CTIA, T-Mobile Ask 3rd Circuit Not to Stay AWS Auction
Delaying the advanced wireless services (AWS) auction after Council Tree sought a stay of designated entity rules for it would be a nearly unprecedented legal step, CTIA and T-Mobile told a federal court. Pleadings were due Thurs. in the 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, which Council Tree asked to issue a stay. “Petitioners ask the court to do what courts have been asked to do but have done only once in the history of FCC spectrum auctions because some potential bidders are unhappy with the auction rules,” CTIA said: “Nothing in the petition justifies that extraordinary result.”
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Requests for stays were filed before many auctions, but only the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., stayed an auction - 1996’s C block auction, delayed by the court as it awaited a Supreme Court ruling on a case addressing the lawfulness of minority preference rules, the firms said.
In revising the DE rules, the FCC had to balance goals often in conflict, CTIA said: “The FCC expressly struck what it viewed as the proper balance. Petitioners’ disagreement with that balance provides no basis for judicial intervention.”
Arguments Council Tree and other DEs offered to show how they could be damaged should the auction proceed are “woefully incomplete,” especially compared to risks for wireless carriers, CTIA said: “As many of CTIA’s members have made clear throughout these proceedings, going ahead with Auction 66 in a timely manner is essential to the deployment of advanced wireless services… T-Mobile and CTIA’s other members stand ready to put the AWS licenses to use immediately to provide such services, and to deploy spectrum which (as several Commissioners recognized) is ‘desperately needed.'”
The FCC is also to file in the case, in which Council Tree is due to reply Tues. The 3rd Circuit is expected to rule relatively quickly on the stay request but may schedule oral arguments on it.
“We think the Commission is on solid legal ground and we look forward to a prompt resolution,” said Tom Sugrue, vp- govt. affairs for T-Mobile.