Two senators have drafted legislation to require the installation of small wireless base stations in all publicly accessible federal buildings with the goal of increasing wireless coverage and free up commercial network capacity.
Sponsors Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Mark Warner, D-Va., said the change will help prevent dropped calls that can occur indoors and in rural areas due to poor cell phone coverage, while more effectively utilizing broadband wireless networks.
The measure would order GSA to begin installing wireless voice and data base stations, such as wi-fi hotspots and femtocells, in all publicly accessible federal buildings. It also would implement two recommendations of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan to streamline federal rights-of-ways and wireless transmitter sitings to expedite the expansion of wireless and broadband infrastructure, especially in rural areas.
Said Snowe in a statement, "Given that approximately 60 percent of mobile Internet use and 40 percent of cell phone calls are completed indoors, utilizing technologies such as wi-fi and femtocells will dramatically improve coverage."
"I see a great opportunity to leverage federal buildings in order to improve wireless broadband coverage at a very reasonable cost. By starting with the nearly 9,000 federal buildings owned or operated by the General Services Administration, we will be able to provide appreciable improvement in wireless coverage for consumers while also reducing some of the pressure on existing wireless broadband networks," said Warner’s statement.
The bill would allocate $15 million from the Federal Buildings Fund for the project.
