FCC hit with Lawsuit over August AWS Spectrum Auction

FCC HIT WITH LAWSUIT OVER AUGUST AWS SPECTRUM AUCTION
[SOURCE: RCRWireless News, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Silva]
Three groups sued the Federal Communications Commission over changes to small-business bidding rules, asking a federal appeals court in Philadelphia to immediately stay enforcement of new guidelines and delay the scheduled Aug. 9 start of the advanced wireless services auction pending juridical review of the legal challenge. In its emergency motion filed at the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last night, Council Tree Communications Inc., Bethel Native Corp. and the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council requested the stay be issued by June 19 -- the filing deadline for short-form AWS applications. “On the doorstep of Auction 66, the FCC has gone a long way toward ensuring that this auction -- the largest spectrum auction in United States history and one that holds promise of bringing high-speed digital communications to even the most remote parts of this country -- will be dominated by the largest of this country’s incumbent wireless telecommunications carriers, to the immediate detriment of small businesses, businesses owned by members of minority groups and women and rural telephone companies,” the organizations stated. Council Tree, Bethel Native and MMTC challenged the notion that last Friday’s FCC ruling -- which largely upheld April 25 rules extending license sale restrictions from five to 10 years and denying bidding incentives to DEs that resell or lease more than 50 percent of their spectrum to others -- were a logical outgrowth of the original agency proposal. To curb sham DE bidding, the FCC initially proposed banning large in-regional mobile phone carriers from partnering with small-business applicants. The mobile phone industry opposed that proposal. “Council Tree and Bethel Native would need the powers of the Oracle of Delphi to anticipate that a proceeding Council Tree itself had recommended to address the discrete problem of large, deep-pocketed incumbents’ potential abuse of bidding credits would first earn the FCC’s tentative endorsement but then, in a startling, phantom reversal, result in the demise of their own ability to participate in Auction 66, to the very direct and tangible benefit of the same large incumbents who were the ostensible targets” of the commission’s plan to reform the DE program, the parties told the court.
http://www.rcrnews.com/news.cms?newsId=26549