US Federal Communications Commission chairman Alfred Sikes asked Congress to speed up licensing of new technologies and to give the FCC power to decide if and how telephone services should be regulated, Reuter reports from Washington: Sikes, a Republican who is leaving his post this week, wrote to key Senate and House legislators in telecommuncations and commerce saying We must expedite our licensing of new technologies like personal communications services and low earth orbit satellite systems, where American technology is gobally competitive, adding that the only way the commission could speed up the licensing of such new technology was through legislation to authorise the competitive bidding for slices of the radio spectrum, and that the long waits now for licences through lotteries and comparative hearings delays introduction of the new services and brings no public benefit or compensation.
