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Cable Lobbyist Tom Wheeler Confirmed As New FCC Chief
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Senate confirmed Tuesday the nomination of a new chairman to the Federal Communications Commission. Wheeler is a former investor and head of telecommunications industry groups. President Barack Obama said, when announcing Wheeler as his choice in May, that 'for more than 30 years, Tom has been at the forefront of some of the very dramatic changes that we've seen in the way we communicate and how we live our lives.'"
I'm sorry, but I don't believe this whatsoever. I distinctly remember our president campaigning on an end to the revolving door of industry lobbyists and executives to head political positions and vice versa.
A little googling later . . . : https://www.opensecrets.org/obama/rev.php
Oh. Well, then. . .
Frequency coordination is already done at the state level to a certain degree. Vermont Public Radio, for example, hired a guy and bought expensive software to perform propagation prediction so they could buy up as many frequencies as possible for low power translaters beating out the other stations (of which there aren't very many this being Vermont).
A close associate of mine is the amateur radio frequency coordinator for the state of Vermont. He's responsible for coordinating repeater frequencies in conjuction with his counterparts in other states (and Candada) as necessary.
In general all licensed radio users are required to meet certain requirements WRT not interfering with other licensed users so while they fight over bandwidth there is also necessarily some cooperation, especially on the local level, b/c most frequencies above 30mhz do not typically propagate very far (except during solar cycle maximae, like we're in now; 10m is open!)
None of this really has anything to do with the fact that an industry shill is sitting in "the big chair".
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Wow. If I fall off the wagon and break my promise, I'm like any other human. But when I do it over and over again with no sign of regret or shame, that's different. That's a matter of character, and you would be right to be slow to trust me in other areas.
Tom has been at the forefront of some of the very dramatic changes that we've seen in the way we communicate and how we live our lives.
Taking inspiration from Jon Stewart's commentary last night about the recent trend in cable news (namely CNN) anchor questions:
I'll ask, "Is this a good thing or bad thing?"
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The previous 43 white presidents got a free pass for all the same stuff. Quite a few of those (just to pick your example) waged war without congressional authorization as well, and they were not impeached.