AWS-3 Supporters Hope for Push in Economic Stimulus Bill
Legislation to require the FCC to set aside spectrum for free national wireless broadband could be part of a national stimulus package -- but whether it will make the cut among the hundreds of items under consideration isn’t clear, industry officials said Thursday.
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The proposal at the FCC to devote AWS-3 spectrum to free broadband doesn’t seem to be going anywhere now. But it could be back in early 2009 under a Democratic chairman. M2Z, the leading candidate to buy the band, and carriers led by T-Mobile who oppose the proposal, continue to fight over AWS-3 but have shifted their attention to the Hill with nothing moving at the FCC.
Congressional officials say no final decisions have been made on what broadband proposals will be in the stimulus package. Several industry officials said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D- Calif., the sponsor of House legislation that would require the FCC to auction the band for a free broadband service, is expected to push to get a provision to that effect in the broader bill.
“AWS-3 is in the mix because it has been out there,” though the emphasis seems to be on the size of a stimulus package rather than on authorizing language that doesn’t require spending, said a supporter of M2Z’s proposal for a free broadband service. The question is whether the bill will be “just dollars, or will it have specific requirements for the FCC to do things,” the official said.
Meanwhile, two senior Democrats on the House Commerce Committee, Bobby Rush of Illinois and Edolphus Towns of New York, wrote FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein urging them to cast electronic votes in favor of the AWS-3 proposal on circulation at the FCC. Commission Chairman Kevin Martin had planned to force a vote on the plan at the meeting scheduled for Thursday, but then it was canceled. FCC officials that even if the two Democrat commissioners voted for the order, it wouldn’t have the three votes for passage, since Martin circulated two versions of an AWS-3 order without voting for either.
“We request that you resolve this matter on circulation in the near term by immediately adopting rules for a free nationwide wireless broadband network that will provide all Americans with high-speed data services,” Rush and Towns wrote. “Most of the over 100 million adults in the United States who either rely on antiquated dial-up services or lack Internet access altogether come from low-income households or live in inner-city or rural settings where providers refuse to provide service.”