Time to stand up and be counted
Private land mobile radio and wireless dealers and RF system integrators may be a busy bunch today, but what about tomorrow?
Most of us operate small, independent businesses. We perform some or all of the marketing, sales, provision of technical services, customer and product support, billing and accounting typical of small businesses today. Is it any wonder that political advocacy often takes a back seat to our other responsibilities?
But we should immediately take steps to increase and defend our access to a finite natural resource, the RF spectrum. Too many of us seem to take it for granted, even as we depend on it to serve our customers’ radio communications needs and to provide ourselves with an income and a living.
Many of us lack the time, the inclination or the perceived skills we believe are required to adequately express our interests. We simply sit back and accept whatever we get — or don’t get — from spectrum battles waged by others. The problem is that others who are generally not part of the private radio and wireless industry are doing a good job of winning the public relations wars and the spectrum battles at the FCC — all at our expense.
Indifference and complacency on our part cannot continue. The time has arrived for the private radio and wireless industry to stand up and begin fighting back.
If we don’t, we will remain near the bottom of the wireless pile as far as the public’s recognition, perception and acceptance of what our industry can do for it is concerned. We’ll continue to be at the mercy of whatever the “others” and the FCC think is best for us. Is this really what we want?
Come together … right now
A large part of the problem is that the private land mobile radio industry suffers from fragmentation. We lack a single, strong voice that speaks on behalf of our little part of the overall wireless industry. We must come together, not necessarily as an association (because there are too many now, each with its own agenda), but as a strong, cohesive group focusing attention on the overall private land mobile radio and wireless industry in a way that would help to bring us together as a team.
Take cellular carriers, for example. They have a strong team. Yet, in the private radio and wireless communications industry, we are a lot of individual “islands” scattered around the country, operating independently and mostly without any coordinated or team approach.
In the private land mobile radio business, many of us have the experience, talent and expertise that helps keep the industry going. If it weren’t for us, many advances in radio and wireless communications applications, efficiencies and technology wouldn’t have happened. What prevents us from remaining in the forefront of the industry?
Several trade associations represent our industry, including the Small Business in Telecommunications, Industrial Telecommunications Association, American Mobile Telecommunications Association, Forest Industries Telecommunications, Personal Communications Industry Association, United Telecom Council and others.
Each does a good job of advancing its own agenda based on its own viewpoints; that’s what any association should do. But their individual efforts on behalf of their membership fragments the team concept needed to effectively represent the overall interests of the private radio and wireless industry. Unless the associations can get together and work as a strong front on behalf of the entire industry (as they may do concerning Nextel Communications’ 800MHz spectrum reallocation proposal), we’re right back to square one.
With more than 25 years in this business, I value and respect the RF spectrum in a way that some may not. Too many, including the FCC and others, look at the spectrum strictly in terms of dollar signs, including the average return per unit or subscriber. This is wrong, and it will come back to haunt us.
Private radio and wireless is much more than dollars and cents. The many dedicated folks who work and contribute to this industry, our economy and their communities are not about to let this important area of wireless be steamrolled into oblivion by indifference, complacency or an attitude. Or are we?
Ruark is general manager of Quality Mobile Communications, a 25-year-old private radio/wireless communications sales, service and systems integrator in Vancouver, WA. His email address is [email protected]. Ruark hosts the Private Wireless Forum, an email and Web-based discussion group. To subscribe, send an email to [email protected] or visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivateWirelessForum.
