Senator Uses FCC Nomination Process To Question National Wireless Network 101
K7DAN contributes this excerpt from the intersection of politics, regulation, and high technology: "Sen. Charles Grassley is standing by his threat to place a hold on two nominees to the Federal Communications Commission over concerns about a controversial new wireless network the agency has allowed to move forward. The Iowa Republican this week accused the FCC of refusing to comply with his requests for information on its discussions with Virginia company LightSquared regarding its next-generation national wireless network. Some fear the network would hinder the effectiveness of high-precision GPS systems — used by the military, farmers and others. Grassley also raised questions about the involvement of Harbinger, the hedge fund behind the project and founded by Democratic donor Philip Falcone."
Without really knowing specifics.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems like a reasonable inquiry. However, he's a replublican, and this is slashdot, so can someone enlighten me as to why it isn't? :)
Re:Other Motivation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Process (Score:4, Insightful)
Gee - I do realize it - it is the way the system works, and the system is in place so that a single senator CAN make a difference, as opposed to the House rules which are set up on a majority basis. It comes from the intended different roles of the two bodies. The House is for the people, the Senate represents the states. The senate is structured so that small states can have equal power to big states. Rhode Island has a much power in the Senate as California does.
Get off your high horse and learn why the two bodies behave differently!
In this case, the Senator is operating within his constitutional discretion and demanding a Federal agency answer his "right and proper" exercise of authority over the body. They refuse to answer his questions, and he pulls one of the few strings he can as an individual senator to get the agency to respond.
Federal agency DO commit coverups - See the recent release of "Fast and Furious" information last Friday where Justice actually admitted that they lied to Congress.
Representative government is a messy business. When the "checks and balances" are operating - someone's head might get whacked!
Re:Other Motivation? (Score:4, Insightful)
You must not be very familiar with Senator Grassley, or you would not assume a motive unrelated to servicing his donors, specifically in this case big telecom.
Anyway, my understanding is this Lightsquared thing uses unused parts of the spectrum and won't bother GPS. And if it does, it couldn't possibly get FCC approval.
The ONLY time we get good government... (Score:4, Insightful)
... is when the goals of the sponsors coincide.
In this case, LightSquared might be taking bandwidth away from Ad Hoc wireless networks -- of course Grassley is concerned about his military backers and their precession GPS -- likely because Drones given to police stations are going to need to accurately pinpoint hippies in a crowd to drop payloads of Pepper Gas on.
>> Either way; I'd much prefer that a bunch of people started using WiMax and creating a self-organizing Internet of our own. Come on SlashDot - we are just the geeky anarchists to get it done!
Re:Without really knowing specifics.. (Score:3, Insightful)
He's from Iowa, where there are a lot of big corporate farms, a lot of big family farms, and not quite as many small family owned farms anymore.
Most if not all of these farms use semi-autonomous systems to run the tractors that plow, seed, fertilize and harvest the crops. Without properly function high resolution gps, all of this falls by the wayside and back to fully manual operations they go, increasing costs at the farm level, which will ripple outward to the market.
So in essence, he is protecting the American economy and food supply with his investigation into the potential conflicts this *supposedly* new tech cell network.
Re:Other Motivation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wish I mod points. This is the crux of the entire problem. These satellite downlink frequencies were originally setup by the FCC for only that use. Now that the FCC messed up and allowed this to proceed we have a completely different ballgame - satellite downlink frequencies being transmitted at terrestrial locations and high power levels, but the existing receiving equipment (some 10-15 years old), is supposed to continue to work in an environment like this?
Existing receivers do not expect that kind of high power/close neighbor interfence because A> to have to filter it would reduce the received signal and sensitivity anyway (lower performance), B> any such filtering would be more expensive (power and cost), C> no filtering is required since the FCC already made sure no one would be swamping the signal by effectively keeping this area of spectrum "quiet" (or at least the received signals are all at similar power levels with sufficient guard bands).
There are other frequencies and better receivers, but these are not your cheapo handheld battery powered GPS receivers. So while technical solutions might be found going forward, the real problem is that most of the commercial GPS equipment will basically stop working - so who should pay to replace everyone's GPS (from handheld's, to in car units, iPhone's, etc)??
Re:Without really knowing specifics.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny, you keep saying that this guy is "owned", is a "slave" and he has been ordered to and bribed to "rip off" Americans, and you speculate about a quid pro quo conspiracy.
Yet there is no evidence for any of that.
He's a Congressman.