PCIA, CTIA Feud over AWS Clearinghouse Rules
CTIA and PCIA are fighting over rules on how advanced wireless services (AWS) auction winners pick a clearinghouse to oversee cost-sharing as new licensees move incumbents out of the 2.1 GHz band. The FCC decided last year to make both associations clearinghouses to free spectrum bought in last summer’s auction. The 2 have clashed repeatedly on details. “The clearinghouses have met and have worked to come up with a compromise, but at the end of the day it’s really a public policy positions and we just have opposing positions,” said Connie Durcsak, PCIA senior dir.-industry services.
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The key issue is when a licensee picks a clearinghouse. CTIA wants that decision made by a licensee only after it has paid what it owes and is eligible for reimbursement, which PCIA sees as more to CTIA’s benefit than licensees’. PCIA wants a licensee to be able to decide decision earlier in the process, when subject to the FCC cost sharing plan. CTIA and PCIA have argued, sometimes harshly, in recent filings at the FCC.
“This latest PCIA filing was styled as a purported compromise position, but the proposal does not acknowledge or address the real differences between the proposals by PCIA and CTIA,” CTIA said, accusing PCIA of not understanding cost-sharing and mischaracterizing the CTIA proposal.
CTIA’s analysis is “self-serving and subordinates the needs of cost-sharing participants to CTIA’s own interests,” PCIA said: “The fundamental difference between the proposed approaches of PCIA and CTIA is that CTIA has consistently proposed to restrict access to clearinghouse services for a large portion of cost-sharing participants throughout much of the cost-sharing process.”
In relocation, the licensee first to market moves the incumbent, assuming all costs for doing so. The 2nd licensee to market reimburses the first for 50% of costs. The third pays the first 2 licensees 1/3 of costs. The clearinghouse is supposed to do the math and track payments and reimbursements.