March 2021

On March 8, 2021, Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Roger Wicker (R-MS), Communication Subcommittee Ranking Member John Thune (R-SD), House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), and Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Bob Latta (R-OH) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel expressing surprise that Acting Chair Rosenworcel testified that the FCC could improve broadband maps within three-to-six months, but that the FCC suggested recently that new maps would not be ready until 2022.

Spectrum policy is a long game, so the successes, failures, and impacts are not generally immediately apparent or recognized. Thinking about Women’s History Month cannot help but bring to mind Anita Longley, a much-admired spectrum pioneer from the NationalTelecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS). Along with her ITS colleague Phil Rice, in the 1970s Longley developed the Longley-Rice propagation model.