Wireless Industry Expansion Not Over, Gross Says
By 2011, a billion more people will have access to telecommunications, due mainly to wireless industry expansion, said Ambassador David Gross, State Dept. international communications and information policy coordinator, at the Wireless Communications Assn. (WCA) conference. The rapid spread of wireless communications has had “significant political and cultural effects, and not just here,” Gross said. Internationally, the wireless boom has lent momentum to regions once decades behind the U.S. technologically, he said. Today more than 100 countries offer WiFi, with some 65,000 hot spots. To facilitate growth, it’s important to “promote competition and prevent excess regulation in other countries,” said Gross.
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Despite wireless communications’ popularity, challenges remain, Gross said. One is the emergence of country-specific technology standards that limit established carriers’ reach. Pushes for unique standards by countries such as China are counterproductive and slow industry development, Gross said. Bangladesh and other countries that impose huge taxes for hot spots access effectively are “strangling the goose before it has a chance to lay a golden egg,” said Gross.
“Three quarters of the world’s population lives within range of a wireless network,” FCC Comr. Copps told the WCA conference. However, “this is no time for complacency,” he said. While Copps acknowledged the wireless industry’s successes, he said there is much room for improvement in the U.S. Copps described U.S. capacity to communicate in another terrorist attack as a “chilling picture of unreadiness.” He urged the FCC to promote more public/private collaboration to solve interoperability problems.
Besides national concerns, the U.S. must develop an Iraqi telecom infrastructure, said Arno Kosko, senior vp- business development at EMW, in a speech Wed. at the WCA conference. Despite “losing a few colleagues,” technicians have gotten Iraqi communications “off the ground floor,” largely via wireless networks, he said. Kosko said the FCC should create a division devoted to providing regulatory advice abroad.
The National Communication and Media Commission (NCMC), Iraq’s regulatory office, has initiated an intensive program for the rest of 2005, Kosko said. The NCMC plans several programs, including enhancing Iraq’s fiber optic backbone and introducing broadband wireless and wireless local loops to all cities, he said.
Iraq has an impressive 3-4% teledensity, but expansion opportunities still exist in Iraqi telecom, said Asiacell CEO Humam Abuamara. The market -- which Abuamara says will triple in a year due to demand for services unavailable under Saddam Hussein -- must defeat basic problems: poor infrastructure, security concerns that hinder hiring and limited resources.