News

US Senator plans broadband legislation: CTIA tells him to stick to his knitting

by Guy J Kewney | posted on 01 February 2007

Senator John McCain

On Senator John McCain's own web site is a pronouncement about the future of broadband. It's "a plan to introduce legislation that would establish a new nationwide, state-of-the-art public safety broadband network to promote interoperable communications among first responders." - In other words, a fire police and ambulance network.

The CTIA Wireless Association has instantly announced that it is not impressed.

McCain's proposal involves setting aside more radio spectrum: "The network, which would be created by licensing an additional 30 MHz of radio spectrum in the upper 700 MHz band to a Public Safety Broadband Trust, would provide first responders seamless nationwide roaming capability and allow for the real time transmission of data," he says.

Response: "Right now, the public service community utilizes 47 MHz of spectrum to serve its public safety users. At the same time, there are wireless carriers that use roughly the same amount of spectrum to deliver voice, data and advanced information services to many times that number of subscribers. More spectrum is clearly not the answer."

Read more from McCain's own web site, and the CTIA Wireless response