The U.S. ambassador to this year’s World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) is pushing for greater cooperation between countries in North and South America in hopes of creating a hemispheric voting block comparable in power to Europe and Asia. In a keynote address July 10 to delegates at the Wireless Communications Association International conference (WCAI) in New Orleans, Gail Schoettler says it’s critical that planning begin now for the next WRC, scheduled for 2003 in Geneva, and that high-level officials from government and industry be involved in the early stages. "We’re pushing very hard for that (type of organization)," she told Report on Wireless in an interview following her address.