willem huitema
01-20-2004, 07:52 AM
Across the Spectrum
By Teri Rucker, National Journal
January 20, 2004
The Bush administration's telecommunications policy director brings an almost infectious enthusiasm to his job. In an interview, he gushes over the latest technology and the newest gadgets he saw recently at the nation's largest consumer electronics show.
"It is an honor to be doing this job," says <b>Michael Gallagher, acting assistant secretary of Commerce for communications and information. In October, President Bush appointed Gallagher to head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration</b> after Nancy Victory left the post over the summer. (Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., has put a hold on Gallagher's nomination over an unrelated fisheries issue.)
Gallagher was Victory's deputy in charge of spectrum issues, before being tapped by Commerce Secretary Donald Evans to be his chief of staff for policy. "This is the industry that I love," Gallagher said, "the industry that caused me to move my family to Washington, D.C., right after September 11."
"Digital," "plasma," "wireless," and "high definition" are the buzzwords that Gallagher brought home from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month. The latest gadgets marry high-definition digital entertainment with wireless services. An example: a wireless video baby monitor that allows parents to view their child over a secure Internet connection. It's that kind of thing that makes Gallagher "energized about our role as policy makers."
(excerpt)
One way the Clinton administration backed its policies, Rhode said, was by creating the Technology Opportunities Program, which provides matching funds for projects seeking new ways to apply information-technology advancements. The Bush administration wants to phase out the program. "My hope is the administration would see value in this program," Rhode said.
Gallagher declined to comment on the opportunities program, but he said that the private sector is taking care of the digital-divide problem: Broadband is being adopted faster than any other new service, and new technologies will help companies to offer the latest advancements to rural areas and earn a profit. "Market forces," he said, are bringing those advancements, and "it is our job to remove the obstacles for deployment."
In 2003, the White House issued a memorandum asking NTIA and the FCC to develop a spectrum-policy agenda. Gallagher sees the charge as "a wonderful opportunity to develop a policy agenda that improves spectrum use." And he has plenty else to keep him busy this year. "We are still finalizing our agenda with the White House" for 2004, Gallagher said. He keeps handy a long list of issues that he expects will pop up in the year ahead.
<b>The technology to watch, he said, is something called 802.16, or WiMAX, which "is not in the consciousness of regulators or consumers but has a capability that will present a very robust challenge to policy makers" when it becomes commercially viable. The technology enables 70-megabit-per-second wireless Internet connections over a 20-mile radius. WiMAX could thus solve the problem of bringing broadband to rural America.</b>
"It could represent a significant paradigm shift in the policy debate because the technology could change everything," Gallagher said. The emergence of voice-over Internet protocols, or VoIP, as a viable telephone service will also top the policy discussion this year, he said.
The move toward applications such as VoIP is "like gravity. It just is," Gallagher said. "Congress and the administration cannot turn back the force of gravity; we need to adapt to it, and that is the call" of 2004, he said.
The FCC plans to study whether VoIP service should be regulated. Chairman Powell has publicly stressed that he is unwilling to burden the nascent service with regulation, but he has also said that it should not be exempt from public-service obligations, such as location-detection capability for 911 calls.
Gallagher is also optimistic that the Senate will approve legislation creating a spectrum reallocation fund to reimburse government spectrum users when they are moved to make way for commercial services. Proceeds from the commercial auction of spectrum will finance the fund. That bill has been hung up by an amendment that will let one company, Northpoint Technology, gain access to spectrum without going through the FCC auction process. Powell and the Bush administration oppose the amendment.
Gallagher is credited with working with Powell to bridge differences between the Defense Department and the technology industry to reach an agreement that doubled the amount of spectrum in the 5 gigahertz band available for wireless, high-speed connections known as Wi-Fi. The agreement will allow Wi-Fi services to coexist with military radar systems in the 5 gigahertz spectrum band. It will also lead to a global agreement this summer at the World Radiocommunication Conference specifying that the band will be used for such wireless Internet services.
more
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0104/012004ti.htm
By Teri Rucker, National Journal
January 20, 2004
The Bush administration's telecommunications policy director brings an almost infectious enthusiasm to his job. In an interview, he gushes over the latest technology and the newest gadgets he saw recently at the nation's largest consumer electronics show.
