Wireless roundup

FCC CREATES SPECTRUM TASK FORCE

The Federal Communications Commission has formed a task force to help it sort through issues of spectrum policy, the agency announced June 6.

Paul Kolodzy, a senior spectrum policy adviser of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology, will head the cross-bureau, multidisciplinary task force.

"The government has an almost impossible task trying to keep pace with the ever-increasing demand for spectrum and continuing advances in wireless technology and applications," said FCC chairman Michael Powell.

The Spectrum Policy Task Force will provide specific recommendations in how the agency can evolve the approach to spectrum policy into a more market-oriented approach, according to the task force's Web site. (www.fcc.gov/sptf/)

In April, the FCC held a joint summit with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to address the growing interest of commercial telecommunications carriers in swaths of the radio frequency spectrum now held by government agencies.

Because U.S. spectrum is overseen by two agencies, unnecessary delays in allocation result, Peter Guerrero told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation June 11. Guerrero is director of physical infrastructure issues for the General Accounting Office.

"The current shared U.S. spectrum management structure has processes for allocating spectrum for new uses and users of wireless services, but these processes have occasionally resulted in lengthy negotiations between the FCC and NTIA over how to resolve some allocation issues," he said.


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NAS RECOMMENDS NEXT-GENERATION WEATHER RADAR

The federal government should develop more complex weather radars, according to a June 6 report from the National Academy of Sciences.

The primary weather radar system used by the government today, the WSR-88D NEXRAD, comprised of about 150 radars worldwide, supports the National Weather Service, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense.

"Since the design of the NEXRAD system, there have been important developments of new radar technologies and methods of designing an operating radar systems," the report said.

The report's recommendations for a new system include a common radar design for all geographical regions and incorporation of information from complementary commercial radar systems.

The private, non-profit academy has a congressional mandate to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. The report is available online at www.nationalacademies.org/topnews/#0606.


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WHARTON DECLARES 3G WIRELESS DEAD

Analysts at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania have declared that the third generation wireless protocol is doomed to failure.

While 3G protocols promise greater data throughputs, there are no applications that guarantee their use by business, consumers or government, analysts at the business school said.

Wharton public policy and management professor Gerald Faulhaber said the media-rich content delivery of such devices is at odds with the ever-shrinking sizes of the phones and handheld computers themselves.

"How am I going to work it? There's probably not going to be a keyboard, and the screen will be small. What can I do on it, and does it matter what the bandwidth is? Show me the device. Then show me the application that's going to make people want to use it," Faulhaber said.

The analysts' report can be found at knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articles.cfm?catid=14&articleid=571.