FCC Expected to Effectively Ban Small Carrier-DE Relationships
Chmn. Martin is considering lowering significantly the financial threshold for disqualifying carriers from participating in the June Advanced Wireless Services auctions with designated entities, sources said Tues. They said Martin is floating revised restrictions disqualifying from joining with a DE to buy a license carriers with as little as $125 million revenue, vs. the $5 billion threshold that had been expected. A source said the revised threshold would be a major win for the national carriers and a loss for smaller carriers.
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Council Tree, a DE that asked the Commission to tighten its rules, said in a filing Tues. at the FCC that a lower threshold is “unsupported on the record, unwarranted in fact, and inconsistent with the letter and spirit of 12 years of Commission policy.” Council Tree said the FCC would effectively “eviscerate” the DE program. “This proceeding was instituted to address the dominance of national wireless service providers and their growing use of DE relationships to extent their influence. Nothing in the Commission’s Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking or the record contemplates turning the entire DE program on its head,” Council Tree said: “This really would be a case of ’throwing the baby out with the bath water.'”
Council Tree said it’s unclear why the FCC would lower the threshold dramatically in a proceeding that examines relationships between major carriers and DEs. “For 12 years, the Commission has undertaken to preserve the ability of DEs to flexibly and broadly access capital and industry experience from a wide range of wireless industry participants,” the company said: “This shocking move, taken without notice or the full opportunity to comment, would run counter to each of these Commission pronouncements. It would spell the end of the DE program.”
The Minority Media & Telecom Council told the FCC it was “startled” by recent reports the Commission may place restrictions on relationships between designated entities and other carriers that go well beyond anything previously contemplated for the advanced wireless services auction. “Limitations placed on national wireless carriers are well supported by the record,” the group said. “Extending those limitations, however, to more broadly include communications companies, along with smaller, non-national wireless carriers, is wholly unwarranted. That would be the wrong decision for many reasons.” The council argued there’s no evidence of “problems with communications companies and smaller wireless carriers investing in DEs.” It also said tightening the rules potentially “closes the door on the last meaningful tool available to the Commission to promote diversity of telecommunications ownership.”