CNET

Wireless Future Program event with Larry Page in CNET | 'Google's Larry Page Goes to Washington'

Communications — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:46:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Google co-founder Larry Page was in Washington Thursday trying to strum up support to open unused broadcast TV spectrum to wireless devices. Page came to D.C. to meet with Congressional leaders and the Federal Communications Commission to talk about allowing device manufacturers to design products that use spectrum known as "white space." This spectrum, which is in the 700MHz band of frequency, sits between analog TV channels and is not being used for anything more than a buffer between broadcast TV channels.

Google and other Silicon Valley companies have been lobbying the FCC and other lawmakers to free up this spectrum, which is ideal for sending data wirelessly over long distances and penetrating through walls. Some of the 700MHz spectrum has already been auctioned off by the FCC earlier this year. And companies such as Verizon Wireless, which won a big chunk of the spectrum, plan to use it to build a next generation wireless broadband network.

Page spoke in the morning at an event hosted by the Washington think tank, the New America Foundation. He emphasized that opening up the white space spectrum for unlicensed use could have a huge impact on the U.S. economy and economies throughout the world, if other countries adopted similar spectral policy. He also said that it made little sense for the U.S. to allow this resource to go unused. LINK

Wireless Future Program event with Larry Page| 'Google's Larry Page goes to Washington'

Communications — Thu, 22 May 2008 08:29:00 -0400

New America in the News:

...Page spoke in the morning at an event hosted by theWashington think tank, the New America Foundation. He emphasized that opening up the white space spectrum for unlicensed use could have a huge impact on the U.S. economy and economies throughout the world, if other countries adopted similar spectral policy. He also said that it made little sense for the U.S. to allow this resource to go unused.

"Spectrum isn't like water," he said. "If you don't use it, it's gone. You can't conserve it..." LINK

Terry Tamminen on CNET | Interview on Clean-Tech Industry

Communications — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:24:00 -0400

New America in the News:

CNET | Interview on Clean-Tech Industry

The clean-tech industry of today is in its early stages, about where Microsoft was in 1980, says Terry Tamminen, an adviser at Pegasus Capital Advisors and the former director of California's Environmental Protection Agency. Now a main force behind the state's rise to the top as a climate change policy maker, Tamminen sits down with CNET News.com's Carl-Gustav Linden in Santa Monica, Calif.

New America on CNET | Google's Schmidt named chair of think tank

Communications — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:58:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Google's Schmidt named chair of think tank (CNET)

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has been named as chairman of the board to the New America Foundation, a non-partisan think tank in Washington, D.C. that focuses on issues like healthcare, education and foreign policy.

Schmidt joined the board 10 years ago when the centrist think tank was founded and before he joined Google. He will assume his new role June 1... more

New America on CNET | "No need to mandate 'open' mobile networks...yet"

Communications — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:35:00 -0500

New America in the News:

FCC official: No need to mandate 'open' mobile networks...yet (CNET News.com)

...Federal Communications Commission Democrat Michael Copps said he would not "strongly object" to sitting back, for now, and watching how recent "voluntary" promises by wireless carriers pan out. For instance, ostensibly because of the threat of regulation, Verizon Wireless recently said it would generally start allowing any phone to run on its network, and allow any application to run on those devices, by the end of this year. Other carriers, such as AT&T Wireless have also been playing up their perceived openness as a marketing tactic.

"I hope it is as good as it sounds," Copps told attendees at an event here organized by the New America Foundation. "But we have to ask: has the reality shifted quite as much as the rhetoric has shifted?" more