January 10, 2013

Inside The Beltway...

FCC To Free More Wi-Fi Space
Didn’t we say it was all about Wi-Fi? Speaking at the CES this week, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said his agency soon will kick off a government-wide effort to increase speeds and to alleviate Wi-Fi congestion at such major hubs as airports, convention centers and large conference gatherings while also boosting speed and capacity for Wi-Fi in the home. According to the chairman, this will bolster and free more of the unlicensed spectrum available for ultra-high-speed, high-capacity “Gigabit Wi-Fi” by as much as 35 percent (adding 195 megahertz of spectrum in the 5-Gig band), with one benefit being improved HD video-distribution capability.
 
Gender Change At The FCC Head Office?
Amid rumors that the current FCC chairman may be on his way out, The Women’s Media Center is urging President Obama to nominate a woman – for the first time – to take his place, posting a ready-to-be-signed template on its Web page to start the ball rolling. “Women make up over 51 percent of the U.S. population but hold 6 percent of all TV and radio station licenses. Almost every major telecom is headed by a man. The glass ceiling is firmly in place in the media and telecom sectors,” the group adds. The template, addressed to Obama but copied to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.); Tina Tchen, executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls; and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) says in part “the post atop the FCC is one of the most important opportunities available to raise the bar for representational diversity and decision-making in the media and telecom sectors, which are the infrastructure of this generation and of the future.”