In a message dated 11/25/2003 4:29:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, dsumner@arrl.org writes:

Chris has received clarification that we're still in D'Wana's Division, which has a new, more impressive name and less to do.

Mr. Sumner and I are apparently competing in a cynicism contest. He is also more succinct than I am, which is critical to the successful cynic. He might win, but we will see. Kay has apparently decided to enter also. To provide more details about the reorganization of the Titanic's deck chairs at FCC, here is what I was told. The new Public Safety and Critical Infrastructure Division is pretty much the same as the old Public Safety and Private Wireless Division. D'Wana will head it up, and their duties include: Parts 95 and 97 Marine Aviation Mutliple Address (Part 101) Public Safety Fixed Microwave Private Land Mobile (including Public Safety land mobile) Intelligent Transportation Systems 4.9 GHz Public Safety Mobile E-911 CALEA (law enforcement monitoring of private calls, a' la big brother) What was removed was Fixed Microwave under Part 101, ITFS (instructional fixed microwave), MDA and MVDDS (the latter not being dental fixed microwave video, but instead the old Multichannel MDS for wireless internet access and wireless cable). The new Bureaus have "portfolios" of services they work with. The meaningful changes are not all bad. Bill Cross reports to our old pal Mike Wilhelm, a ham whose bizarre 2X2 callsign escapes me at the moment. Mike reports to D'Wana. Mike has been sort of promoted, and this is a good thing for us. D'Wana's offloading of work is coupled with some offloading of staff, but the staff seems to be dead wood. There is also a lady named Jeannie Kowalski, who handles "spectrum policy" who we ought to get to pretty quickly and give her some policy of our own. I don't know her, but she has been there awhile in non-amateur connections. That is the skinny. The remaining question: why, if it is critical infrastructure, would they put it into the hands of D'Wana Terry????? 73, Chris W3KD