Symons to Be Named Vice Chairman of Incentive Auction Task Force
Change is on the way for the FCC Incentive Auction Task Force. The agency is poised to add longtime cable and wireless attorney Howard Symons to the team, as vice chairman to current task force Chairman Gary Epstein, industry and agency officials told us. Meanwhile, the FCC appears poised to give small carriers a win on at least one big issue -- the geographic size of the licenses that will be offered in the auction.
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Chairman of Mintz Levin’s communications practice, Symons does work for some of the competitors to AT&T and Verizon Wireless. During the 1980s he was senior counsel to the House Telecom Subcommittee, where, according to his online biography (http://bit.ly/LfllCM), he was a drafter of the 1984 Cable Act. From 1978 to 1981, Symons was a staff attorney with Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, founded by Ralph Nader.
Epstein has been on the job since April 2012, but does not have an actual staff, working instead with FCC staffers on loan from other parts of the agency. Numerous telecom and broadcast officials said they have been told Symons’ hire is part of an effort to give the task force more dedicated professionals. One broadcast industry lawyer said Symons’ appointment is likely to raise concerns in that sector because he primarily represents cable clients and has been at loggerheads with broadcasters in the past. The FCC, Symons, NAB and CTIA declined to comment.
Meanwhile, Competitive Carriers Association advocacy of Partial Economic Area (PEA) licenses as an alternative to Economic Area licenses was no accident, broadcast and telecom officials told us. FCC officials urged the group to make its initial filing that proposed a new license size, somewhere between the larger EAs and smaller Cellular Market Area licenses the group originally sought, industry sources said. While industry groups and companies debated PEAs in a recent comment cycle, adoption of that license size for the auction appears all but preordained, these sources said.
The FCC received comments on CCA’s proposal for PEAs last week (CD Jan 13 p3). “While not as small as CMAs, PEAs would promote many of the benefits of smaller licenses and are strongly preferable to Economic Areas,” CCA said (http://bit.ly/KJuRgy). AT&T said EAs are preferable, but the key issue is that the FCC authorize package bidding in the auction. “The smaller the geographic license area, the greater the ‘exposure risk’ is at auction for carriers whose business plans are premised on realizing economies of scale,” AT&T said (http://bit.ly/1b43XXw). “If the Commission were to disaggregate license areas below EAs, the need for package bidding would become even more acute than it already would be with EAs.” Verizon Wireless offered similar comments (http://bit.ly/1hYyn5e): “As license area sizes decrease, the exposure problem increases and the risk of failing to acquire all licenses necessary to a business plan will further inhibit both the level of bids and participation in the auction."
"CCA supports the use of CMAs in the upcoming 600 MHz auction, and proposed PEAs as the next-best option in the event that the Commission decides to forgo CMAs. Ultimately, the decision lies with the FCC,” the group said in an emailed statement Wednesday. “We will continue to work with the Commission and other stakeholders in the days ahead to enable broad participation in the upcoming auction. All carriers must have a meaningful opportunity to participate, and smaller geographic license sizes are an integral part of this important policy goal.”