The FCC Wireless Bureau turned down as moot a request for grace p...

C-block bidder that entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after the PCS auctions and became involved in litigation similar to that of NextWave. In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down an FCC request to review a 5th U.S. Appeals Court, New Orleans, ruling that sided with GWI on the $166 million valuation of its licenses, which was just a fraction of its original bid. The carrier had bid $1.06 billion for the spectrum in 1996 for 14 PCS licenses. GWI submitted its down payments on time and received the licenses in 1997. As part of payment plan restructuring that the FCC undertook in 1997 and 1998 to help C-block licensees that ran into financial trouble after the auctions, the Commission had extended to 90 days an original 60-day nondelinquency period for payments due when obligations resumed. A letter to GWI from the bureau’s Auctions, Finance and Market Analysis Branch said the company had opted to resume payments for all of its spectrum under the terms set by an adversary proceeding in bankruptcy court. “The suspension of payment deadlines and the process of considering and adopting financial relief for all C-block licensees provided a period of well over a year in which no payment was required of GWI,” the branch said. “Given this suspension of the installment payment obligations that are the subject of the instant grace period requests, GWI’s grace period requests are moot.”