FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler should avoid finger pointing...
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler should avoid finger pointing and stop “inventing rumors” about the incentive auction, said NAB Executive Vice President-Strategic Planning Rick Kaplan in a blog post response (http://bit.ly/1BsP3st) to Wheeler’s speeches to wireless conferences Tuesday (CD Sept 10…
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p1). Blaming NAB’s petition for review of the auction order for a possible delay is “not only wrong, but will create the very uncertainties and distractions” the FCC is concerned about, Kaplan said. If the NAB wins its court challenge and that leads to a delay for the incentive auction, it’s not the association that should take the blame, but the FCC, Kaplan said. NAB “has laid out why we believe the FCC has acted outside the law,” Kaplan said. “If the FCC insists on seeing the litigation through and loses, then it has no one else to blame but itself.” Wheeler blamed broadcasters in his speech as an alternative to blaming the FCC’s “misguided policy decisions,” Kaplan said. “It is definitely easier than blaming the fact that would-be spectrum sellers still have no idea what kind of return they can reasonably expect in the auction.” Recent FCC rules for broadcaster sharing arrangements and net neutrality proposals have “undermined trust with the very industries needed to participate in the auction,” Kaplan said. NAB still believes the auction can succeed, he said, saying “it would sure help” if broadcasters “had a partner at the helm of the FCC.” The commission had no comment.