Verizon to FCC: Restrictions on airwaves auction are unjust

Verizon Communications has urged the Federal Communications not to restrict how much it can buy in the 2015 auction of wireless spectrum, saying such a limit would subsidize the smallest national carriers and their foreign owners.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler recently proposed rules for the complex sale of valuable airwaves scheduled for mid-2015. The rules would reserve part of the spectrum in each market for wireless carriers that do not already have dominant blocks of low-frequency airwaves there. That would benefit the No. 3 and No. 4 carriers, Sprint and T-Mobile US, by limiting the two biggest carriers, Verizon and AT&T, which dominate the highly valued low-band spectrum.

The sale is considered one of the most complex undertakings by the FCC. It would first involve TV stations' giving up airwaves they exclusively use and the FCC then auctioning them off to wireless carriers. Congress has mandated that the FCC raise enough money to pay broadcasters for their lost spectrum and fund a new $7 billion public safety network.