Imagine for a moment the 3G spectrum bands-698-960 MHz, 1710-1885 MHz and 2500-2690 MHz-are the three Florida counties of Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Nassau.
If you think South Florida is a mess, wait until President Clinton’s third-generation wireless initiative plays out. It could turn into the mother of all wireless controversies.
Despite the best of intentions by Greg Rohde, the administration’s point man in the effort to discern whether heavily encumbered 1700 MHz and 2500 MHz bands can be salvaged for 3G, the process could be headed for a meltdown.
Already there is grumbling about the data and methodology used in interim spectrum- sharing studies conducted by the National Telecommunications and Information and Administration and the Federal Communications Commission.
The mobile-phone industry believes the studies were too pessimistic, particularly regarding sharing spectrum with the Pentagon. There’s also talk about the need for short- and long-range spectrum planning legislation.
Thus, at an early stage, one already can see how the military-industrial fight over megahertz could come to match the zealotry of the presidential chad clash. Meanwhile, the rest of world is moving ahead on 3G.
It’s not a coincidence the debate over the White House 3G plan has been as calm to date as Recount 2000 has been crazy. Think about it.
Rather than making nice with each other as holiday-party season kicks off in official Washington, high-tech lobbyists and lawmakers have gone to their respective political corners. That is to say they’ve flown south to Florida, working in the trenches for Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore.
Yep, South Florida has been home recently to folks like Margaret Tutwiler, senior vice president for public affairs and communications at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association and an ex-aide to former Secretary of State James Baker (Dubya’s papa’s best friend); Ted Olson, a Bush lawyer who represents NextWave Telecom Inc.; Michael Carvin, a Bush lawyer who represents Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a cell-phone privacy suit against Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.); David Boies, a Gore lawyer who was the Justice Department’s lead attorney in the antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. before taking to Napster; G. Irvin Terrell, senior partner with Baker at a Houston law firm and defender of AT&T Corp. and Lucent Technologies in an antitrust case brought by Bell Atlantic Corp. (now Verizon Communications) and DSC Communications; and Lawrence Tribe, a Gore lawyer who has represented the Baby Bell telephone companies.
Is Florida voting really as difficult as navigating a WAP phone? Answers, anyone? Don’t ask Dubya; he’ll refer to Jim Baker, the GOP `Ask Jeeves’ of Recount 2000. And Gore? Well, the veep now says he regrets inventing the electoral college.
