Stage one of the forward part of the TV incentive auction closed Tuesday, at $22.4 billion in net proceeds. Supply and demand hit an equilibrium in the largest markets, triggering the FCC bringing the stage to a close, under rules approved for the auction, in the final round of the day. The auction had slowed considerably in recent days. A stage closes when there's no more excess demand for Category 1 blocks in the top 40 partial economic areas (PEAs), the size of the license being sold in the auction.
The FCC approved by 5-0 Thursday most of Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal for opening high-frequency spectrum for 5G. The order and Further NPRM got a few tweaks -- the agency will now ask about spectrum bands above 95 GHz -- but it largely tracks the proposal laid out in a June fact sheet (see 1606240026). All commissioners said the order puts the U.S. ahead of the rest of the world in the race to 5G.
The launch of 5G could start a new “Golden Decade” for the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt said in a letter to the agency. Hundt said the U.S. had the first tech boom after Congress authorized spectrum auctions in 1993. Average income, productivity, GDP and labor force participation increased, he said. “Everything that was supposed to go down went down: unemployment, monopoly rents, and the federal deficit,” Hundt said. “Between 1995 and 2003 American investors put almost $1 trillion into a total rebuild of the communications platform in America.” The spectrum frontiers order before the FCC is critical, as is finding new ways to facilitate spectrum sharing, he said. “It is not inconceivable that 5G can jumpstart a similar wave of investment, innovation, and economic success,” Hundt said. "Even secular stagnation, the bête noire of macroeconomists today, can become another worry allayed. Once again ICT can lead the way to an increasing standard of living for all Americans, and from this heartland of creative destruction waves of economic growth can spread around the world.” The filing was posted in docket 14-177. The spectrum frontiers order is scheduled for a vote at the FCC's July 14 meeting (see 1606240026). Hundt has done work for Ligado Networks, which is seeking to convert satellite spectrum to terrestrial use for wireless broadband.
The FCC under Chairman Tom Wheeler has been remarkably quick and responsive on making spectrum available for 5G, a differentiator that will make the U.S. the global leader in deployment, 5G advocates said Thursday during Information Technology and Innovation Foundation panel. "The U.S. is going to lead because of the FCC," said Peter Pitsch, Intel executive director-communications policy. He said South Korea, Japan and China are considering 5G trials because they and other nations are "looking at the fact the commission is moving so quickly on allocation and assignment." Qualcomm Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Dean Brenner, pointing to recent speeches by Wheeler (see 1606200044) and Commissioner Mike O'Rielly (see 1606270082), said the agency's consensus on 5G is notable "in an era when everything is partisan."
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, succeeded at quietly watering down the Senate’s set-top box rider attached to the FY 2017 Financial Services funding bill, which advanced through the full Appropriations Committee Thursday in a 30-0 vote. The rider, which would force a pause to the FCC's set-top rulemaking for further study, never came up directly during the long markup, encompassing FY2017 FCC and FTC funding. But Schatz changed the wording of the set-top rider through the bill’s manager’s package, unanimously accepted as part of the bill.
A Democratic Senate appropriator told us a set-top box rider may stay hitched to the appropriations legislation this year. The Senate’s FY 2017 funding bill followed the House lead and included a rider to require “the FCC to complete an impact study of the agency’s set top box proposal” and another that “reaffirms congressional intent on grandfathered joint sales agreements,” said a GOP summary. The Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee cleared the bill Wednesday and the Appropriations Committee will mark up the measure at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in 106 Dirksen.
House Commerce Committee Republicans worked with the Armed Services Committee to tweak spectrum-related floor amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2017 (HR-4909). That legislation cleared the House Wednesday night 277-147, with those spectrum amendments included in forms that mollified CTIA and members of the Commerce Committee.
House lawmakers decided to take up some of the spectrum amendments that alarmed CTIA (see 1605130054), in a second tranche of floor amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2017 (HR-4909). CTIA singled out three amendments of deep concern out of the more than 300 filed, two that will proceed to floor consideration and one that won't. The House Rules Committee deemed 61 amendments in order Monday, and on Tuesday another 120 amendments in order. The chamber hadn't vote on the measure or the amendments at our deadline.
Federal funding for 911 will likely be hard to come by for the foreseeable future, said the ranking Democrat on the House Commerce Committee at the APCO Summit Monday. Republicans usually block new funding efforts, and no spectrum auction legislation is on the horizon, said Rep. Frank Pallone and his telecom aide, David Goldman. States and localities will be the biggest source of 911 funding, said an FCC official.
Trade groups representing broadcasters, tech companies and others jointly filed a petition for rulemaking Wednesday asking the FCC to allow broadcasters to begin using the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard. “This enhanced digital IP-based standard will create the bedrock for continuing innovation by the television industry for decades to come,” said the petition filed by America's Public Television Stations (APTS), CTA, NAB and a group of broadcasters and electronics companies called the Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN) Alliance, which was officially formed Tuesday (see 1604120069).