>-----Original Message-----
>From: John Scrivner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Sent: Thursday, April 6, 2006 11:09 AM
>To: 'WISPA General List'
>Cc: 'Frannie Wellings'
>Subject: Re: [WISPA] TV spectrum
>
>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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