AT&T Urges FCC To Revisit Rules on Competitive Bidding, Designated Entities, Ahead of Incentive Auction
The FCC should revisit its rules on competitive bidding and designated entities (DEs) in advance of the 2016 incentive auction, AT&T Vice President-Federal Regulatory Joan Marsh said Friday in a blog post. The recent AWS-3 auction showed there's significant interest…
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in all broadband spectrum and that future auctions should “be designed to ensure that licenses go to those willing to deploy networks -- not speculators or stockpilers,” Marsh said. AT&T was one of the companies that dominated bidding in the AWS-3 auction, spending $18 billion on its provisionally winning bids (see 1501300051). The AWS-3 auction has sparked renewed debate on the incentive auction rules, with T-Mobile President John Legere saying Wednesday that the auction was a “disaster for American wireless consumers” (see 1502180054). An FCC official said Chairman Tom Wheeler’s policies won’t permit carriers to “run the table” in the incentive auction (see 1502190050). Dish’s use of DEs in the AWS-3 auction “shows how the legitimate purposes of the DE program can be distorted and manipulated,” Marsh said. AT&T doesn’t oppose the DE rules, but the point of those rules “is to ensure that only entities that are independent small businesses receive the small business subsidies,” she said. “The complex corporate structure and related coordinated bidding conduct of the Dish DEs merit a fuller review. The FCC should also take a closer look at who the DE subsidies will really benefit in this auction.” The commission should revise the competitive bidding rules by requiring joint bidders to participate as a single entity or prohibit joint bidders from placing competing bids for the same license, Marsh said.