Restoring “Silicon Valley to its rightful place as the center...

is the next big opportunity in wireless, … Silicon Valley almost certainly has the innovation and knowledge to create solutions,” and investments in “small pole-top LTE cells and smart antenna for millimeter wave backhaul systems … indicate that the capital market recognizes” the opportunity, said President David Witkowski of the Wireless Communications Alliance, a nonprofit in the region. But local entrepreneurs need “access to rulemakers in Washington, D.C.,” said his text for a presentation at the Silicon Valley Wireless Symposium. “Venture capital is typically allocated for research, development and go-to-market, not lobbying and stalking the halls of the FCC. Software and mobile apps typically don’t require the FCC to modify rules. Wireless hardware often does. Building a wireless hardware economy requires a different strategy and tactics.” And “the FCC is not readily accessible to the individual entrepreneur, because it’s in Washington, D.C., not here in the Silicon Valley where it’s needed,” Witkowski said. The commission has a field office in San Francisco that he didn’t mention. Established wireless-hardware hubs have much different economic development approaches to wireless from the Bay area’s, Witkowski said. “In San Diego, by far the dominant nonprofit organization for communications is CommNexus, which enjoys strong support from both regional corporations and even local government officials,” he said. Austin, Texas, “has a similar model.” Silicon Valley, by contrast, “has over a dozen small nonprofits dealing with wireless” from varying perspectives, and government at all levels “is largely absent and seems not to know what these smaller organizations are trying to accomplish,” Witkowski said. A single council of companies, governments, nonprofits and academics would help align the region’s interests with its history, he said. Long before “the silicon revolution, the San Francisco Bay area was famous for its technical leadership in the development of radio and microwave technology,” Witkowski said. Since “the investment community has almost completely abandoned the semiconductor industry during the recent downturn, I sometimes wonder if we shouldn’t rebrand ourselves as the Wireless Valley."