Public Interest Groups, Advocates For Unlicensed, Get Bigger Role on CSMAC
The Obama administration is expanding public interest group representation on the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, which was created under President George W. Bush to improve management of the airwaves. Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld will join longtime member Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Project at the New America Foundation, as a public interest member of the group. Both have been strong advocates of unlicensed spectrum. Feld had sought to become a member in the past but had been turned down.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Public safety, meanwhile, is no longer represented on CSMAC. Among the departing members is Brian Fontes, former carrier executive and current CEO of the National Emergency Number Association. Also leaving CSMAC is Gregory Rosston, a Stanford University economist and expert on spectrum auctions.
"The CSMAC will certainly be reinvigorated with these new and diverse members,” Calabrese told us Monday. “It is particularly helpful to see new spectrum policy and technical experts who are not constrained by industry ties.”
In another change, Larry Alder, director-access strategy at Google, and Mark Gibson, senior director-business development at Comsearch, were appointed co-chairmen. Both also have ties to unlicensed and spectrum sharing. Google is a strong advocate of unlicensed and Comsearch is one of the companies building a database for the TV white spaces. NTIA put a full list of the 28 members on its website (http://1.usa.gov/1k6XQ9i). The agency had no comment for this story.
Also new to CSMAC is consultant Paul Kolodzy, who was the director of the FCC Spectrum Policy Task Force. It recommended some major changes for government spectrum policy in November 2002, calling for greater development of software-defined radio and publicizing the notion of spectrum white spaces (http://bit.ly/1rQknfP). Carriers retain three seats on CSMAC. Other new members include: Robert Kubik, director-communications policy at Samsung Electronics America; Michael Chartier, director-spectrum technology at Intel; and Audrey Allison, director-frequency management services at Boeing. (hbuskirk@warren-news.com)