Verizon Wireless Deciding Whether to Pass on AWS Auction
LAS VEGAS -- Verizon Wireless is unlikely to pursue spectrum in June’s advanced wireless services (AWS) auction and 700 MHz spectrum when it becomes available, CEO Denny Strigl said. Verizon Wireless will decide over the next few weeks which spectrum to pursue, he said during a meeting with reporters at the CTIA convention here.
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Verizon Wireless has been viewed widely as one of the likely top contenders for AWS spectrum. The carrier has had less to say about 700 MHz spectrum, to available through the DTV transition. Chmn. Martin stressed the auctions’ import in remarks Wed. to the CTIA convention (see related story).
“We are interested in it,” Strigl said of 700 MHz: “We have not made a final decision whether AWS spectrum and obviously we have to make that decision relatively quickly… We will do one or the other. It’s very unlikely that we would do both.” Strigl reiterated that Verizon Wireless has “a good spectrum position until the end of the decade” without participating in either auction.
Strigl also said that, while Verizon Wireless is active before the FCC, he worries far less about federal regulation than state issues. “If I had to express a big concern, it is what happens at the state level,” he said: “Federally, are there issues? Certainly there are issues. We will work through those. Certainly we have worked through them with our regulator.”
Strigl said wireless carriers have faced regulations in many states that threaten industry competitiveness. “Whether it’s California or it’s Michigan or it’s taxation in Pennsylvania, you could go to probably half the states around the country and it seems to me they would all love to have a piece of the wireless industry.” He said state regulation would add costs and force different service offerings state to state. “That’s very difficult to do on a nationwide business,” he said.