House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., welcomes the “inclusion of provisions to free up additional spectrum for mobile broadband and reform the federal Spectrum Relocation Fund” in the Bipartisan Budget Act deal, unveiled Monday night, she said in a statement. “Spectrum is a finite resource vital to our innovation economy and this agreement makes inroads toward meeting the high demand for mobile broadband and using available spectrum more efficiently.” The spectrum provisions set up future FCC auctions and were believed to be administration priorities in the deal (see 1510270063). An Eshoo spokesman didn’t comment on whether she had any input into the deal’s spectrum provisions. Eshoo called the deal, which the House approved Wednesday, “a remarkable step for a long-term compromise to fund the government.” Another Democrat also praised the provision but saw room for more action. “The budget agreement that we are considering would direct the auction of 30 megahertz of spectrum for commercial use,” said House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., in an opening statement for a Wednesday hearing on broadband deployment. “That is a good start, but we cannot stop there. We should continue our bipartisan work in this committee to authorize more spectrum auctions going forward. By continuing these twin efforts to improve network infrastructure and to free more spectrum, I believe we can meet consumers’ communications needs for years to come.” The White House urged passage of the deal. "The Administration urges the Congress to pass this bipartisan agreement and looks forward to working with the Congress to enact responsible, full‑year FY 2016 appropriations -- without ideological riders -- based on this agreement in order to continue growing the Nation's economy and creating jobs," the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement Wednesday.
The Obama administration may have provided the muscle ensuring inclusion of a spectrum title in the two-year Bipartisan Budget Act deal, released to the public minutes before midnight Monday (see Communications Daily Bulletin Oct. 27). Lawmakers told us the administration exerted its will in the negotiations, which yielded provisions setting up future FCC spectrum auctions with new agency authority and administration-desired flexibility for the Office of Management and Budget Spectrum Relocation Fund.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers are assembling spectrum legislation to overhaul parts of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Spectrum Relocation Fund (SRF), in accordance with pressure from the administration, several staffers on Capitol Hill told us. Bipartisan activity fills both chambers on this front, and Hill staffers say they hope to hitch such an overhaul measure to larger spectrum initiatives coming together.
Carriers are playing games on their level of interest in 600 MHz spectrum in the buildup to the TV incentive auction, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said at a news conference after Thursday’s meeting. After the commission’s Aug. 6 meeting, Wheeler said pointedly it was up to carriers whether they want to play in the auction (see 1508060028). Sprint since said it wouldn't bid and Verizon this week downplayed its need for additional low-band spectrum (see 1510200058). Wheeler was president of CTIA and has a long history in spectrum auctions. “I think we’ll have a very successful auction,” he said, chuckling, noting the auction starts in just 157 days. “I think what we’re seeing right now is the marketing has begun, everyone is positioning a little bit,” he said. “This is all pre-auction shenanigans that one can expect [to] happen in any kind of a marketplace.” Wheeler said the key goal of the auction is getting more spectrum in play for wireless broadband, not bringing in huge revenue. He was asked about broadcaster concerns that the voluntary incentive auction isn’t really voluntary. “There are no armed FCC agents holding guns to heads,” he said. “You are free to decide whether or not you want to participate.”
The FCC approved an NPRM on spectrum frontiers, spectrum at 24 GHz and above for 5G, Thursday. Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly were critical of the approach in the NPRM. As some predicted (see 1510190067), they partially dissented. Pai said the NPRM leaves out critical spectrum bands that deserve more discussion. The NPRM tees up for further investigation the 28, 37, 39 and 64-71 GHz bands, the FCC said in a news release. The NPRM wasn't released Thursday.
T-Mobile lobbying expenses plummeted in Q3 compared to what it spent last year. Its latest quarter expenses were $1.37 million, well down from the $1.91 million it spent in 2014’s Q3. The carrier, now No. 3 in the U.S. and often a big spender on lobbying, continues to deploy many firms and counts former lawmakers Henry Waxman and Billy Tauzin among its arsenal of lobbyists.
The FCC will have to reauction $3.5 billion of spectrum licenses that two Dish Network-affiliated designated entities bought in the AWS-3 auction, after the DEs surrendered their claims on the licenses. Dish said in a statement that as a result of selectively defaulting on the licenses the two DEs will pay a penalty to the FCC of more than $500 million. The DEs last month each filed a legal challenge to the FCC order denying them bidding credits in the auction (see 1509180048).
A working group of the FCC Task Force on Optimal Public Safety Answering Point Architecture delivered its final report to the larger group Tuesday, calling for the creation of a local state government advisory committee to oversee how PSAPs are funded. The report also suggests consumers pay 911 fees based on the bandwidth in their contract with an ISP to ensure PSAPs get funding needed to modernize their systems.
Sprint said it won't take part in the TV incentive auction, becoming the first major player to announce it will definitely sit it out. Industry officials said Monday that the Sprint announcement Saturday raises new questions for the FCC, but wasn't a surprise. The departure of Sprint could also be a net win for T-Mobile and other competitive carriers that now have a clear path to buy the 30 MHz of reserve spectrum set aside for providers with significant low-band holdings in what is expected to be a large number of markets, industry observers said.
FCC designated entity bidding credits in spectrum auctions should be scrapped, said Doug Brake, telecom policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in a blog post emailed to us Wednesday. Brake said the DE program to foster small business wireless entry hadn't worked well and he questioned whether it even made sense in today's mobile market, where size matters. He said the DE program was a good example of a dynamic described in "The Miasma of Regulation," a 1987 essay by Robert Reich (who later became U.S. labor secretary), which laid out "the cat-and-mouse game" in which regulators write rules and the regulated push the envelope, with the back-and-forth generating more complicated rules that confound American business. Brake said the recent controversy over Dish Network's relationship with two entities in the AWS-3 auction is just the latest controversy. The DE program may have made sense in the 1990s when it started, Brake said, but small businesses today face bigger challenges in launching a network and competing with entrenched national wireless carriers. "I have a hard time seeing a small business breaking into this market in a meaningful way, even with steeply discounted spectrum," which is "just a small fraction of the cost" of building a network, he said. "New entrants to the broadband access business will be the ones with radically disruptive technology, not a discount on one input. The DE program has a history of either being manipulated by large companies, or heaping largess on individual insiders who reap the upside with large profits and incomes."