Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., pressed the FCC Monday to reconsider its decision to hold off on awarding T-Mobile more than 7,000 spectrum licenses it bought last year in the commission’s 2.5 GHz auction while its sales authority remains lapsed. “The FCC appears to be holding onto T-Mobile’s $304 million payment while providing nothing in return,” the GOP leaders said in a letter to Jessica Rosenworcel we obtained first ahead of its release. “If it had been a private company that accepted payment and then refused delivery of goods or services, a customer would be well within its rights to sue for breach of contract. This circumstance is similar, but it is perhaps even more egregiously unfair given the power dynamics: a government regulator is withholding a legitimately obtained good from a regulated entity.”
House Communications Subcommittee leaders told us they plan to continue actively pushing for floor action on the Commerce Committee-approved Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565) when the chamber returns Sept. 12, despite the measure facing continued opposition from some Senate Republicans. House Commerce leaders tried and failed to get a floor vote on the measure before the August recess (see 2307270063). Lawmakers believe the outcome of a pending DOD study on repurposing the 3.1-3.45 GHz band may affect the prospects for reaching a deal to pass a spectrum legislative package that includes language from HR-3565 and other measures (see 2308070001).
CTIA hired Umair Javed, a longtime adviser to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, as senior vice president-spectrum, effective immediately, the group said Tuesday. Javed is responsible for shaping and coordinating CTIA’s spectrum advocacy. “Umair brings exemplary credentials and expertise from his tenure at the FCC, and adding someone of Umair’s caliber to our senior team underscores the critical role spectrum plays in our 5G future,” said CTIA President Meredith Baker: “We need a pipeline of new spectrum auctions, and Umair will help make that a reality.” At the FCC, Javed “helped focus the agency on identifying mid-band spectrum for 5G, oversaw one of the most successful auctions in U.S. history, and launched the FCC’s Spectrum Coordination Initiative to enhance partnerships between agencies and the private sector,” CTIA said.
Congress should continue to fund the affordable connectivity program, the FCC may not be the right entity to regulate AI and the agency's spectrum auction authority should be restored, said former FCC chairs and commissioners at the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council’s 2023 virtual Former Chairs’ Symposium Tuesday. Panelists -- including former acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn and former Chairman Richard Wiley -- also discussed diversity, the failed Standard/Tegna deal, and the confirmation of nominee Anna Gomez. Gomez is “a mainstream Democrat” who will “work well on a bipartisan basis,” said former Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. “She’s not particularly ideological even though she’s been a strong fighter.”
DLA Piper’s Smitty Smith is leaving the law firm to replace Kathleen Ham as T-Mobile senior vice president-government affairs, when Ham retires Oct. 2, T-Mobile said Thursday. Smith’s title will be senior vice president-public policy and government affairs. Smith is a former FCC and NTIA staffer, who was once seen as a contender to chair the FCC under President Joe Biden (see 2101010001). Smith was also a member of the Biden FCC transition team. At the FCC, he was an aide to former Chairman Tom Wheeler and led the Incentive Auction Task Force. Ham is a longtime T-Mobile official and an FCC veteran where she was deputy chief of the Wireless Bureau and the first chief of the spectrum auctions program, working on some of the first FCC auctions. “Kathleen’s contributions to T-Mobile are numerous,” a spokesperson emailed: “Over nearly 20 years at T-Mobile, she has played a critical role in driving key policy and regulatory efforts, including the completion of the transformational T-Mobile/Sprint merger and obtaining critical spectrum assets that have secured the company’s 5G leadership position.”
The U.S. shouldn’t look to the citizens broadband radio service band as a model for future sharing if only because it’s based on old technology and doesn’t reflect advances in sharing technology, said Peter Rysavy of Rysavy Research at an American Enterprise Institute 5G forum Thursday. Other experts said the U.S. will be hobbled on spectrum until Congress reauthorizes FCC spectrum auction authority.
The FCC appears unlikely to grant T-Mobile special temporary authority to launch service in the markets where it won licenses in last year’s 2.5 GHz auction, which ended almost a year ago. The agency declined to award the licenses, or grant a STA, after its auction authority expired earlier this year (see 2304260058).
The Competitive Carriers Association urged the FCC to “act expeditiously” to grant the remaining licenses from last year’s 2.5 GHz auction, said a Thursday letter to Wireless Bureau Chief Joel Taubenblatt, posted in docket 18-120. “Doing so would be consistent with significant legal analysis, facilitate deployment of needed services to consumers in rural and underserved areas, and help avoid a harmful precedent that may chill future participation in spectrum auctions,” CCA said: “Between the challenges deploying C-Band and now 2.5 GHz, wireless carriers are struggling to realize the full value of spectrum won at significant expense. The wireless industry must be able to rely on timely access to spectrum resources won at auction.” Acting now will “help restore wireless industry faith in FCC auctions and promote future participation,” the group said. T-Mobile, a CCA member, has been pressing the FCC for access to the licenses it won in the auction (see 2305180057).
The House Commerce Committee’s Wednesday advancement of the Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565) and panel leaders’ push to enact (see 2305170037) a bill to restore the FCC’s spectrum auction authority through June 30 (HR-3345) are aimed squarely at putting pressure on Senate negotiators to reach a deal, said lawmakers, congressional aides and others in interviews. The panel advanced an amended version of HR-3565 50-0 and unanimously approved five bipartisan broadband permitting measures but divided sharply along party lines on the American Broadband Deployment Act (HR-3557).
Various groups urged the FCC to act on the licenses won by T-Mobile in the 2.5 GHz auction (see 2304060062). “We are concerned that as these licenses have still not been deployed and put to use, many of our communities are continuing to be left behind; having to live without the critical network coverage -- and access to resources -- that this valuable spectrum provides,” said a Monday filing in the FCC’s universal licensing system. Among those signing were the Coalition of Large Tribes, the National Rural Education Association, National Grange, Silicon Harlem, the National Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce, the Conference of National Black Churches and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation. “We recognize that the Commission’s congressional authority to conduct spectrum auctions has now lapsed,” the groups said: “By issuing licenses to T-Mobile, however, the Commission would not be holding any new spectrum auctions. Rather, it would be issuing licenses T-Mobile has already purchased for an auction that ended last summer.”