LAS VEGAS -- Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said this week she’s still considering whether the FCC should impose an interoperability mandate for the lower 700 MHz band, a top priority of small carriers led by the Competitive Carriers Association. In March, the commission released a notice of proposed rulemaking examining (http://xrl.us/bn98rf) issues related to a mandate. Chairman Julius Genachowski and other officials said then that the FCC should put off imposing any requirement until industry groups have a chance to work out a voluntary agreement.
AT&T executives, telecom attorneys and professors spoke with FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology officials Friday “to exchange ideas on computational complexities associated with assessing the feasibility of repacking television stations in the context of the incentive spectrum auctions,” an ex parte filing said (http://xrl.us/bn93x7). The group discussed the repacking assignment processes and algorithms under consideration, and sought information on the public release of data and models relating to repacking constraints. That would let AT&T and other interested parties “provide more informed comment on the proposed repacking processes and auction designs,” the filing said. AT&T emphasized that it was in the “early stages” of examining these issues, and it had not yet drawn any conclusions about which auction design would be optimal. The FCC should make sure the incentive spectrum auction’s reverse auction is simple in order to encourage small broadcasters to participate, Jim Winston, executive director of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, told agency officials in a separate meeting, a NABOB ex parte notice said (http://xrl.us/bn94e6). “Many small broadcasters will not have the resources to hire auction consultants and the process should be as straightforward as possible so that such licensees will be able to participate without hiring consultants,” the notice said. “Because there is a concern that some of the licensees inclined to sell their spectrum will be owned by minorities, the Commission should include specific policies in the auction process that encourage minority licensees to retain all or a portion of their spectrum."
Large, Small Wireless Carriers Clash Over Spectrum Screen, Holdings Evaluation in Auction Proceeding
Large and small carriers reiterated their stances on how the FCC should structure a spectrum screen, in replies to a notice of proposed rulemaking in docket 12-269. Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and public interest groups urged the commission to separately evaluate a licensee’s spectrum holdings below 1 GHz. AT&T and Verizon Wireless asked the commission to allow the screen to function as a safe harbor. Replies were due Monday.
The FCC could still rig upcoming spectrum auctions to keep AT&T and Verizon Wireless from making a play for more licenses, despite provisions in the Spectrum Act, said Fred Campbell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Communications Liberty and Innovation Project, in a Tuesday blog (http://xrl.us/bn5whz). Section 640 of the act was “clearly intended to prevent the FCC from imposing ‘eligibility restrictions’ in an auction,” he said. The bad news for the AT&T and Verizon is the section contains a “loophole,” Campbell said. “It says that the prohibition against eligibility restrictions doesn’t affect ‘any authority the Commission has to adopt and enforce rules of general applicability, including rules concerning spectrum aggregation that promote competition,'” he wrote. “This exception gives the FCC the flexibility to adjust the amount of spectrum that can be held by any mobile provider on a band-by-band basis before every auction. If this flexibility is abused, it could become the exception that swallows the rule.” Campbell was Wireless Bureau chief under former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.
The FCC should develop a spectrum screen that’s clear and predictable, and not reimpose the spectrum cap the agency did away with in 2003, CTIA said in comments filed on the commission’s September mobile holdings notice of proposed rulemaking. T-Mobile said the FCC should impose spectrum caps for frequencies acquired in an auction. Meanwhile, public interest groups concerned about the concentration of licensed spectrum in too few hands said the agency should make more aggressive changes in its approach to examining spectrum holdings.
The rest of the world is watching to see whether the U.S. will regulate a portion of the Internet, and FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell finds the idea “a little unsettling,” he said at a Silicon Flatirons conference on spectrum policy Tuesday. The danger, he said, is that a bad idea adopted by U.S. policymakers could get “amplified abroad” as teams at the ITU read everything the FCC writes. McDowell also discussed ideas for getting more spectrum into the hands of consumers, and endorsed the idea of paying federal users to get off their spectrum.
Federal users need financial incentives to get off their spectrum, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said Tuesday at a conference on the next ten years of spectrum policy. Giving federal users the proceeds from spectrum auctions could be a “catalyst” to get federal frequencies into the hands of commercial users, and let the commission reach the 500 MHz benchmark for new wireless broadband use called for in a 2010 executive order, she said. Rosenworcel urged creating model rules for tower siting, and an “honest conversation” about network reliability after storms like superstorm Sandy. The conference was presented at the Pew Research Center by CTIA, Public Knowledge and the Silicon Flatirons Center.
Change is on the way at the FCC, with Chairman Julius Genachowski widely expected to step down some time next year after nearly four years in the job. Change won’t be nearly as sweeping as what would have followed a Mitt Romney victory and the likely reversal of several key Obama administration policy calls, starting with 2010 net neutrality rules, government and industry officials told us Wednesday.
Ten congressional Democrats from Massachusetts urged the FCC to ensure that the spectrum auctions undergo a transparent rule making process, in a letter made public Wednesday. The commission should provide stakeholders with “ample opportunity to evaluate and understand how any proposed changes will specifically impact them” before the process is finalized, they said. Massachusetts is unique in that its spectrum holdings are constrained by existing international agreements with Canada, they said, and the spectrum auction should take that into account. The letter was signed by Reps. Ed Markey, John Olver, James McGovern, John Tierney, Michael Capuano, Stephen Lynch, Niki Tsongas, William Keating, Richard Neal, and Barney Frank.
The election is almost certain to mean a change in leadership at the FCC, with Julius Genachowski widely expected to leave in early 2013 even if President Barack Obama is reelected. As is typical for this point in an election cycle, rumors are swirling in the communications industry about who will take over.