WASHINGTON-On the same day that the House Commerce Committee was voting to delay the auction of licenses for the general wireless communication service (GWCS), the Federal Communications Commission was releasing new rules for the auction. The new rules eliminate the installment payment system, simplify the definition of small business to comport with other small business services, and increase the bidding credit.
The GWCS auction originally was scheduled for last August but has been postponed because of concerns about interference that may occur with operations of the Department of the Navy. This interference concern led many to believe the spectrum band (4660-4685 MHz) was unattractive. FCC technical staff believes the lack of interest is due to the small size of spectrum block and its isolated location. Indeed, the FCC received no comments or reply comments on original rules for the GWCS spectrum.
By postponing the auction for no more than five years, the FCC hopes to combine it with the 4635-4660 MHz band for a total of 50 megahertz of spectrum. Interest in this larger block might be greater because the bands could be offered as pairs of channels for separate transmit and receive channelization.
Congress told the FCC in 1993 to auction at least 10 megahertz of spectrum transferred from the federal government by Aug. 10, 1998. The FCC partially fulfilled this requirement in 1997 when it auctioned five megahertz of spectrum for the wireless communication service. The FCC, however, was burned in that auction when some licenses were won for as little as $1 and the total revenues of $13.6 million were well below projections. FCC Chairman William Kennard hopes that by delaying the auction, the FCC will avoid a similar outcome in the GWCS band.
The FCC, in its rules released on Sept. 24, eliminated the installment payment option it originally announced it would use for the GWCS band. The FCC has nearly eliminated the use of installment payments after the personal communications services C-block turned sour. The order states, “While we are not ruling out the possibility that installment payments may return as a means of assisting designated entities for other auctionable services, their use will be suspended for the foreseeable future until we resolve all attendant issues.”
