Small Wireless Broadband Providers Keeping Pressure on FCC, Congress

Representatives from a group representing more than 700 small wireless broadband providers are making their first pilgrimage to Washington to lobby policy makers to ensure the firms continue to have access to unlicensed spectrum.

About 20 members of the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association are meeting with officials from the Federal Communications Commission and White House as well as key lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The group represents small firms that generally use unlicensed spectrum to provide wireless broadband service to a few hundred or several thousand customers in rural communities and small towns that are not served by a cable company or another wired broadband provider. Among the group's top priorities is to ensure that the FCC gives priority to unlicensed uses as it begins work on crafting rules implementing the spectrum legislation approved by Congress in February as part of a payroll-tax cut package. The legislation gave the FCC the flexibility to use some of the spectrum it may recapture as a result of the law for unlicensed uses. In particular, WISPA members said they will be watching the FCC closely to ensure that as it implements a new type of auction aimed at persuading broadcasters to give up some of their spectrum, it will continue to allow for unlicensed uses between television channels.