WASHINGTON-Congress is ready to spring two major spectrum bills that seek to stabilize the Federal Communications Commission’s aggressive auction program and that would apply spectrum lease fees in lieu of competitive bidding to private wireless licensing.
One, authored by Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), would exempt private wireless spectrum from auctions and direct the FCC to impose spectrum lease fees instead.
Industrial Telecommunications Association President Mark Crosby has been vigorously lobbying Congress the past two years for an alternative to auctions for companies that require internal communications but are not in the communications business themselves.
If successful, private wireless spectrum would be spared from expanded auction legislation Congress and the Clinton administration want passed and signed into law this year.
Currently, auction authority is limited to subscription-based commercial wireless frequencies like those used for paging and pocket telephone services. Without a carve-out, private wireless spectrum likely would be subjected to competitive bidding under new auction legislation being contemplated.
The Breaux bill, which was being completed late last week, also may require the FCC to allocate 10 megahertz to private wireless above and beyond the 24 megahertz reserved for public safety from TV Channels 60-69.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), meanwhile, wants to get the FCC’s auction program under control.
McCain is worried that unless there are reasonable intervals between auctions-giving the wireless industry and Wall Street time to absorb new market entrants-the value of the airwaves sold by the federal government will be depressed.
Indeed, the lackluster Wireless Communications Services auction that began April 15, is expected to generate far less than the $1.8 billion projected. Originally, budgeteers scored the auction at $3 billion. The WCS auction was mandated by Congress and estimated revenue from it factored into the fiscal 1997 omnibus appropriations bill congressional appropriators and the White House agreed to last fall.
The wireless telecom industry said holding the WCS auction so soon after the C-block PCS auction threatened to undermine Wall Street financing.
The FCC has raised $22 billion mostly from digital paging and pocket telephone license sales. But the monetary success has been tempered by loan payment defaults, stalled or dead public offerings, bankruptcies and dwindling bids for wireless licenses.
McCain also wants greater accessibility to the federal government’s spectrum database so that unused or under-used spectrum can be freed up for sale in the private sector. That could be problematic given the sensitivity surrounding spectrum use by the U.S. military, law enforcement and the intelligence community.
