Buyer Verizon Wireless and the cable companies selling their frequencies...
Buyer Verizon Wireless and the cable companies selling their frequencies said, by law, the FCC cannot consider arguments that AWS licenses SpectrumCo and Cox have proposed to sell Verizon could be better used by another carrier. The comments came in…
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a meeting with Charles Mathias, aide to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Section 310(d) of the Communications Act bars the Commission from considering the arguments of various opponents that they would be better positioned to purchase and use the spectrum or that the public interest would be better served by a transaction between them and the cable companies,” said in an ex parte filing on the meeting (http://xrl.us/bm3oha). The Verizon and cable representatives also argued that if the transactions are approved “Verizon Wireless would hold less than the amount of spectrum set by the spectrum screen in nearly all markets and why the assignments would cause no competitive harm in any market,” the filing said. “They discussed the cable companies’ efforts to investigate the provision of mobile wireless services, their ultimate conclusions that doing so did not make operational or economic sense, and their decisions that the better course was to transfer the spectrum to Verizon Wireless as the best way to put the spectrum to use for the benefit of consumers.” Verizon agreed in December to pay $3.6 billion for 122 AWS licenses from SpectrumCo, a venture of Bright House Networks, Comcast and Time Warner Cable and to pay another $315 million for another 30 AWS licenses from Cox Communications.