Former FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein was in a very good mood Wednesday morning. The CEO and president of PCIA was until recently a member of the Obama Administration, so his political affiliation is no secret, but beyond that Adelstein sees the President as a strong proponent of the expansion of wireless broadband. “The Administration could not be more supportive of the wireless industry,” he says. “They have gone out of their way to promote the deployment of mobile broadband infrastructure.”
Like the president of the country, the president of PCIA – The Wireless Infrastructure Association, knows there is still much work ahead. Collocation by right legislation is still not clearly defined, he says, and the FCC’s “shot clock” order is headed for review by the Supreme Court. But PCIA is confident that the Administration will prioritize these items.
“This is something the President cares about personally,” says Adelstein. “When I was a part of the Administration I was involved in some of their discussions. The President was personally animated about getting wireless broadband to 98% of the population. He insistead himself that that be put into the State of the Union address.”
In 2010, President Obama signed an executive order calling for the FCC to free up 500 megahertz of spectrum over the next 10 years. “It is unprecendented that we had an exeuctive order from the President saying ‘Let’s implement wireless broadband on public land,'” says Adelstein. “The FCC, the NTIA, the White House, all are aligned … and in Congress, you’ve seen bipartisan effort, especially in the spectrum legislation that was enacted. … You couldn’t ask for a lot more. This Administration gets it.”
