FCC moves to block NextWave filing

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filed a motion with the U.S. Supreme Court late yesterday that asked the court to set aside a filing submitted one week ago by NextWave Personal Communications.

According to the FCC’s writ filed yesterday, NextWave said it had filed its motion to provide supplemental information to answer “eleventh hour” arguments made by the commission in a reply brief submitted on Aug. 12. But the FCC said NextWave’s filing was a further attempt to argue the merits of the case, in violation of the court’s ruling.

According to the FCC, NextWave had argued in its latest filing that the commission was inconsistent in its defense of its handling of the situation, first arguing that its rules called for automatic cancellation of the licenses upon NextWave’s failure to make scheduled payments due to its bankruptcy proceeding, but later arguing that the licenses were revoked because NextWave failed to demonstrate that relief from payment conditions would be in the public interest.

In yesterday’s filing, the FCC answered that charge by asserting that while licenses automatically cancel under the commission’s rules for non-payment, the FCC “can exercise and does exercise” authority to gauge public interest and grant relief when warranted. The commission said it denied relief to NextWave because “they never demonstrated that the public interest favored granting them an exemption from the payment conditions.”

The FCC also pointed out that it had temporarily suspended C-Block and F-Block payments when it became clear that a number of license holders were having financial difficulty, a maneuver that prevented automatic cancellation at that time. Later, the commission declined to adopt proposals that would have resulted in “a dramatic forgiveness” of bid obligations, because that “would be very unfair to other bidders and would gravely undermine the credibility and integrity of the [auction] rules.”