As if the wireless industry didn’t have enough to worry about with local zoning boards, citizen
activists, organized labor, environmentalists, Civil War buffs and the National Park Service, now it has to deal with
Tom & Ray.
An industry public-relations problem worsened after Tom & Ray fans flooded the Magliozzi Bros.
with mail supporting a recent column that observed that talking on mobile phones while driving is “immoral,
unethical, inconsiderate and downright stupid” and ought to be outlawed.
A smattering of letters received by
Tom & Ray appeared in the Washington Post and who knows how many other newspapers a few weeks
ago.
Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association spokesman Tim Ayers said a written response was sent to
Click & Clack, but it has not been published yet. Looks like it’s time to run some more of those CTIA driver-safety
spots on radio and TV. The sprawling driver-safety reminder on a D.C. bus I passed last week is definitely a good
touch.
… Don’t Cry for Me Arboretum. Vice President Gore proves he (like his boss) is a man for all interest groups.
Here was the veep, back to his environmentalist roots at the U.S. National Arboretum on Jan. 12 for a photo op to
announce a Clinton administration plan to protect open spaces and to create more livable communities.
A few days
later, evidence of another Gore-the high-tech business friend-surfaced when the veep’s Hammer Award went to the
General Services Administration for innovative, money-raising ($1.1 million) efforts to help wireless carriers site
antennas on top of federal buildings.
Turns out the 1995 executive order enabling GSA to cultivate antenna farms
on government buildings is the same law the National Park Service despises because it promotes construction of
communications towers on the kind of majestic American lands Gore claims he wants protected.
… Kevin Joseph,
former minority telecom counsel on the Senate Commerce Committee, joins AT&T’s D.C. office as vice president of
congressional and regulatory affairs.
… And at the FCC’s International Bureau, Peter Pappas was named associate
chief. Linda Dubroof was appointed assistant chief of the IB’s Planning and Negotiations Division. John Giusti was
tapped as chief of the International Spectrum Branch of the IB’s Planning and Negotiations Division. Adam Krinsky
has become acting senior legal adviser to IB Chief Gina Keeney.