The FCC said last week that it supports enhanced United States-Mexican coordination and cooperation on communications issues between the two countries [PDF]. Recent actions include a "Joint Statement" in support of continued coordination and cooperation on communications issues; the "Directory of Bilateral Issues"—a two-year work plan for the United States and Mexico on communications issues; and a new bilateral communications protocol with Mexico to govern public safety use in the 4940-4990 MHz band in border areas.
The FCC last week reminded licensees, frequency coordinators, and equipment manufacturers of narrow-band migration deadlines in the 150-174 MHz and 421-512 MHz bands [PDF]. Starting Jan. 1, 2011, the FCC will no longer accept applications for new wideband 25 kHz (i.e. operating with only one voice path per 25 kHz of spectrum) operations and will expand the authorized interference contour of existing wideband stations. Additional requirements must be met by Jan. 1, 2013.
FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell issued remarks celebrating the centenary of the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Guglielmo Marconi [PDF]. McDowell compared the early days of wireless with wireless broadband today and observed, that "just as in Marconi's time, today's marketplace is all the more exciting because of the real and ongoing opportunities for entrepreneurial brilliance—producing new devices and new applications that are as yet unimaginable. The wonderful news is that hundreds of millions of lives will be improved due to these new uses of spectrum. In less than a decade, our focus has shifted away from a concern that half of the world's population had never even made a phone call, to now knowing that more than half of the world's 6.8 billion people own their own phone."
