Big, Smaller Players Alike Oppose Proposed CBRS Bidding Rules
The FCC got pushback on a proposal to allow license sizes larger than counties in the priority access licenses that will be sold to provide more protected use of the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band. Even larger carriers consider the plan flawed and sought changes. With a C-band auction looming, questions emerged on how likely carriers are to pursue the PALs during next June’s auction (see 1910170045). Many filings talked about the impact on rural areas and bidders.
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Commissioners approved a public notice seeking comment on auction rules for the PALs last month. Comments were posted through Tuesday in docket 19-244. Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks voted for the notice but raised concerns about a new proposal to allow bidding on a cellular market area (CMA) basis, rather than solely by county, in the top 172 CMAs (see 1909260040).
Verizon questioned how well the proposal to allow CMA bidding when conditions are met would work. “Once a bidder elects CMA-level bidding, it would be allowed to bid only at the CMA-level in that market and would be prohibited from switching to bidding at the county-level in that area. While this may seem benign on its face, the CMA-level bidding approach would reduce bidder flexibility, add unnecessary complexity to an already-complex auction, and have unintended consequences." CMA rules “will be of little value to sincere bidders,” Verizon warned: “Those who select CMA-level bidding might very well be concerned about falling prey to mischievous behavior on the part of certain county-level bidders who could seek to foreclose them by arbitrarily bidding up a single county within a particular CMA.”
The FCC proposes county-level bidding in the same areas, T-Mobile said: “Abandon this proposal and permit bidding only on a CMA-level basis for top multiple-county CMAs.” Allowing bidding on both size licenses in the same market would “perpetuate the precise interference protection problems the Commission was attempting to solve in allowing licensing throughout larger geographic areas,” T-Mobile said: Licenses may go unsold.
The Wireless ISP Association said county-size licenses aren’t ideal, but “may be sufficiently small enough to encourage meaningful participation by smaller fixed wireless companies in some counties -- but only if the auction procedures do not result in de facto foreclosure.” WISPA said “eliminating CMA-level bidding will reduce the likelihood that large carriers will bid up the rural counties within the CMAs."
The Dynamic Spectrum Alliance “believes that smaller and more affordable license areas are especially important for small wireless internet service providers and other market entrants focused on providing local service in rural and less populated counties,” DSA commented. “Counties should remain the license area of PALs, because counties are the result of [previous] hard-fought stakeholder compromise.”
The Competitive Carriers Association said the FCC should drop the CMA proposal. Such "bidding is unnecessary" and "could reduce participation,” CCA said. It said the band is critical to smaller carriers: The CMA proposal “risks distorting prices for less-densely populated counties subject to CMA bidding, and in so doing, could reduce auction participation.”
Selling larger licenses “will particularly harm rural and small town consumers and businesses that were -- until now -- the intended beneficiary of CBRS rules aimed at facilitating access to PAL spectrum by a wide variety" of innovators, said New America’s Open Technology Institute. “This proposal would adversely impact wide swaths of rural, exurban and outer suburban areas that neighbor larger city areas and would harm the providers seeking PALs in those areas by increasing the time these entities must spend in the auction, therefore increasing the price drastically."
AT&T sought technical changes. The FCC proposes “novel enhancements to accommodate, among other things, bidding by” CMAs, the carrier said. “Administer those provisions with appropriate caution for the ways they might distort competitive outcomes.”