FCC Chairman Michael Powell needs to direct his staff to get over it and get on with it. “It” is the agency’s loss in federal appeals court to NextWave Telecom Inc. last month.
Speculation has been rampant for at least two weeks that Federal Communications Commission staff either has been instigating or pushing along requests that the agency begin to probe NextWave’s ownership to see if it complies with federal rules. At this column’s deadline, no formal petition had been filed asking the commission to investigate the matter.
As you may recall, the FCC was investigating whether NextWave was more than 25-percent owned by foreigners when the agency cancelled NextWave’s licenses for nonpayment. NextWave has always insisted-and maintains today-that it falls within U.S. guidelines for foreign ownership. Even if the company does not fall within foreign-ownership guidelines, the company could restructure to meet those requirements or seek a waiver, as was the case when Deutsche Telekom bought VoiceStream Wireless Corp. Deutsche Telekom VoiceStream set the precedent that foreign ownership is not a deal breaker.
But the battle here is not over foreign-ownership guidelines. The real battle is that some people do not want to accept that the court ruled in favor of NextWave. Too much energy is being wasted within the commission trying to keep those licenses out of NextWave’s hands.
We are a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The FCC is charged with protecting the people’s interests, and it did a fine job in trying to presume that the American public would be better off selling those 90 licenses to companies willing to pay more for them. However, another branch of government (of the people, by the people and for the people) determined the FCC did not have the authority to cancel the licenses and has said they rightfully belong with NextWave.
The FCC cannot take this matter personally any more. The American people will be best served when these licenses are finally awarded and built out. If NextWave’s ownership needs to be addressed, then address it. But don’t use it as a pawn to stop the process-especially when this process has already been dragging on in the courts for years.
The wireless carriers that bid on NextWave licenses are screaming for some kind of settlement. NextWave maintains it plans to build out its markets, although most analysts believe this is just a strategic ploy by NextWave to make carriers pay more for the licenses. Somehow, the government is supposed to negotiate a settlement between NextWave and these other carriers. How can it when government has so much animosity toward NextWave?
It might not be easy, but the government has to play by the rules. Throughout the NextWave debacle, the FCC maintained that the integrity of the auction must be preserved. That is still the case today, although this time the government must preserve the integrity of the auction.
