Verizon remains interested in acquiring Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless, CEO Ivan Seidenberg said in response to analysts’ questions on the proposed purchase during Verizon’s Q1 earning conference call. Executives said the carrier has almost completed the cultural and logistical integration of MCI, and is in a “fast growth” phase, which includes trying to reel in the 45% of wireless operations held by the European carrier.
Wireless Spectrum Auctions
The FCC manages and licenses the electromagnetic spectrum used by wireless, broadcast, satellite and other telecommunications services for government and commercial users. This activity includes organizing specific telecommunications modes to only use specific frequencies and maintaining the licensing systems for each frequency such that communications services and devices using different bands receive as little interference as possible.
What are spectrum auctions?
The FCC will periodically hold auctions of unused or newly available spectrum frequencies, in which potential licensees can bid to acquire the rights to use a specific frequency for a specific purpose. As an example, over the last few years the U.S. government has conducted periodic auctions of different GHz bands to support the growth of 5G services.
Nine bidders qualified for the FCC’s air-to-ground auction, which starts May 10, the FCC said. The bidders who qualified are Verizon Airfone, AirCell, AC BidCo, AMTS Consortium, Intelligent Transportation & Monitoring Wireless, Unison Spectrum, WorldCell, Acadia Broadband, LiveTV and Space Data. Two companies filed initial applications but didn’t qualify, Ivars upatnieks and Nsoro. The FCC is selling spectrum to be used for inflight broadband on commercial airliners.
Leap Wireless launched an unlimited calling service in San Antonio Mon. The launch is part of its plan to build out over the spectrum it acquired in FCC auction 58 last year, it said, and with San Antonio’s 1.9 million citizens will increase the company’s POPs by 5%. Leap said its 2006 plans include launches in 12 other markets covering 14-20 million people. Leap’s early market returns for this buildout cycle have been “stellar,” with 2-3% market penetration in Colorado Springs, El Paso and Las Cruces, N.M., said Bank of America after the announcement. The Bank said it’s bullish on the carrier, which is showing guidance above market expectations and will add 25,000-40,000 new subscribers for Q1, while San Antonio’s demographics are right in the carrier’s “sweet spot.”
An FCC filing to reallocate 30 additional MHz of spectrum for public safety was cheered by the Rural Cellular Assn. but opposed by CTIA, and largely met with silence from wireless carriers and other groups Thurs. The filing, by new company Cyren Call, proposes a Public Safety Broadband Trust to manage the additional spectrum, including leasing unused patches for commercial use.
The FCC late Tues. released revised designated entity (DE) rules, in time for June’s advanced wireless services auction. They don’t bar ties between DEs and carriers, but do put tough new controls on what a DE can do with spectrum it buys at a reduced rate using bidding credits. DE sources said provisions in the order virtually guarantee many DEs will sit out the AWS auction. Comr. Adelstein partly dissented, saying the order doesn’t go far enough.
Soft margins were the biggest hitch in an overall solid Q1 for Sprint Nextel, which announced its quarterly results Wed. The company cited a higher growth rate than other wireless carriers and strong affiliate merger management as the foundations of its solid quarter and said it has made solid progress on central merger matters the past several months. Sprint was evasive, however, about its plans for the upcoming spectrum auction.
Aloha Partners, the largest holder of 700 MHz licenses in the U.S., said it will join with satellite operator SES Americom to test-market mobile TV in Las Vegas in the fall, through a new subsidiary, Hwire, using the digital video broadcasting-handheld (DVB-H) platform. Aloha has a test of wireless broadband on 700 MHz in Phoenix. CEO Charles Townsend told us Mon. the Aloha will look at both tests at year-end and decide which course to pursue.
Barry Ohlson, senor legal advisor to Comr. Adelstein, told an FCBA lunch Fri. he doesn’t expect the imminent arrival of a 5th commissioner, and a 3rd Republican, at the FCC to make a substantial difference on wireless issues. Ohlson, along with Fred Campbell, wireless advisor to Chmn. Martin, and Aaron Goldberger, legal advisor to Comr. Tate, met with communications lawyers.
The FCC last week may have set too high a bar in imposing a competitiveness test that must be met to avoid blind bidding in the advanced wireless services auction, sources said this week. Save for Verizon Wireless, carriers large and small tend to oppose blind bids. But blind bidding seems all but a certainty when the auction begins June 29.
Military effectiveness was compromised when DoD had to move to inferior spectrum to make room for commerce, DoD CIO John Grimes said Thurs. Commercialization of DoD spectrum and related issues are becoming more problematic, he said in remarks to an INPUT lunch. “Spectrum is starting to eat my lunch in many ways,” Grimes said.