A major schism in the Bush administration has erupted over an anticipated Dec 18 vote by the Federal Communications Commission on a national wireless broadband plan that T-Mobile USA and others fear will cause interference to mobile-phone operations in spectrum they paid billions of dollars for at an auction two years ago. Responding to one of six House Republican members who raised concerns in August about the FCC's advanced wireless services-3 rulemaking, President Bush's top telecom policy advisor — Meredith Attwell Baker — expressed a negative view on attaching conditions to licenses sold at auctions. Martin's AWS-3 initiative would do just that by requiring the winning bidder to use 25% of network capacity for free, family friendly service, the latter obligation necessitating the use of network-based filtering. The AWS-3 licensee operator also would have to allow third-party devices and applications on the network and provide service to at least 95% of the U.S. population by the end of the 10-year license term.
