http://mrtmag.com/news/house_fcc_frontline_070607/
House committee members ask FCC to reject Frontline
Jul 6, 2007 2:19 PM, By Donny Jackson
A Republican-dominated group of House Commerce Committee members this
week released a letter sent to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin asking that the
Frontline Wireless proposal be dismissed and let the 700 MHz commercial
auction proceed with no public-safety, wholesale or open-access obligations.
Frontline has proposed that the FCC establish a 10 MHz “E block” in the
auction, with the winner of the spectrum being obligated to negotiate
with a national public-safety licensee to build a nationwide wireless
broadband network using the E block airwaves and 12 MHz of adjacent
public-safety frequencies. The Frontline plan also calls for the E block
licensee to provide only wholesale service to customers other than
public safety and agree to open-access requirements.
Signed by 12 Republicans—most notably, ranking committee member Joe
Barton (R-Texas)—and four junior Democrats, the letter states that
including the latter obligations in commercial spectrum rules would be
“inappropriate.”
“Suggestions to impose wholesale and so-called open access requirements
… are blatant poison pills to discourage competing bids and to lower the
price of spectrum,” the letter states. “Business models should be left
to the market, not hard-wired into auctions.”
While supporting the notion of a public-private partnership on public
safety’s 12 MHz of spectrum, the letter cites several potential risks
involved with putting public-safety obligations on the E block, because
the public-safety requirements would not be solidified for some time.
“The odds of crafting precisely the right auction conditions, that
create precisely the right model and that result in precisely the right
winner, who will then agree to public safety’s requirements, are minimal
at best,” the letter states. “We are likely to be left with no bidder,
or a winner who will neither meet the needs of public safety nor
relinquish the license without a fight.”
Frontline Wireless Vice Chairman Reed Hundt this week said Frontline’s
proposal would not preclude existing wireless carriers like Verizon
Wireless and AT&T Mobility—formerly know as Cingular Wireless—from
bidding on the E block spectrum.
However, Frontline’s updated proposed rules would require the E block
licensee to “be limited to providing service to public safety users,
entities that provide retail service and products to end users, and
providers and operators of critical infrastructure”—a stipulation that
carriers with millions of retail consumer customers almost certainly
would be willing to follow.
With this in mind, the letter asks Martin to reject the Frontline plan.
“Let us not mistake this proposal for what it is: yet another attempt to
get valuable spectrum on the cheap,” the letter states.
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