Frontline, AT&T appeal FCC spectrum auction rules
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Several companies have challengedÂ spectrum auction rulesÂ recently set by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, with Frontline Wireless protesting that the auction of the 700MHz band to be auctioned in January could shut out small bidders.
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(InfoWorld) - Police and fire organizations called on the U.S. Congress to give them more radio spectrum for communications interoperability than the 24MHz they're due to get in early 2009. Representatives of the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the International Association of Chiefs of Police on Thursday told a U.S. Senate committee that they need an additional 30MHz of spectrum. The government is scheduled to auction spectrum to commercial users as U.S. television stations abandon the upper 700MHz spectrum band in February 2009, under a law passed last year. The additional spectrum would help public safety agencies deploy broadband communications systems that would fix the radio interoperability problems that plagued emergency workers following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Charles Werner, fire chief for Charlottsville, Virginia. Congress must act before the spectrum is auctioned to private companies in the next year, he said. "I encourage Congress to take advantage of this very limited, one-time opportunity," Werner said. "We cannot suggest too strongly the urgent and identified need for broadband capability that public safety can use with assurance that it will work when needed, be available when needed, and is affordable." But some members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee questioned the plan to put the additional 30MHz of spectrum into a public safety broadband trust. The new spectrum plan, first advanced by Cyren Call Communications last April, could potentially cost the government billions of dollars in lost auction revenue, said Senator Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican. The committee, in its DTV (digital television) transition bill, budgeted at least $10 billion to be raised by the spectrum auctions, with $1 billion going to fund emergency communications interoperability efforts. The Cyren Call plan is "impossible for us to do fiscally," Stevens said. Stevens' criticism echoed the High Tech DTV Coalition, a group of technology vendors, whichÂ on Tuesday called on the Senate to stick to the original spectrum plan. Cyren Call Chairman Morgan O'Brien said the company's plan calls for the broadband trust to raise $5 billion from private investors to pay for the 30MHz of spectrum. Private investors would pay for expensive public safety broadband networks instead of Congress or local governments, he said. Nearly all public safety organizations support the broadband trust concept, O'Brien added. "This is a crying out for help," he said. "We're sending men and women into dangerous situations every day knowing their devices are inferior." But the spectrum auctions could raise billions of dollars more than what the Cyren Call plan offers to pay, Stevens said. And Steve Largent, president and CEO of CTIA, a trade group representing wireless carriers, questioned whether the broadband trust would find enough investors to fund a broadband wireless rollout for public safety, especially in rural areas. Other senators suggested alternative approaches to the Cyren Call plan. Senator John Sununu, a New Hampshire Republican, suggested that public safety agencies could better use the 25MHz of spectrum they already have. Senator Maria Cantwell, a Washington state Democrat, said public safety agencies in her state and elsewhere are finding success using existing spectrum with radio over IPÂ devices. This "boot-strap" approach using open standards and radio over IP could cost as little as $300 million across the U.S. as opposed to an average of about $1 billion per state using other equipment, said David Billstrom, chairman and CEO of public safety consulting group National Interop and a volunteer firefighter. Â
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(InfoWorld) - Several lawmakers protested a spectrum auction proposal from the chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), saying his plan could limit the number of bidders and raise costs to consumers. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's plan would require winners of part of theÂ 700MHz band of spectrum, to be auctioned by early next year, to accept any wireless devices, including phone handsets, allowing customers to transfer devices between mobile providers. Martin's plan would also include net neutrality-like rules, prohibiting auction winners from blocking or slowing Web content from other providers. But several members of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, many of them Republicans, questioned Martin's proposed rules, which have support of the majority of the FCC. Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, said he was "very disappointed" that fellow Republican Martin was proposing regulations for part of the 60MHz of spectrum to be auctioned. Some proposals byÂ consumer groups and Frontline WirelessÂ would also require auction winners to provide wholesale access to competitors, and Barton praised Martin for not including that provision. "It's not quite as bad as the Frontline plan, but I don't think it's as good as absolute no-condition auction," Barton said. Many Republicans suggested that auction conditions would decrease the value of the spectrum. Congress has budgeted the auction to raise $10 billion with about half of that going toward reducing the U.S. government budget deficit. "Congress has already spent that money," said Representative Charles Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat. Questions about Martin's proposal came from a handful of Democrats. Representative John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the full House Energy and Commerce Committee, asked FCC commissioners whether the device-portability rules would increase the cost of wireless phone plans. Customers want to be able to take their mobile phones with them when they switch carriers, but carriers generally haven't offered that option, Martin said. "I think the benefits outweigh the costs and concerns," he said. Barton suggested that winning bidders could implement the device-portability and net neutrality proposals without FCC mandate. Google has indicatedÂ it could bid billions of dollars, Barton noted. "Why shouldn't we just let Google bid?" Barton said. "If they've got a better idea, why don't they go into the marketplace and bid their four or five billion dollars?" There's customer demand for device portability, but carriers haven't acted on it, Martin said. Wireless carriers didn't offer phone number portability until the FCC forced them to in late 2003, then millions of U.S. residents took advantage of it, he said. Asked whether they supported Martin's proposals, the FCC's two Democrats said they did, while the two other Republicans said they hadn't made their minds up yet. "Please let me keep my phone and let me take it wherever I want," said subcommittee chairman Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat. The so-called open-access rules are necessary for new broadband competition to challenge cable and telecom providers, said FCC commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat. The 700MHz auction is the last major spectrum auction on the horizon, many participants said. "This is one proceeding where we cannot fail," Copps said. Some lawmakers suggested Martin's proposal doesn't go far enough. Representative Charles "Chip" Pickering, a Mississippi Republican, called on the FCC to require wholesale access rules as well. Wholesale access would allow new and innovative services to flourish on the networks using the spectrum, he said. Martin's plan would "enhance markets and competition," he added.
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Open access advocates say an FCC plan for new spectrum doesn't go far enough.
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Verizon Wireless' request that a court review the FCC's decision requiring open access to spectrum it is about to auction has met strong resistance from Google and a host of other groups.
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On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission will auction off what industry observers call the "sweet spot" of the wireless spectrum -- the 700-MHz block formerly occupied by television broadcasters. Among the bidders are some 214 companies, including Verizon, AT&T and, most famously, Google.
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Verizon Wireless is appealing new rules requiring some soon-to-be auctioned wireless spectrum to be open to any devices mobile customers please. Google says the move is anti-consumer.
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The head of the Federal  Communications Commission wants to require the winning bidder  in an upcoming auction of valuable wireless airwaves to make  them accessible to consumers using any device or software  application, an FCC source said on Tuesday.
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Bidding hit $6.1 billion in the federal governmentâs auction of wireless spectrum. Two bidders appear to be bidding for the most valuable national license.
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Blog: Government officials are writing rules to determine how to use extremely valuable wireless spectrum that will be auctioned in September to the highest bidder.
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While an auction is underway for a large chunk of wireless spectrum in the 700MHz range, the FCC approved a separate deal enabling AT&T to acquire similar wireless spectrum from another owner.