"It is an honor to be doing this job," says <b>Michael Gallagher, acting assistant secretary of Commerce for communications and information. In October, President Bush appointed Gallagher to head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration</b> after Nancy Victory left the post over the summer. (Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., has put a hold on Gallagher's nomination over an unrelated fisheries issue.)
Gallagher was Victory's deputy in charge of spectrum issues, before being tapped by Commerce Secretary Donald Evans to be his chief of staff for policy. "This is the industry that I love," Gallagher said, "the industry that caused me to move my family to Washington, D.C., right after September 11."
"Digital," "plasma," "wireless," and "high definition" are the buzzwords that Gallagher brought home from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month. The latest gadgets marry high-definition digital entertainment with wireless services. An example: a wireless video baby monitor that allows parents to view their child over a secure Internet connection. It's that kind of thing that makes Gallagher "energized about our role as policy makers."
(excerpt)
One way the Clinton administration backed its policies, Rhode said, was by creating the Technology Opportunities Program, which provides matching funds for projects seeking new ways to apply information-technology advancements. The Bush administration wants to phase out the program. "My hope is the administration would see value in this program," Rhode said.
Gallagher declined to comment on the opportunities program, but he said that the private sector is taking care of the digital-divide problem: Broadband is being adopted faster than any other new service, and new technologies will help companies to offer the latest advancements to rural areas and earn a profit. "Market forces," he said, are bringing those advancements, and "it is our job to remove the obstacles for deployment."
In 2003, the White House issued a memorandum asking NTIA and the FCC to develop a spectrum-policy agenda. Gallagher sees the charge as "a wonderful opportunity to develop a policy agenda that improves spectrum use." And he has plenty else to keep him busy this year. "We are still finalizing our agenda with the White House" for 2004, Gallagher said. He keeps handy a long list of issues that he expects will pop up in the year ahead.
<b>The technology to watch, he said, is something called 802.16, or WiMAX, which "is not in the consciousness of regulators or consumers but has a capability that will present a very robust challenge to policy makers" when it becomes commercially viable. The technology enables 70-megabit-per-second wireless Internet connections over a 20-mile radius. WiMAX could thus solve the problem of bringing broadband to rural America.</b>
"It could represent a significant paradigm shift in the policy debate because the technology could change everything," Gallagher said. The emergence of voice-over Internet protocols, or VoIP, as a viable telephone service will also top the policy discussion this year, he said.
The move toward applications such as VoIP is "like gravity. It just is," Gallagher said. "Congress and the administration cannot turn back the force of gravity; we need to adapt to it, and that is the call" of 2004, he said.
The FCC plans to study whether VoIP service should be regulated. Chairman Powell has publicly stressed that he is unwilling to burden the nascent service with regulation, but he has also said that it should not be exempt from public-service obligations, such as location-detection capability for 911 calls.
Gallagher is also optimistic that the Senate will approve legislation creating a spectrum reallocation fund to reimburse government spectrum users when they are moved to make way for commercial services. Proceeds from the commercial auction of spectrum will finance the fund. That bill has been hung up by an amendment that will let one company, Northpoint Technology, gain access to spectrum without going through the FCC auction process. Powell and the Bush administration oppose the amendment.
Gallagher is credited with working with Powell to bridge differences between the Defense Department and the technology industry to reach an agreement that doubled the amount of spectrum in the 5 gigahertz band available for wireless, high-speed connections known as Wi-Fi. The agreement will allow Wi-Fi services to coexist with military radar systems in the 5 gigahertz spectrum band. It will also lead to a global agreement this summer at the World Radiocommunication Conference specifying that the band will be used for such wireless Internet services.
more
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0104/012004ti.htm