*Pages 1--1 from Microsoft Word - 25049.doc* STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MICHAEL K. POWELL Re: Revision of Part 15 of the Commission’s Rules Regarding Ultra- Wideband Transmission Systems. By our action today – affirming in all major respects the Ultra- Wideband (UWB) First Report & Order – the Commission provides UWB developers and manufacturers with much needed regulatory certainty. Consistent with the objectives identified in the Spectrum Policy Task Force report, the Order we adopt increases access to spectrum by leveraging innovative technology while protecting incumbents from harmful interference. Achieving a stable regulatory framework will allow a reorientation of energy away from the regulatory process and toward making these remarkable, potentially life- saving devices available for use – particularly by the public safety community. The UWB experience also offers a valuable lesson in the pitfalls of reactive spectrum policymaking, and emphasizes the need for new, forward- thinking approaches, such as those recommended by the Task Force. Presented with a disruptive technology like UWB, the Commission scrambled to develop a regulatory framework to allow for its deployment in the marketplace. Implementation of the Task Force’s recommendations would place the Commission on the leading edge of innovation – creating clear ground rules that allow new technologies to be developed and then deployed immediately, without requiring innovators to approach the Commission on bended knee, and to face a protracted regulatory approval process. Future developments in spectrum- based technologies should be limited only by the constraints of physics – not by the out- dated constraints of the regulatory code. 1