Phoenix Center Warns FCC About Discouraging Wireless-Infrastructure Investment

Free-market think tank the Phoenix Center said the Federal Communications Commission could discourage $50 billion in wireless-infrastructure investment over the next decade if it applied open-access conditions across all wireless networks. The FCC applied such conditions to a block of spectrum in its recent 700-megahertz auction and the result, critics of that move said, was a price only one-third of that paid for similar spectrum in the auction and no bidder willing to buy up the whole block and create a new national competitor to existing cable and phone networks. According to a copy obtained by B&C, that $50 billion hit was a prediction from a study the center plans to release Wednesday, one day after The House Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee held a hearing with FCC commissioners and others about the implications of the auction.
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