AT&T peddles modified auction approach for C-band

Wireless Future Project director Michael Calabrese is quoted in FierceWireless providing analysis on AT&T's proposed modified auction process for C-Band spectrum.

AT&T argues that its proposal is the only private auction proposal in the record that would largely eliminate auction-related objections under Section 309(j). Its plan would be a “true secondary market” sale, involving only lawful modification of existing licenses and a direct sale of the modified existing licenses by the existing licensees.

The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (PISC) is opposed to any form of private sale or privately-run auction, saying it’s both unlawful and bad policy.

Michael Calabrese, director, Wireless Future Project at Open Technology Institute/New America, which is part of the PISC, said it’s hard to tell from its filing whether AT&T is trying to throw a monkey wrench into the CBA’s proposed private auction, or whether they sincerely believe the FCC needs a completely different end-run around section 309(j).

AT&T’s proposal that the FCC should do a further notice and comment rulemaking on private auction procedures, coupled with a requirement that satellite operators must sell their modified licenses, would make any FCC order “an even more clumsily camouflaged attempt to evade the very specific requirements of the statutory auction requirements in section 309(j),” he said.

“The most likely impact of AT&T’s ex parte is to at least temporarily derail and delay any Commission inclination to adopt the CBA proposal,” Calabrese said via email. “And if the FCC takes AT&T seriously, it really does need a substantial further notice, since this would be an entirely different direction from anything that the Commission has signaled in its NPRM, or in the two prior public notices that ignored this same proposal.”