FCC’s Wheeler: AT&T bluffing on boycott threat

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said he doesn’t believe AT&T will sit out of the agency's highly anticipated airwaves auction in 2015.

He pointed to AT&T's past insistence that it needs more airwaves for its growing mobile business.

“I have a hard time envisioning this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for this kind of beach-front spectrum being something that people throw up their hands and walk away from,” he said.

“Nobody is compelling anybody to participate in the spectrum auction,” he said. “Whether the broadcasters sell or the wireless carriers buy is entirely a function of their own free will and a marketplace that we create."