein.
The advanced wireless services-3 debate, largely shaped to date by technical arguments over whether a nationwide wireless broadband system using the proposed spectrum would interfere with mobile-phone operations in adjacent frequencies, now appears to have become a major political quagmire.
“Most of the over 100 million adults in the United States who either rely on antiquated dial-up services or lack Internet access altogether come from low-income households or live in inner-city or rural settings where providers refuse to provide service,” wrote Rush and Towns. “This digital divide is intolerable and must be bridged. We believe a properly managed auction of the AWS-3 spectrum would go a long way in accomplishing just that. . Given the promising opportunity afforded by the AWS-3 auction and given that a prominent, minority-owned firm is directly involved in the proceedings, we are troubled by the cumbersome obstacles that this particular auction has faced over the years.”
M2Z Networks Inc., a Silicon Valley funded startup that’s headed by former FCC wireless official John Muleta, is a major proponent of Martin’s free, family friendly wireless broadband plan. M2Z and the two House telecom subcommittee members claim the FCC is required by law to have already voted on the AWS-3 plan. But the FCC actually rejected that argument in a brief filed with a federal appeals court in June.
“We are anxious to move forward on this proposal. We believe that providing free basic broadband to consumers will provide them with expanded access and choices to these services,” said Robert Kenny, an FCC spokesman. “The proposal remains on circulation for other commissioners to vote and we hope that they’ll support it and do so.”
The rulemaking could pose a political predicament for Copps and Adelstein, the two Democrats on the five-member, Republican-controlled FCC. Copps and Adelstein have advocated moving forward on the AWS-3 vote. However, they may be reluctant to back Martin on AWS-3 because doing so could trigger future political repercussions – something that is less of a concern to the outgoing Martin.
It was the letter from chairmen of the Senate and House Commerce panels – Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), respectively – that prompted Martin to cancel the planned Dec. 18 meeting. Rockefeller and Waxman said the FCC should focus on the digital TV transition and steer clear of complex, controversial matters that the new Congress and incoming Obama administration “will have an interest in reviewing.”
There is a possibility President-elect Obama could name Copps, the senior FCC Democrat, as acting agency chairman until a permanent successor to Martin is named and confirmed by the Senate. Adelstein’s nomination to a second term on the FCC remains pending in the Senate.
Copps’ office declined to comment on the Rush-Towns letter. Adelstein’s office did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for a statement.
The Bush administration and the mobile-phone industry oppose Martin’s free wireless plan.
It’s unclear how the Obama administration will handle the AWS-3 matter if it no action is taken by the Martin FCC. Obama recently called for universal broadband in the United States.
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