ST. LOUIS, MO--(Marketwire - July 22, 2010) - The Wireless ISP Association's (WISPA) regional meeting opened its doors yesterday with registered attendees numbering over 250 and representatives of 40 sponsors.
The meeting opened with a panel session featuring three great wireless pioneers: Dewayne Hendricks, who has just returned from Saipan where he installed a 60 mile wireless link over water and showed the FCC that Wi-Fi works outdoors; Doug Karl of Karlnet who brought several key technologies to the WISP business in the early 1990s that are part of what makes the business successful today, and Patrick Leary of Aperto, who has been a tireless wireless evangelist during the past decade and who was recognized by WISPA in 2008 for his outstanding contributions to the WISP industry.
WISPA's FCC Committee presented its TV white spaces work to attendees, describing the regulatory opportunities and challenges that the industry faces in Washington, D.C. Fiber gurus such as Donny Smith, whose network covers almost hundreds of rural square miles, showed attendees how to add fiber to the network. Other sessions covered LTE, 4G, WiMAX, voice over IP (VoIP), and additional technologies. A key session on the art of marketing featured Martha Huizenga, partner at WISP DC Access, and Elizabeth Bowles, president of Aristotle.net.
In his opening remarks, WISPA president Rick Harnish thanked all of those who had made the meeting possible, including attorney Steve Coran of Rini Coran PC, and board members Jack Unger, and Forbes Mercy. Harnish also thanked WISPA founding president John Scrivner. Members expressed their enthusiasm for the meeting and for Harnish's role in its success.
The keynote luncheon speech was provided by Michael Calabrese, vice president of the New America Foundation and director of its Wireless Future Program. Calabrese focused on the volume of spectrum that may be reallocated by the federal government's National Broadband Plan and noted that government policy could create a "tragedy of the anti-commons" in which the most efficient uses of spectrum, which include sharing, light licensing, and unlicensed use, are ignored in favor of auctions, which raise money in the short term but restrict the economic potential of the nation in the long term.
WISPA is pleased to have Julius Knapp, chief of the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology, as the keynote speaker for day two of the St. Louis Regional Meeting. Knapp will give a speech titled, "The FCC and WISPs."
Peter Stanforth, CTO and co-founder of Spectrum Bridge, will also give a keynote discussing the ongoing TV white spaces trials. As wireless ISPs examine the better and more efficient services that they may soon be able to deploy thanks to spectrum released through the national broadband plan and the FCC, such updates are one of the many important professional services that WISPA provides its members.
Stanforth, Jack Unger, wireless educator and WISPA board member, and Dr. Rob Kubik, Director, Global Telecom Relations at Motorola, will explain and demonstrate the new 5 GHz Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) database.
WISPA's board will hold a breakfast meeting that will be open to all members. The afternoon will feature presentations by WISPA's vendor members as well as success stories presented by its wireless ISP members. For more information, contact Forbes Mercy at forbes@wispa.org.