Here is the text of the message I sent to Honorable John Shimkus of
Illinois:
The current House Spectrum Bill brought forth by Inslee and others to
give us a single 6 MHz channel is far too little to help Americans gain
access to broadband options and could even be regarded as a slap in the
face if you have been starved for the quality spectrum needed to do the
job as we all have for so long. This does not match the legislation
being introduced by the Senate Commerce Committee at all and could lead
to making this a dead issue instead of helping bring broadband to the
masses as intended. It does not surprise me that the Telephone Industry
Association has applauded this as it serves their purposes of holding
our efforts back. They would prefer to either have only licensed
spectrum which acts as a means of keeping multiple competitors out of
the wireless space or as we see here they would like to see competing
offers from the Senate and House so that the true opportunity as
outlined in the FCC 04-186 is locked in debate and taken off the table
to meet some compromise or worse yet the effort is killed from having
too little common ground to pass a vote from both sides of Congress.
This bill is like giving a spoonful of water to a man walking in the
desert for days. The parched man will surely take it and wonder why you
even bothered to mock him with such a paltry offer.
The FCC has created the logical platform to move ahead in allowing the
unlicensed use of unused television channels in its 04-186 rulemaking
which it has allowed to leave in a limbo state and tasking the FCC with
passing their own rulemaking is the logical way to move forward and help
the broadband industry. Believing that one 6 MHz channel for broadband
use is helpful is just plain laughable and shows a complete lack of
understanding of our problems in helping deliver broadband to rural and
under-served citizens who are begging for access to broadband and cannot
receive it from any source. These unused television channels will give
them broadband.
A single 6 MHz channel as proposed in the House Spectrum Bill is not a
true effort to help and is insulting to the public. Without several
channels to allow for frequency reuse the single channel forces
providers to either segment the single channel into minuscule sizes
delivering substandard speeds or face almost certain interference as
multiple attempts to use the same small 6 MHz channel space would
interfere with adjacent efforts from other operators doing the same. In
short this is not worthy of consideration and should be scrapped.
The only logical step is for the House of Representatives to pass
legislation which will task the FCC to pass its 04-186 rulemaking which
will open unused television channels up for use as unlicensed carriage
of broadband to Americans. This is not just important, it is mandatory
if we are to truly close the "Digital Divide" which is now wider than
ever due to a lack of quality spectrum able to do the job. The problem
is not that rural Americans do not want broadband or that private
enterprise has failed them in some way, the problem is that the
thousands of Wireless Internet Service Providers who serve them lack the
necessary spectrum to bring their citizens the broadband they are
begging to receive.
Honorable John Shimkus, as representative of our mainly rural district
in Illinois, I am begging you to please consider drafting and submitting
a competing bill to the House which will task the FCC with finishing
what they started and passing the 04-186 rulemaking which is the path to
universal access to low-cost broadband opportunity for all Americans.
I will gladly buy a plane ticket and come to Washington to speak in
person on this important issue if you so desire. Please act quickly so
we may see the promise of broadband to all Americans soon. Tasking the
FCC to pass 04-186 would do more to stimulate broadband availability
than anything ever proposed by our legislature. Please take the lead in
this important endeavor and let's give rural citizens equal access to
the Digital American Dream. Say NO to the current House Spectrum Bill
and submit a competing proposal that has a chance to do some good.
Respectfully,
John Scrivner
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