700 MHz auction rolls on

The FCC denied the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association’s plea to postpone the 700 MHz auction slated for June 19, saying CTIA failed to prove why the commission should postpone it again.

CTIA had asked the FCC to delay the auction because of uncertainty surrounding when the spectrum, which is encumbered today by television broadcasters, might become available. Broadcasters may not be able to vacate the spectrum until 2007 or later.

“In light of the current statutory scheme, the commission has developed a voluntary clearing policy that is designed to facilitate the early clearing of these bands,” Thomas Surgrue, chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau at the FCC, wrote to CTIA.

Television broadcasters are expected to give up the spectrum as they convert to digital television by 2006 or when the penetration rate for digital television reaches 85%. Paxson Communications, the largest user of the 700 MHz band, has been working with other broadcasters to voluntarily clear the spectrum but warned it would end those efforts if the FCC delayed the auction again.

"The public lost, public safety lost and the broadcasters--who will hold the real auction following the FCC's--must be laughing all the way to the bank," Tom Wheeler, CTIA president and CEO said in a prepared statement. "It looks like the broadcasters will get their billion-dollar ransom for the spectrum Congress gave them for free in 1996."

Sugrue noted that the WTB has adopted a reserve price of $2.6 billion for the auction. If that price isn’t met, then the FCC will cancel the auction and reauction the licenses later.

--Lynnette Luna, Senior Editor