The U.S. needs a wireless broadband policy as community networks "pop up everywhere," said Sascha Meinrath, exec. dir.-Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless. Speaking at the Freedom to Connect conference near D.C., he and others said before the feds can act, they need better information...

The U.S. needs to "explicitly pursue federal policy" to stop telcos from getting states to preempt local govts. from doing it, said Michael Calabrese, Dir.-New America Foundation Wireless Future Program. Lack of broad wireless broadband adoption isn't the only problem, he said: "It's also about quality, connection speeds, cost and mobility and ubiquity." Verizon FIOS is "at least bringing some speed" but AT&T's goal of providing up to 6 Mbps to 40% of its service territory in 5 years" is "pathetic," he said. Opening TV white spaces will free 80-200 MHz of spectrum but "we need to open up other white spaces" too, he said.

Calabrese's New America Foundation colleague Jim Snider agreed: "I don't think there's been enough attention paid to spectrum inputs."

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