New Group to Fight for Auctions, Against ‘Sweetheart Deals’
A new wireless broadband group will push to maintain the status quo in spectrum auction and other policies favorable to members, including limiting unlicensed spectrum allocation in commercial spaces and freeing more spectrum for commercial use. Wireless Broadband Coalition (WBC) Exec. Dir. David Taylor told Communications Daily his group hopes it can develop a public presence after about a year of “under the radar” spectrum policy lobbying. WBC wants the govt. to limit “sweetheart deals” for specific allocations that may be good for individuals but hurt industry at large, Taylor said.
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Auctions are the only way around more consolidation, he said, noting that T-Mobile used the recent AWS auctions to stay competitive, while Verizon and Sprint have had to use acquisitions to pick up spectrum. Taylor called the process a “really good model” yielding $30 billion so far for taxpayers -- nearly $14 billion from AWS, if trends hold. Much more spectrum could and should be freed, he said, and WBC can remind regulators and legislators to look on AWS as a “success story,” that will happen more rapidly.
If the FCC is set on spectrum allocation by means other than auction, “at least make it a publicly disclosed process,” Taylor said. The group “will work with any newcomer” like the “satellite guys” that hung around the early phases of the AWS auctions, he said.
Taylor likely meant a recent string of high-profile spectrum allocation proposals, though he wouldn’t comment. A Cyren Call Public Safety Broadband Trust proposal (CD April 28 p6), led by former Nextel Chmn. Morgan O'Brien, essentially would bypass the auction process for public safety spectrum, pulling 30 MHz off the market. New group M2Z wants the 3650-3700 MHz band to be the spectrum “test bed” (CD July 26 p5). Sprint Nextel, citing problems with its 800 MHz rebanding process, has urged delaying movement of licenses in the band (CD Sept 21 p4).
“We can work this out” if the wireless industry knows the bands being made available, Taylor said. AWS auctions began about 10 years ago, and the DTV auction, to start in Jan. 2008 or even earlier, will take about the same amount of time, he said. Such time frames cause anxiety when it’s not clear if there’s spectrum in the pipeline -- or not, he said: “We need to start talking about what the next spectrum [band] is.” A timeline circulated by the High Tech DTV Coalition puts the start date for the DTV transition in 1987, though at the time HDTV was still analog.
WBC quietly involved itself last year with CBO and OMB spectrum valuation, “which actually helped DTV get through, as the spectrum revenue provision was the biggest one in the budget reconciliation,” Taylor said. The group also “worked hard” to keep the FCC banding plan intact amid calls to give more unlicensed spectrum to public safety players, he said.
The group includes Verizon Wireless, Qualcomm, EarthLink, Lucent, Nortel, Cingular Wireless and the CDMA Development Group. Qualcomm rival Intel and Motorola are noticeably absent.