Qualcomm Launches 'Kayak' Mobile Solution To Rural Broadband
By John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 3/25/2009 4:04:34 PM
Qualcomm tells the FCC that whatever grand plan it comes up with getting broadband to rural areas, its "central goal" should be insuring that 100% of Americans have access to at least one mobile broadband network.
That hardly comes as a surprise given that Qualcomm is in the national mobile broadband delivery business. Qualcomm has been pushing a device it calls Kayak, which navigates the digital data stream somewhere between a PC and a broadband enabled phone to provide low cost, low-power Internet conectivity.
The FCC actually has two broadband plans to bome up with, the rural strategy in concert with the Department of Agriculture per instructions in last year's farm bill, and a nationwide plan in concert with that agency and the National Telecommunications & Information Administrations per the economic stimulus bill.
In a filing at the FCC on the rural plan -- the FCC put that out for comment two weeks ago setting March 25 as the deadline -- Qualcomm said that funding from the stimulus package should be used to achieve that 100% mobile broadband access goal.
"[M]obile broadband services lie at the crux of extending these opportunities to all residents of Rural America," the company argued. "The laws of economics cannot be repealed-it is far more cost effective to provide mobile broadband in rural areas, as compared to any fixed or wireline solution."
Qualcomm argues that mobile's benefits are that it is available, there is equipment in the market and that the spectrum for it has been auctioned and licensed.
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