House Subcommittee Sets Witnesses For Spectrum Hearing

The House Communications
Subcommittee has picked the witnesses weighing in at its April 12 hearing on
spectrum issues including auctions and alleged warehousing.

The length of the
witness list matches that of the title of the hearing, "Using Spectrum to
Advance Public Safety, Promote Broadband, Create Jobs, and Reduce the Deficit."

There will be seven
weighing in: Slade Gorton, former senator and a member of the 9/11 Commission;
Deputy Chief Charles Dowd from the New York Police Department; Coleman Bazelon,
principal of the Brattle Group; Mary Dillon, president, U.S. Cellular; Robert
Good, chief engineer, WGAL-TV; Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC's Office of
Engineering and Technology; and Peter Pitsch from Intel.

Bazelon is familiar
to broadcasters as the economist whose study the Consumer Electronics
Association pitched as reason broadcasters should be moved off their spectrumto make way for wireless broadband.

The subcommittee is chaired for former broadcasters Greg Walden
(R-Ore.), who has said there will be multiple hearings on the topic.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.