12/15, 4:00pm
AWS-3 meeting cancelled
The Federal Communications Commission has canceled a meeting scheduled for December 18th that aimed to address some of the issues relating to the FCC's sale of the 2,100MHz Advanced Wireless Spectrum 3 (AWS-3) based largely on a letter sent from a senator and congressman, according to a Monday report. In the letter sent on Friday, Western Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller and California Congressman Henry Waxman urged FCC chairman Kevin Martin to concentrate instead on the upcoming digital TV transition and other, more pressing matters during December's meeting. Despite the cancellation, proponents of the auction such as M2Z Networks point out that commissioners such as Rockefeller and Waxman do, in fact, have a statutory deadline by which to vote on the AWS-3 auction's agenda items.
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12/11, 3:30pm
US Govt Resists AWS 3 Plan
The incumbent White House administration today voiced public opposition to a measure that would require the winner of an FCC auction to offer free AWS Internet access across the US. A letter from Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez claims to represent the Bush administration in opposing the wireless plan and says the FCC should let bidders win without conditions, with "market forces" dictating the nature of any Internet service rather than government concerns for the public interest.
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10/13, 11:05am
FCC Approves Free Inet
The FCC has approved the technical details of frequencies for free long-range broadband, a new report (PDF) states. The government body's testing has concluded that there is a minimal risk at best of interference with the particular Advanced Wireless Spectrum frequencies used by the technology. Critics, including cell carrier T-Mobile, had previously tried to dissuade the FCC by asserting that compatible hardware would disrupt their own networks.
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