Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Ed Thomas, "Scam Plan" Buster Head, FCC Office of Engineering & Technology

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 22:39:50 -0400

Home > Magazines > Forbes Magazine

E-Gang
Freeing the Airwaves
Scott Woolley, 09.01.03

Ed Thomas, "Scam Plan" Buster Head, FCC Office of Engineering & Technology

The Federal Communications Commission has long been the killing field where new
wireless technologies are bumped off and buried. The original FCC was created
almost expressly for that purpose--to prevent new wireless signals from
interfering with existing radio broadcasters. Ever since, incumbent broadcasters
have rabidly opposed new untethered technologies, and FCC regulators typically
have sided with them.

Not Edmond Thomas. An unlikely bureaucrat, he spent four decades at tech and
telecom companies--Philips Electronics, the former Nynex and AT&T, among
others--before he began working with the FCC in 2001. He runs the Office of
Engineering & Technology, which defines the technical rules by which the airwaves
are shared. But instead of hoarding spectrum and protecting the Bells and the
broadcasters, Thomas is freeing the airwaves, opening the way for new uses and new
gadgets.

"I want to start creating places where American innovation can go forward," he
says. He calls himself "a techie businessman in regulator's clothing."

Last year Thomas, 60, helped push through new rules on "ultrawideband" technology.
He also led a crusade to free up another huge chunk of spectrum, culling it from
military airspace and idle swaths to create the same sort of anything-goes turf
that served as the spawning grounds for Wi-Fi. Thomas' new unlicensed parcel
almost doubles the spectrum available to Wi-Fi-type technologies.

"Ed is very passionate about trying to do the right thing and letting advanced
technology have its proper impact," says Paul Kolodzy, former head of the FCC's
spectrum-reform task force.

Often that requires overcoming the resistance of titans. Ultrawideband gear sprays
low-power radio waves across a huge range of frequencies, letting them penetrate
walls, among other feats. Because many of the affected frequencies already are in
use, in theory ultrawideband gets in the way of everything from satellites to
military radar. Thomas sat through a barrage of criticism from the U.S. military,
cellular carriers, the airlines and satellite radio companies. But he argued that
limiting ultrawideband gadgets to very low power would minimize interference. The
rule allowing ultrawideband passed in February 2002.

"The reason we got it through is we had good science to back it," Thomas says. It
helped that his boss, FCC Chairman Michael Powell, was willing to stand up to the
incumbents, he adds. And the giants often assume any new wireless technology is
bad. "I don't want to hurt the incumbents, but I'm not going to accept subjective
arguments."

Another Thomas brainchild: a wireless gadget that can sense its physical location,
match it to a geographic database defining the various frequencies in use and then
adjust its transmissions to avoid interference. "Ten years ago people would have
thought that to be science fiction. That technology is in hand today. It's Buck
Rogers stuff," says Thomas.

But Thomas Hazlett, a former FCC chief economist now with the Manhattan Institute,
argues that the FCC is expanding unlicensed spectrum at the expense of creating
licensed, commercial spectrum that could spur even greater innovation. Airwaves
that were deregulated but came with ownership deeds could allow companies to
experiment with longer-range gear. That, Hazlett says, might do better at
preventing congestion than a free-for-all.

Such fundamental reform will have to wait for Congress, and that is likely to be a
long wait. In the meantime, Edmond Thomas is helping set off the next wave in the
Wi-Fi gold rush.

http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2003/0901/103.html