Nextel filed 2 studies at the FCC last week defending a ‘consensu...

Group founder Kostas Liopiros argued that the “consensus plan” would produce benefits that outweighed potential costs to the govt. in terms of spectrum auction proceeds it would give up. Nextel and other backers of the plan have proposed a spectrum swap in which parts of 700, 800 and 900 MHz would be reconfigured, with Nextel giving up some spectrum in return for bands elsewhere, including at 1.9 GHz. CTIA, Verizon Wireless and other critics of the plan have argued that Nextel would receive a windfall by giving up less attractive spectrum for contiguous bands at 800 MHz and valuable spectrum at 1.9 GHz. The Sun Fire Group study said Nextel “would not receive a net gain in spectrum under the consensus plan. In fact, it would suffer a net loss of 0.5 MHz of spectrum and would make a financial contribution exceeding $1 billion to implement it.” The Liopiros paper said that from a “kHz for kHz” perspective, Nextel wouldn’t receive a spectrum “windfall.” He took issue with part of Verizon Wireless’s analysis that he said was based on an assumption that Nextel’s iDEN wireless technology was inferior to CDMA. “Verizon Wireless’s rationale for heavily discounting the value of Nextel’s spectrum does not withstand scrutiny,” Liopiros said. Nextel also submitted a study by Gregory Rosston, former deputy economist at the FCC and now deputy dir. of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, who analyzed the plan in the context of the FCC’s Spectrum Policy Task Force report. Nextel said Rosston concluded that the consensus plan was “the proposal most consistent with the FCC’s current spectrum management policies because it corrects 800 MHz interference with a market-based approach.”