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In
mid-1999, Wireless Communications Association (WCA) President
Andrew Kreig organized leading manufacturers and emerging
carriers of license-free Internet services into the License
Exempt Alliance (LEA), which was intended to advance the
business, regulatory, technical and public relations interests
of license-free broadband providers by providing WISPs the
economies of scale within the larger WCA.
LEA’s founding members included such manufacturers as
Alvarion, WaveRider Communications, the distributor TESSCO
Technologies, a former member of the U.S. Congress, and
executives who went on to leadership positions in India’s
Parliament and the IEEE 802.16 standards efforts applying to
license exempt. Since
then LEA has recruited into membership more than 60 carriers who
use license-free spectrum at 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, with an
elected Executive Committee that now includes representatives
from U.S. Wireless Online (as chair), Alvarion, AMA Wireless,
Intel Corporation, Motorola, Prairi iNet and UniiGo
Communications. The
association is highly active in FCC regulatory filings and
similar areas on a state and local level, working cooperatively
with PART-15.ORG to provide a credible presence for the industry
on numerous high-impact issues requiring an effective voice.
LEA activities are summarized at http://www.wcai.com/lea/index.htm.
More
generally, WCA’s president upon his appointment in 1997 led
the association’s focus onto advanced technologies, and its
membership growth from 149 mostly video-oriented member
companies when he began in 1997 to 300+ companies today that
include prominent Internet providers on six continents.
As the major non-profit trade association for the
wireless broadband industry worldwide, WCA’s mission (www.wcai.com)
is to advance the growth of Internet and other broadband
communications services over wireless technology in the United
States and worldwide. This
includes enabling its diverse membership of wireless broadband
companies to benefit achieve group economies of scale.
WCA’s president is an attorney active in Washington,
D.C. public affairs and a frequent commentator on advanced
technology issues. Before
his WCA appointment in 1997, he served as WCA’s vice president
& general counsel. Earlier,
he was an attorney working for Latham & Watkins in its
Washington, D.C. office, where his colleagues included a past
and a future FCC Chairman.
Earlier, he was law clerk to a federal judge, a
newspaper, magazine and TV journalist, and authored Spiked, a
book that was widely reviewed because it described trends in the
newspaper industry. He
holds degrees from Cornell University, Yale Law School and the
University of Chicago School of Law.
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