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AT&amp;T hasn&#39;t decided whether it will bid for the highly desirable 700MHz band because it doesn&#39;t know if it can build a profitable business, given the open-access rules set for the wireless spectrum by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in July.Calling the rules &quot;interesting,&quot; AT&amp;T&#39;s CEO Randall Stephenson said the company is hard at work crunching numbers and analyzing business scenarios, but hasn&#39;t reached a conclusion yet.&quot;Is there a business model there? I&#39;m not sure if there is or not,&quot; he said Friday at the&#160;Web 2.0 Summit, where he answered questions from conference chair John Battelle and from audience members.The FCC conditions, which include&#160;open-access rules on a third of the spectrum, have been a major source of controversy.The winner of 22MHz of spectrum must allow any wireless devices to connect to the network, permitting wireless telephone customers to use handset devices from other carriers. The winning bidder also can&#39;t block or slow down wireless and Web content from competitors.Some telecom carriers wanted no conditions, while some consumer advocacy groups and Google wanted the FCC to require that winning bidders also resell the spectrum at wholesale rates to competitors, something the FCC didn&#39;t adopt.The FCC is scheduled to auction 62MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band beginning in January. The spectrum is ideal for long-range wireless telephone and broadband services, with signals that travel up to four times farther than in higher spectrum bands.&quot;It&#39;s a huge opportunity. It&#39;s beachfront property. When it comes to buying spectrum, it&#39;s the best you&#39;re going to find for a long time,&quot; Stephenson said.Data consumption on wireless networks is growing fourfold year over year, so a company&#160;such as&#160;AT&amp;T needs to bulk up on spectrum to keep up with the demand, he said.&quot;It&#39;s very obvious we&#39;re going to have to add to our spectrum holdings,&quot; he said.That&#39;s why AT&amp;T earlier this month reached an agreement to&#160;buy 12MHz of high-speed wireless spectrum&#160;in the 700MHz band from Aloha Partners for $2.5 billion.&quot;It&#39;s the first time, I think, that we&#39;ve ever paid $2.5 billion for a company that had no revenue,&quot; Stephenson said.The Aloha spectrum covers 196 million U.S. residents, including 72 of the 100 largest markets in the United States.In other matters, Stephenson said he was very satisfied with the&#160;iPhone deal between his company and Apple.&quot;I&#39;m not sure I could have asked for much more out of it than what we got,&quot; he said.Asked to comment on the decision to use the slower EDGE network for the iPhone, Stephenson said it was a request from Apple CEO Steve Jobs.&quot;He wanted a broad ubiquitous data network. The EDGE network is the only data network that covers the entire United States,&quot; he said. The situation will improve as AT&amp;T upgrades markets to 3G, he said.Stephenson acknowledged that AT&amp;T&#39;s directory assistance business is being challenged by ad-supported options from Internet companies&#160;such as&#160;Google.&quot;We better get our advertising-supported [directory assistance] model up fast,&quot; he said, adding that AT&amp;T is building such a service internally.On a lighter note, he said he&#39;s &quot;envious&quot; of Google and the success it has had with its business model. &quot;It&#39;s a great gig if you can get it,&quot; he said.(Grant Gross in Washington, D.C. contributed with this story.)
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The high bids totalled $3.2 billion in the U.S. Federal Communications Commission&#39;s&#160;auction of wireless spectrum licenses in the 700MHz band&#160;after three rounds and a day and a half of bidding.That figure is far short of the $10 billion Congress and the FCC expect to raise in&#160;the auction, which opened Thursday, but bidding could continue for weeks. In most cases, the high bids don&#39;t yet meet the FCC&#39;s reserve price set for minimum winning bids.A fourth round of bidding will happen Friday afternoon.The 700MHz auctions represent the last large chunk of spectrum available for the FCC to auction in the foreseeable future. The spectrum, now used to carry over-the-air television signals, can be used to carry long-range wireless broadband traffic. Consumer groups have said the spectrum represents the &quot;last, best hope&quot; for a nationwide wireless broadband network that competes with cable and telecom broadband services.For sale is 62MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band. In late 2005, after a decade of debate, Congress passed a law requiring U.S. TV stations to move to all-digital broadcasts and abandon analog spectrum between channels 52 and 69. The deadline for TV stations to end broadcasts in the 700MHz band is February 2009.After three rounds, 906 of the 1,099 available spectrum licenses had bids, with four more licenses receiving bids than at the end of round two late Thursday. High bids had totalled just under $2.8 billion after round 2, and just over $2.4 billion after round one Thursday morning.The top bid after the third round was $1.49 billion for eight of 12 regional licenses in the C block, a 22MHz block of spectrum covering all 50 states. The bidding for those C block licenses was up from $1.24 billion at the end of the second round. The FCC&#39;s reserve price for the C block is $4.6 billion, and the winning bidders of C block spectrum must allow any legal devices to connect to their network, including mobile phones purchased from other carriers.The second highest bid remained $472 million for the D block, a nationwide 10MHz chunk of spectrum to be paired with another 10MHz set aside for public safety agencies. The bidder of the D block would be required to build a national network to be jointly used by public safety agencies and commercial customers. The high bid for the D block has remained unchanged since round one.Bidding in the auction is anonymous.The A block, a 12MHz piece of spectrum covering parts of New York and the northeastern U.S., also generated interest. The high bid was $119.8 million after the third round, up from $100 million after the second round and $83.2 million after the first round. A similar chunk of spectrum in the E block, also covering the same area, has generated a high bid of $59.9 million after the third round.The high bid for a 12MHz block called the B block, for a local New York City license, stood at $85.6 million after rounds two and three.High bids for five blocks in the Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., areas were between $28 million and $55 million after round three.
