I don’t envy FCC Chairman Reed Hundt.
Yes, only a few short months ago he was the golden boy of Washington, as should be anyone who delivers the president a check for $7.7 billion to be used to reduce the nation’s budget deficit.
In fact, the U.S. budget deficit for July shrunk by 60 percent compared with last year-in part because of the broadband personal communications services auction.
But times change.
Now Hundt is being assaulted from many sides. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., is leading a charge to change much of the federal bureaucracy, and the Federal Communications Commission may be one of those federal agencies the government could do without-or at least replace with a much smaller agency.
Responding to that possibility, Hundt devised a plan to at least partially reinvent the FCC by cutting 10 percent of the agency’s 2,271 employees.
Well, he certainly couldn’t expect to slip that by without somebody raising a ruckus.
The union representing FCC employees is claiming Hundt reneged on a plan to reduce the number of agency employees that was agreed to earlier this year by both labor and management.
But despite this in-house quarreling, Hundt’s biggest albatross seems to have turned into the C-block PCS auction.
Again, only a few short months ago Hundt was in the limelight after the broadband A and B block auction. But the C-block auction has not cooperated one bit. (Reporter Jeff Silva pointed out the other day it’s probably not correct to call it the designated entity auction anymore since there are no preferences for designated entities.)
And no matter what direction the FCC and Hundt try to take, it’s not the right one, simply because there is no right direction, no correct answer, no “Pass Go and collect your $200” in this game.
It’s time to settle the C-block auction in court. Not because that’s where hotly contested issues should be settled, but because there is simply no other choice. And Hundt has come to terms with that. No more negotiations, no more narrow rulings, no more trying to appease anybody. Let the court decide.
I like Hundt’s new approach. His only gaffe is coming out with a new proposed auction schedule that includes the C-block auction, set this time for December.
Why choose now to try to calm potential bidders and investors down? Does Hundt (or anyone else) really think that oral argument is going to begin on Sept. 28 and that within two months the case will be settled and plans can be made for the C block auction? Has he watched the Simpson trial?
I wouldn’t be surprised if more lawsuits surface. No one has sued yet because the auction has been delayed twice. But once the first C-block operator goes out of business, that too, could end up in a court filing. (If I had gotten my PCS business to market sooner, I could have had a profitable business. I had my business plan in place, but the auction was delayed.)
Start the other auctions, Reed. The C-block auction has gotten out of control. And chances are it’s not going to be fought any faster in court.
