TO WISP's I'm not much of an alarmist and I would never claim the sky is falling unless I had positive proof. Right now WISPA is faced with what I perceive as the most serious threat to our industry to date. Some of you may complain that the FCC is an overreaching intruder into our business. While Federal Government oversight and regulations into our rapidly growing industry may seem intrusive WISPA has always had their ear and we feel they listen and include us into much of their decision making process. There is no doubt they truly want nation-wide service and recognize the lack of enthusiastic expansion by major players (legacy carriers) into the rural area which is our strongest argument.
Starting with Net Neutrality we noticed that Congress was starting to politicize the work of the FCC. Some of you thought that was a good thing since you felt the FCC was slow in releasing frequencies. The micro-management of the FCC on that first issue has rapidly grown to full fledged taking over of the FCC's mission. Once the legacy characters found that they could go around the FCC to Congress, where they already give millions in "donations", they knew they had one big leg up on small budget organizations like WISPA. They are now flexing their full lobbying muscle by getting some 'friends' in Congress to introduce bills that would freeze any future expansion of the WISP market locking us out of the lower frequencies that we need to penetrate vegetation and terrain. Much like teaching the Internet to your parents other legislators look at the new laws with dazed amazement and just say OK not realizing the ramifications and listening to the lobbyist spin. WISPA is not sitting back on this one, last year our board was not afraid to go far out of budget to get our feet firmly in the door on issues such as TV White Spaces (TV White Spaces) and the Universal Service Fund change to Connect America Fund (CAF). It appears all that work is now under scrutiny by Congress and their answer seems to be one of 'lets just put all frequencies up for bid, licensed and unlicensed'. None of us WISP's could afford to bid against the likes of AT&T and Verizon and it has the potential of locking all small business out of any future frequencies. Yesterday the Legislative, FCC, and Promotions Committee of WISPA got together and released a letter to all Congressional Members of several committees relevant to this battle, in addition we paid to have a formal press release sent to the media objecting to this path that both the Senate and House seem to be pursuing. We are now interviewing potential Lobbyists (something we've never needed before) and, other firms that can help us with this new front we have to fight on. Where WISPA will have to go to get the ear of Congress to stop this insane path is all new to us but we are up to the challange. We have great legal counsel, members that can attend and testify hearings, allies in other groups such as New America feel the pain like us on this issue. We will be making alliances, learning how to do social networking to reach our members, our members subscribers and, anyone who will side with us to form grass roots efforts to get the attention of Congress. At this point we are not asking for a special assessment or other means to aggressively answer this call, we are within budget so far but it's hard to say how far this will go. We simply are asking you to watch closely what we inform membership, prepare to be involved because unless you are content with the current frequencies and rules we are under you will directly be affected by this Congressional action. If we give in to these irrational rules don't think Congress or the legacy characters will stop there, if they sell the revenue model successfully they could go after existing frequencies too. WISPA will be releasing talking points next week so that you can help us by making appointments with your Congressperson while they are in district during the month of August. We really need to educate them that this path is bad for America and their constituents. If you need constant updates please join the Legislative Committee as we will be posting most of the Legislative work in that venue. Thank you for your time and we appreciate you realizing the huge task we have ahead of us. Forbes Mercy WISPA VP/Legislative Chair -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/