Small AT&T Spectrum Buys Never Controversial, AT&T/Qualcomm Say
AT&T and Qualcomm said there are no grounds for the FCC to do a consolidated review of the first company’s plan to buy T-Mobile, the telco’s buy of Qualcomm spectrum licenses and eight additional proceedings in which AT&T proposes to buy 700 MHz spectrum. The two jointly responded to a petition by Sprint Nextel, MetroPCS, Cincinnati Bell Wireless, Ntelos, the Rural Cellular Association and Rural Telecommunications Group. Those entities called AT&T a “serial” acquirer of spectrum (CD June 14 p7).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
"The eight proceedings that the Joint Parties now propose for consolidation have nothing to do with either the AT&T/Qualcomm or AT&T/T-Mobile transactions,” AT&T and Qualcomm said in a joint opposition. “Each of these eight proceedings involves a transaction by which AT&T would acquire Lower 700 MHz B and/or C Block spectrum -- in several cases, only a single license -- from seven unrelated parties in widely scattered markets.” They noted that AT&T will not get lower 700 MHz B- or C-block spectrum as part of either the Qualcomm or T-Mobile transactions. None of the small license purchases has been “even mildly controversial,” and no one filed a petition to deny against any of the deals, AT&T/Qualcomm said.
AT&T and Qualcomm said FCC precedent is clear. “It is well established that each transaction is entitled to its own, individualized consideration,” they said. “Accordingly, the Commission has refused in numerous proceedings to consolidate transfer and assignment proceedings.” Since none of the smaller license purchases has been contested, “they obviously lack common issues for decision with either AT&T/Qualcomm or AT&T/T-Mobile,” the companies said.
T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom said the transactions shouldn’t be consolidated. “The proceedings identified by the Joint Parties concern entirely distinct transactions with different parties, terms, agreements and public interest showings,” DT said. “They are not mutually exclusive or contingent in any way. There is no basis in law or policy for consolidating them."
The transactions the joint filers hope the FCC will consolidate are mostly “very small-scale, essentially run-of-the-mill” spectrum sales, said 700 MHz LLC. It wants to sell a single 700 MHz license to AT&T. In seeking to consolidate the proceedings, AT&T/T-Mobile deal opponents have “abandoned … reasonableness and instead applied a more helter-skelter, shotgun approach” to trying to block that much larger deal, 700 MHz said.
D&E Investments, Windstream Iowa and Windstream Lakedale, the parties selling spectrum to AT&T in three of the eight deals, filed a joint opposition. “Grant of the unprecedented relief sought by the Joint Filers would be contrary to the public interest and inconsistent with the Commission’s long-standing practice of processing applications in the order in which they are received,” they said. D&E Investments sought commission clearance of its deal with AT&T eight months ago and the two Windstream companies three months ago, the filing said. “No petitions to deny were filed against these applications, and the applications are ripe for disposition."
Redwood Wireless, which hopes to sell 17 700 MHz licenses to AT&T, noted that none of the parties seeking the joint review sought to deny its deal by a June 7 deadline. The motion seeking a consolidated review “is not a ‘petition to deny’ and it does not confer upon the Joint Filers the status of ‘parties to the proceeding,'” Redwood said.