Rural Carrier Groups Make Case for Bidding Credits in Incentive Auction
Rural wireless carriers weren't helped by the FCC designated entity program in the AWS-3 auction and the agency should offer a rural phone company bidding credit in the TV incentive auction, representatives of NTCA, the Rural Wireless Association and the…
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Blooston group of rural carriers said in meetings at the commission. They met with Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly and aides to Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. Pai and O’Rielly criticized Dish Network’s use of DEs to win spectrum licenses at reduced prices in the AWS-3 auction. “More than half of the 70 qualified bidders in the auction were rural telcos or rural telco affiliates, yet only 28.9 percent of these entities were successful in winning any licenses,” the groups said, according to a filing in docket 14-170. “Less than half of the rural telcos that were successful bidders were able to qualify under the Commission’s DE rules as small businesses, and at the close of the auction rural bidders accounted for just $871,350 (or 0.024 percent) of the total $3.57 billion in bidding credits awarded.”