CTIA, Wireless Players, Seek Delay in Filing Deadlines on Key Incentive Auction NPRMs
CTIA and other key wireless players asked the FCC to extend by 30 days the deadline for filing comments on two rulemaking notices before the commission as the agency devises rules for the TV incentive auction. The NPRMs cover unlicensed operations in TV spectrum post-auction and rules for wireless mics. Without an extension, comments are due Jan. 5, replies Jan. 26. Aerospace & Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council, CEA, 4G Americas and the Telecommunications Industry Association signed the filing, posted by the FCC in docket 12-268 Monday. Last week, wireless mic maker Shure asked for a 45-day extension (see 1412040007).
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“A 30 day extension is in the public interest to allow interested parties to meaningfully respond to the numerous technical questions raised by the Commission in these proceedings,” CTIA and other groups argue. “Further, because these proceedings are inherently linked by common technical issues, the Commission should maintain parallel comment and reply comment deadlines for the two proceedings.”
The Wireless Bureau Monday delayed another filing deadline, setting new due dates for comments on the Oct. 1 competitive bidding rules NPRM. Comments were due Dec. 29, replies Jan. 20. The new deadlines are Jan. 23 for comments, Feb. 12 for replies.
The FCC cited the ongoing AWS-3 auction. The later deadline "will increase the likelihood that interested parties will be able to take into account more complete information about the results of the bidding in Auction 97 and thereby promote a more comprehensive record in this proceeding, our first comprehensive look at these rules in years, without jeopardizing the Commission’s ability to act on the NPRM sufficiently in advance of the upcoming broadcast incentive auction,” the agency said.
Meanwhile, as the FCC readies an auction public notice for a vote Thursday, AT&T raised in an ex parte filing on what's widely expected to be a big issue going forward -- how the FCC will assign and manage impairment of the spectrum blocks sold in the incentive auction. AT&T Vice President Joan Marsh raised in meetings with FCC officials the same issue she raised at the Competitive Carriers Association conference in September (see 1409100031). Marsh said in September that since the blocks sold in the auction are expected to be fungible, the FCC will have to devise a way to decide who gets what spectrum after the auction is complete. March said not all will be equal since some of the spectrum will be closer to broadcast or unlicensed operations.
Some of the proposals in the public notice “appear designed to put interference burdens disproportionately and unfairly on the non reserve blocks” of spectrum open for bidding by AT&T and Verizon, Marsh said in an ex parte filing posted by the FCC Monday. The FCC needs to ask “questions and seek comment on how to manage impairments before drawing any conclusions about how impairments should be assigned to specific blocks during the auction,” she said.
T-Mobile raised concerns about the second, MHz/POP reserve price for the forward part of the incentive auction that must be met in addition to an aggregate reserve price. Trey Hanbury of Hogan Lovells raised the issue with FCC staffers in two phone calls made on behalf of T-Mobile, said an ex parte filing also posted by the FCC Monday. The second reserve price “poses risks to the auction,” Hanbury said. “In particular, a high price per MHz-POP creates the risk of anti-competitive foreclosure, reduced spectrum clearing for wireless broadband, and lower auction revenues.”