The Rural Telecom Group voiced its strong opposition to the FCC’s...
The Rural Telecom Group voiced its strong opposition to the FCC’s new designated entity and unjust enrichment rules. As the FCC considers a petition for reconsideration of the rules ahead of the Aug. advanced wireless services auction, the filing…
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!
could prove significant, especially since the rule change was designed to help small players. Comrs. “Adelstein and Copps in particular, but the others too, are very sensitive to any concerns by the rural community,” a regulatory lawyer said: “There’s growing pressure on Chairman Martin to change the rules and this adds to that pressure.” RTG said the FCC should instead focus on enforcing rules already on the books, examining “any suspect ’sham’ DEs in the AWS auction and future auctions.” At the least, the unjust enrichment rule change mustn’t apply to spectrum licenses purchased in previous auctions, RTG said: “The Commission’s retroactive adoption of a 10-year time frame for unjust enrichment payments instead of the 5-year time frame in the existing rules is legally unsupportable and highly inequitable to existing licensees that acquired their spectrum under the well-established 5-year schedule.”