Last week’s FCC order signing off on an agreement expected...

said an article on Hogan Lovells policy blog (http://xrl.us/bnvtaq). “Stripped of all pretense, the new rules allow AT&T, as more or less the only remaining licensee in the WCS band, to sacrifice five megahertz of spectrum on either side of satellite radio to gain access to twenty megahertz of mobile broadband spectrum,” the article said. “Given its desire for additional capacity, AT&T seems to have made a rational economic choice for its shareholders. But, as a public policy matter, does idling one-third of a valuable spectrum band make any sense in a time of constrained spectrum resources? Or would the public interest have been better served by requiring the satellite radio operator to improve the performance of its receivers and deploy better performing terrestrial repeaters?” Bigger questions remain, the article said. “The long, sad tale of WCS spectrum raises the question of whether incumbent operators such as satellite radio should always receive as substantial protection against new entrants. After all, AT&T only really ’solved’ the problem of WCS interference by sacrificing ten megahertz of valuable broadband spectrum to enable use of the remaining twenty megahertz that it controlled. Few other spectrum licensees have that luxury."