Russ Steele
It was a short but very productive meeting with Jeff Newman, Partnership Manager, Business, Transportation and Housing’s in Sacramento yesterday. Jeff is advising the Governor’s Broadband Task Force. Adam Brodel and I reviewed our white paper on using existing CDF Towers for wireless broadband distribution in rural areas, and will modify it based on Jeff’s suggestions. He will carry our revised paper forward for consideration by the Task Force. We also discussed the need for the the FCC to allocate more radio spectrum for rural broadband and will be writing another white paper on this issue, in the hope the Governor of the seventh largest economy in the world may have some influence with the FCC. Under the current plan most of the 700 Mhz spectrum will be auctioned to the highest bidder. This approach ignores the needs of rural wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) who are bringing broadband to rural citizens. The WISPs lack the deep pockets of the cellphone companies. I will write more on these issues as we make progress.
