White Spaces

Thank you, Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Eshoo and members of the Committee, for this opportunity to testify today on the critical issue of how best to reallocate the nation’s public spectrum resource to promote mobile broadband, while promoting public safety communication and preserving the public benefits of over-the-air broadcasting.

As indicated in the initial comments filed by PISC in this proceeding, PISC supports the
Commission’s initiation of this inquiry as the first step toward fulfilling two recommendations in
the National Broadband Plan “to accelerate the development of opportunistic use technologies
and to expand access to additional spectrum.” The comments filed to date evidence widespread
agreement that dynamic spectrum access (DSA) technologies have tremendous potential to
promote greater spectrum access, capacity, and efficiency in both licensed and unlicensed bands.

President Obama has outlined a Wireless Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative that promises high-speed “4G” mobile broadband for 98% of Americans while raising over $27 billion from spectrum auctions to pay for a nationwide, inter-operable public safety network and other innovations.

This forum featured a briefing by officials at the White House, NTIA and FCC who are leading this initiative. They outlined the Administration’s 10-year plan to free up 500 MHz more spectrum for exclusive licensing and for shared and unlicensed use.

... 21st-century economies,” said Sascha Meinrath, director of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative, at a recent FCC hearing. ...

and more »

Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation, a “tech tank inside a think that that provide support for open ...

Service providers in the U.S. are intentionally keeping consumers in the dark about their broadband options, said Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation and a speaker at today's FCC workshop titled Broadband Consumer Context. ... Orignial Article

... promised during the Obama campaign will never see the light of day,” said Sascha Meinrath, director of New America Foundation's Wireless Future Program. ...

and more »

Last Thursday, Sascha Meinrath, Director of the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative presented on the FCC  Broadband Workshop on Technology and Wireless. The lone public interest voice on a panel dominated corporate representative, Mr. Meinrath argued:

Washington, DC—Today, the New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative released a report comparing bandwidth caps for high-speed Internet—including cable modem, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) or fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP), and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) networks-in the United States and Japan.  As the report documents, a large discrepancy exists between the two countries, suggesting that U.S. policy makers should investigate market conditions in Japan to determine why their network capacity supports far more per-customer throughput than U.S. broadband networks.