Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Commerce proposes merger of telecom, technology agencies

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 03:26:18 -0500

February 13, 2003

Commerce proposes merger of telecom, technology agencies

By Bara Vaida, National Journal's Technology Daily

The convergence of the telecommunications and technology
worlds has prompted the Commerce Department to propose
merging its three key technology divisions into one agency.

The plan to merge the Technology Administration, the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and
the e-commerce functions of the International Trade
Administration (ITA) would require legislative approval, but
several telecom and technology companies quickly endorsed the
idea.

Industry officials currently must go to different locations within
Commerce, depending on the issues they want to discuss with the
administration. Following the merger, the staff would be located
in the same place.

"We applaud the Commerce Department's proposal to merge
NTIA with the Technology Administration because it accurately
reflects the reality in the market today that telecom and
technology are inextricably intertwined," AT&T spokeswoman
Claudia Jones said.

"By consolidating these three bureaus into one agency under the
Department of Commerce, the administration shows that it
understands how important a unified and coherent technology
agenda is to our nation's economy," AeA President and CEO
William Archey said in a statement. "With the challenges currently
facing our industry, this couldn't come at a better time."

When Phil Bond, the head of the Technology Administration, was
both chief of staff to Commerce Secretary Donald Evans and the
undersecretary, he created an interagency technology council to
better coordinate technology policy discussions within the agency.
"We've been working closely together and this is a formalization
of a good part of what we've been doing already," he said of the
merger plan.

Bond said no staff would be cut in the consolidation and Deputy
Commerce Secretary Samuel Bodman said Thursday that the
merger would have no impact on the department's budget. After
the move, the Undersecretary for Technology would oversee the
new agency and the position of an assistant secretary for
communications and information and NTIA administrator also
would remain the same.

"What matters most is performance and results, and we believe
these organizational changes will help us accomplish our jobs,"
said Nancy Victory, NTIA's chief.

When asked to give an example of how the consolidation could
improve the department's activities, Bond said that all the work
on technology standards done by the Technology
Administration's National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) would be better coordinated with the standards work at
NTIA.

He said the move also would combine separate aspects of the
work on high-speed Internet services being performed by the
Technology Administration's Office of Technology Policy and
NTIA. The Technology Administration has been studying ways to
boost demand for such broadband services, while NTIA has
been focused on expanding access to those services.

The idea of the merger predates the Bush administration, Bond
said, adding that it has been discussed for the past 10 years, as
the telecom and the tech industries began merging.

The Information Technology Association of America, Information
Technology Industry Council and the Business Software Alliance
also praised the reorganization plan.

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