And then there were four. Newly-named to the FCC transition team for President-elect Donald Trump is telecom advisor David Morken.
He’s co-founder and chairman of Republic Wireless and co-founder and CEO of parent company Bandwidth, which provides voice-over-IP and data services for business. Clients include competing VoIP and WiFi cell carriers Project FI (a subsidiary of Alphabet), Google Voice, and Microsoft Skype, reports insidesources.com.
Small wireless carrier Republic has 300,000 subscribers with plans averaging $15 monthly. Morken could be a strong advocate for smaller telecom players in the new FCC. The other three Commission transition team members — Jeffrey Eisenach, Mark Jamison and Roslyn Layton — are all American Enterprise Institute fellows who’ve written in opposition to Democratic-led FCC rulemakings, Inside Towers reported.
One issue brewing between large and small wireless carriers looks to loom large in the new FCC. Larger carriers look to begin using technology known as LTE-U to begin offloading traffic from their crowded networks onto the WiFi networks Republic and others rely on for their primary service. Unlike WiFi, which searches for an open channel before transmitting over unlicensed airwaves, LTE-U checks too, but sends the call immediately on the least congested frequency; critics believe that will cause WiFi interference, while incumbent carriers don’t.
The FCC is studying the issue; Morken wants the Commission to authorize WiFi-L, which would let WiFi networks use airwaves licensed for carriers when available, according to insidesources.com.
“LTE-U principally benefits carriers,” Morken tweeted last December. “WiFi-L benefits households.”
January 4, 2017
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