Having telephone access was essential to preventing a situation from becoming life threatening. This is good news, if managed properly within our Service and through our emergency service teams, working with local and regional public safety officials. I wrote this section last summer but never posted to the web site - yet this is still pretty much true. Recently, spectrum auctions have taken center stage, particularly since the pursuit of money by politicians can warp their decision making. Since then, the auction process has only gotten murkier and appears to be in near complete disarray.
Auctions are useful for applying market forces to improving spectrum efficiency and utilization.
Congress, on the other hand, just assumed that they were for raising cash. Congress, it seems, does not understand basic economic concepts like the law of supply versus demand. M uch of the auction process is turning into a fiscal disaster as perhaps half of all licensees are on the verge of bankruptcy, according to news reports. According to stories in RCR, the PCS and NPCS industry have proposed to the FCC that license auction payments be deferred for five years and then, starting in 2002, ramping up on a sliding scale to 2006, to begin payments for their licenses. In effect, this turns the federal government in to a venture capital fund.