fcc's muleta sees sizzling future for broadband wireless, Cheap Internet Service, Low Cost Internet Access

That was the question some attendees at the Broadband Wireless World 2004 conference in San Diego were asking themselves after the FCC's John Muleta, chief of the wireless telecommunications bureau, wrapped up his keynote address last week.

Muleta, appointed to his post in Jan. 2003 by FCC chairman Michael Powell, got the conference buzzing with a Dec

idedly upbeat prediction that 100 million U.S. homes (and 150-to-200 million subscribers) would be hooked into broadband wireless during the next six years. Expressing a sentiment dear to the heart of Powell, Muleta noted that continued deregulation, less government interference and free market forces would combine to unleash the broadband floodgates by Dec

ade's end.

"I think it's possible," Muleta said. "I think we can get there very quickly. There's a new dawn of opportunity for broadband wireless. The key is to get all the parts working together."

Those parts include an affordable ($40 monthly) access fee; reliable and ubiquitous IP-based Internet service; and seamless interaction between platforms and applications.

While that might seem fanciful to those conference attendees struggling mightily to keep their cell phones working past three consecutive freeway exits, Muleta told his audience that in fact the FCC and the telecom industry had pretty much already laid the groundwork for this vision in the 1990s with its PCS licensing system. That PCS model, Muleta noted, was a shining light in the Dec

ade-long "regulatory wilderness" because it provided for lots of competitors and the flexibility for the auction winners to "move their licenses among themselves" which helped service providers make a profit.

Read complete article at: America's Network

Source: Al Senia, Managing Editor of America's Network

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