More Spectrum Can Improve Quality of Life, Says Senate Commerce Chairman
The Senate Commerce Committee hasn't dealt with any issue this year that hasn’t involved spectrum and wireless technology, said Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., during a Wireless Foundation awards reception Monday evening. “We’ve got to get more spectrum available if we’re…
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going to do the types of things that will improve the quality of life of the people across this country -- whether it’s a light bulb or an appliance or a fitness machine. There are so many ways in which the technology continues to improve the life of people in this country." Consumers are going to need spectrum for everyday activities, Thune said. It’s important that future spectrum auctions are fair and clear, and companies have to abide by both the letter and the spirit of the law, he said. “It’s also important that it be an open competition that the free market decides, that the government isn’t there, putting its finger on the scale in one way or another.” Thune commended CTIA involvement with fighting the FCC net neutrality decision and making it “abundantly clear that that’s a wrong approach,” he said. The FCC is using a 1930s law to try to govern the Internet in the same way that the agency did landlines in the monopoly era, and “that’s a mistake,” Thune said. “I’m hopeful that at some point we’re going to encourage enough Democrats and Republicans not just on the Senate Commerce Committee, but in Congress in general that there’s a better way to do this.”