The FCC denied Banks Bcstg.’s request for a waiver allowing it to...
The FCC denied Banks Bcstg.’s request for a waiver allowing it to receive 4 Boise area licenses it said it should have received after Vulcan Spectrum dropped out of the lower 700 MHz C- and D-block auction that ended…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
in Sept. Banks had withdrawn from bidding on the Boise-area licenses after Vulcan became the high bidder. Banks eventually won 2 other licenses, one in Wichita and a Boise-area license not among the 4 subject to the waiver request. Vulcan later also withdrew from the bidding and the 4 Boise licenses were unsold at the end of the auction. In a May 16 letter to Banks Vp Gregory Schmidt, Margaret Wiener, chief of the FCC Wireless Bureau’s Auctions & Industry Analysis Div., concluded: “We do not agree with Banks’ claims that the public interest would be served by granting Banks’ request and offering the Boise licenses to Banks.” She said the Commission’s rules permit the award of a license to a next- highest bidder only in “a narrow circumstance that is not present here -- namely a bidder’s default after the close of the auction.” She said the agency also has stated “as a general rule that the best course of action would be to reauction the spectrum.” Licenses that remained unsold in the earlier auction will be on the block again in Auction 49, set to start May 28. The FCC also denied as moot Banks’ request that the 4 Boise licenses be removed from that auction.