Reuters is reporting that the Federal Communications Commission is poised to reject requests from competitors to more strictly limit the participation of Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility in the next spectrum auction, content with its current plan as opposed to more restrictive action on incentive auction rules.
Citing “people familiar with the matter,” Reuters said that no final decision has been made in regard to the 2016 incentive auction, but that the FCC staff thinks that smaller carriers are sufficiently protected by the original plan that places some limits on AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless’ participation, but not as many as some of their competitors wished to see.
Word surfaced earlier this month that a draft order on the incentive auction rules was circulating and largely unchanged despite efforts by groups such as the Competitive Carriers Association. T-Mobile US, Sprint, Dish and other industry groups and companies have joined forces to bolster their argument that the FCC should reserve more spectrum for smaller operators than it had originally planned. T-Mobile US in particular was strident in its opposition to open bidding for the spectrum and put forth a “dynamic market rules” proposal early on in the process, then continued to press the FCC to increase the spectrum reserved for smaller operators. Published reports have put that figure at 30 MHz of spectrum – less than half – in markets for smaller national or regional operators, once a financial threshold is met.
Charter Communications filed a similar request earlier this week, according to the Savewirelesschoice.com group of telecom companies seeking more reserved spectrum for competitive carriers.
The most recent spectrum auction raised $44 billion, and AT&T and Verizon were the largest bidders. The incentive auction has been pushed back from mid-2015 into 2016.
