The end of the beginning FCC wraps up PCS licensing

With the completion of broadband personal communication services licensing for 10 MHz licenses last week, the task of facilitating competition in the airwaves officially moved from the Federal Communications Commission to the license designates.

The simultaneous D, E and F block auctions-the final phase in the sale of the 1.9 GHz spectrum band-went 276 rounds over five months, raising more than $2.5 billion from the sale of 1479 licenses.

It also brought few surprises. The biggest gainers were current license holders in other blocks (see figure) that were seeking either to round out their footprints or aggregate spectrum for capacity purposes.

Prices were significantly lower than those paid in the A, B and-especially-C block auctions, as expected, averaging $3.20 per pop, according to an analysis by BIA Consulting, Chantilly, Va.

Attention now turns to the plans of license holders in all blocks. Many of the PCS entities already operating in the lower blocks are offering mobility services similar to cellular, but additional spectrum could mean more opportunity to test solutions such as wireless local loop and enhanced cordless.

Smaller, late-entering players-those with licenses in the entrepreneurial C and F blocks, for example-have the most to gain from steering clear of the cellular model, said Jon Atkin, senior consultant at BIA. "If you're going to be the fifth operator, being solely a mobility competitor isn't going to be enough.

Companies need their licenses in hand before any of those plans can solidify, and the still-lingering C block process shows that isn't always a simple step. So as the FCC set down its PCS gavel for the last time, it issued a warning.

"We promise prompt processing of the licenses for these blocks," said Michele Farquar, chief of the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, in a briefing following the auctions' close. "We will not let the petition to deny process hamper our efforts to get these licenses into the hands of financially viable service providers and would discourage parties from filing frivolous petitions designed to postpone licensing."