WASHINGTON-In what a spokeswoman for the Personal Communications Industry Association termed a “comedy of errors,” the wireless industry and the Federal Communications Commission last week missed an opportunity to tout the wonders of wireless technology in developing countries.
FCC Chairman William Kennard and key FCC staff held an industry debriefing on their recent trip to southern Africa, an area with a teledensity of 1 percent to 2 percent, compared with 96 percent in the United States.
“Wireless companies do hold a tremendous hope for developing infrastructure much faster,” Kennard said, noting that oftentimes in developing countries copper wire is stolen as it is put in the ground. Wireless infrastructure would eliminate this problem, he added.
South Africa is preparing to license a third cellular operator. “Everywhere we went,” the licensing effort was “the hottest topic,” Kennard said. The license is being slated as a “Black Empowerment License,” in an effort by the South African government to distribute power to the previously disenfranchised, he said.
Kennard said there were many discussions about the third license and its resemblance to the personal communications services C-block. “We talked a lot about the need for transparency in the license process … people need to know from the beginning the license criteria … [We shared] with them some of the mistakes we have made” with the C-block, he said.
When asked to elaborate on what he told the South Africans about the C-block experience, he said, “If I had to do it all over again, I would have licensed the C-block first and then gone to the A- and B-block licenses so that those smaller companies would have had a better chance of raising capital and competing than they have encountered.”
Kennard and FCC staff went to South Africa and Botswana as part of Kennard’s International Development Initiative. Kennard’s initiative, announced in June, commits the FCC to work with developing nations to help them achieve universal communications services by implementing the goals of the World Trade Organization’s Basic Telecom Services Agreement.
While there were a variety of telecommunications industry representatives there, no one was there to represent the wireless industry.
“They should have been here,” said Kennard, when asked after the event about the lack of wireless participation.
The FCC later said the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and PCIA were contacted, and the commission thought they would then contact their members.
However, both associations said the FCC contacted the wrong people at their organizations.
CTIA’s Dee Yankoskie, manager for research, said she passed along the message, but it did not get to the right person.
“I never received the invitation. I apologize for not being there, [but in the future] I would also hope they would contact the right people,” said Brian Fontes, CTIA senior vice president for policy and administration. Fontes is former FCC chief of staff and has frequent contacts with FCC officials on behalf of CTIA.
At PCIA, the FCC contacted David Murray, who lobbies Congress, not the FCC. “He got a voice-mail message, and since he doesn’t normally deal with the FCC, he assumed that other people were invited. It wasn’t our intention to miss out. It does seem to be a casual way to invite someone,” said PCIA spokeswoman Ellen Mullally.
One company with interests in South Africa, Vodafone AirTouch plc, was contacted, but “due to the failure of internal communication, we failed to respond to the FCC. We regret this because we would have been very interested in attending. The issues are of great interest to us,” said AirTouch spokesman Jonathan Marshall.
Vodafone offers service to South Africa, Uganda and Egypt, using the Vodacom name.
