CTIA says FCC auction plan doomed to fail

In a scathing filing with the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday, CTIA, the lobbying association representing mobile operators, criticized the agency's plan to auction spectrum that would require the winner to offer free wireless Internet services. "The proposal upends two decades of spectrum policy in favor of a specially tailored auction designed to advance the particular business model of a single company. Moreover, this business plan -- including free broadband -- has a track record of failure," CTIA wrote in the filing. In its comments to the FCC about the plan, the CTIA said that the commission would be better off supporting its typical so-called flexible-use policy, which allows the spectrum winner to use essentially any business model and technology. The CTIA pointed to several historical examples of instances where the FCC adopted special rules, only to find that the company that initially proposed the idea behind the rule didn't end up bidding in the auction.
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