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InfoWorld - Plans for valuable wireless spectrum being considered by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission may not go far enough to encourage a new broadband competitor, said groups calling for open-access rules for part of the spectrum.
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FCC rules governing the upcoming auction of the 700-MHz spectrum include this requirement: You need a minimum of $4.6 billion, and as much as $10 billion, to place a bid.
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(InfoWorld) - A $1.3 billion reserve price for a piece of wireless spectrum to be auctioned by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in January is too high, according to one company interested in the spectrum. The FCC has proposed the reserve, or minimum price, of about $1.3 billion for a 10MHz portion of spectrum to be paired with 12MHz set aside for emergency response communications. With that 22MHz of spectrum, the winning bidder will be required to build a wireless network to be used by public safety provider and for commercial wireless communications. But Frontline Wireless,Â the startup that pushed the public safety plan, said Tuesday the FCC's reserve price for the so-called D Block of spectrum is "unprecedentedly and irrationally high." The winning bidder will be required to build out a national network costing billions of dollars, Frontline argued in a brief it filed Friday. Many bidders "will hold back bids in the initial action to prevent the reserve from being met," Frontline said. "They will withhold higher bids until the re-auction when there will be weaker service rules ... and fewer competing bidders." Frontline was one of 13 groups that filed comments by Friday's deadline on theÂ FCC's auction plan, released earlier in August. The FCC is schedule to auction 62MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band beginning Jan. 16. The FCC set a reserve price of $10 billion for the entire 62MHz, but many observers believe the auctions will raise much more than that. The spectrum is currently controlled by U.S. television stations using channels 52 to 69. The U.S. Congress in late 2005 passed legislation that requires the stations to move to digital broadcasts and abandon spectrum in the 700MHz band by February 2009. Among other comments filed were ones from the Coalition for 4G in America, whose members including Google and Intel. The coalition called on the FCC to create definitive rules for extending an auction that would allow high bidders to meet the reserve price set for the auction. In a section of spectrum called the C Block, the FCC has set rules that would require that the winner of the 22MHz of spectrum allow any wireless devices to connect to the network, meaning wireless telephone customers could bring their handset devices from other carriers. The FCC, in so-called open-access rules, also prohibited the winning bidder on the 22MHz block of spectrum from blocking or slowing wireless and Web content from competitors. But if the reserve price isn't met, the FCC would re-auction the spectrum, presumably with the open-access rules removed. "If the 700MHz auction were cancelled for failing to reach the reserve price, it would not result in a re-auction, but effectively in a different auction altogether," the coalition said. Frontline, in its Friday brief, also called on the FCC to limit the amount of commercial mobile spectrum in each market to 70MHz. If the winning bidder has more than 70MHz, it should be disqualified from bidding on more spectrum, Frontline said. "Significant additional accumulation of spectrum by the largest wireless carriers in this auction, coupled with current market concentration, could cripple the ability of competitors to develop new services and cause serious competitive harm in the wireless market," Frontline said. Representatives of Verizon Wireless and AT&T didn't immediately respond to a request for comments on Frontline's filing.
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A $1.3 billion reserve price for a piece of wireless spectrum to be auctioned by the FCC in January is too high, according to one company.