Verizon is “likely” to participate in next year’s TV incentive auction, CEO Lowell McAdam said Thursday at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York. That message was marginally more positive than comments Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo made in July during an earnings call, in which he said only that Verizon had yet to make any decisions (see 1507210042). But McAdam also warned Thursday that the 600 MHz spectrum is less valuable to Verizon than the mid-band spectrum it bought in the recently concluded AWS-3 auction. He also downplayed any likelihood Verizon will make a play for Dish Network.

Wireless Bureau officials wouldn't say what’s next as the FCC starts an examination of bidirectional sharing, following comments by Chairman Tom Wheeler in an Aug. 3 blog post. The FCBA Wireless Committee held a brown bag lunch Wednesday with Chief Roger Sherman and other officials from the bureau. It's “been extremely busy over the past year” on auction and non-auction issues, Sherman said. “I’ve been here two years and it feels like five.”

A CTIA proposal to change the conditions under which broadcasters must vacate their sold 600 MHz spectrum after the incentive auction to make way for the new wireless owners (see 1509100072) isn't as limited as the wireless organization is making it out to be, said an NAB spokesman. The FCC proposal is to require low-power TV stations to leave their former spectrum once the wireless licensee “commences operations” -- setting up permanent facilities and antennas. That plan won't allow for market testing that is “integral to the deployment of broadband,” said CTIA Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Scott Bergmann in an interview. Instead, CTIA wants the commission to define the commencement of operations as beginning when wireless carriers begin doing limited market tests in “certain select markets.”

LAS VEGAS -- Impairment remains a major concern for carriers, only 200 days before the scheduled start of the TV incentive auction, said Joan Marsh, AT&T vice president-regulatory. Uncertainty over impairments to some 600 MHz license creates uncertainty and poses “enormous deployment challenges,” Marsh said at CTIA. A key FCC official said he understood carriers have concerns.

The FCC should accept a compromise proposal on when the new wireless owners of 600 MHz spectrum are considered to have commenced operations on their new spectrum, said CTIA and representatives of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and U.S. Cellular in a meeting Sept. 2 with staff from the Wireless Bureau, Incentive Auction Task Force, Media Bureau, Office of General Counsel and the Office of Engineering and Technology, according to an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 12-268. The FCC proposal to limit the "commence operations" definition to areas where a 600 MHz licensee has begun site activation, and commissioning tests using permanent equipment and antennas, “would unnecessarily preclude rapid deployment of the spectrum,” the wireless interests said. Under the CTIA compromise, low-power TV and unlicensed users would still be able to use the 600 MHZ spectrum until the wireless users started substantially using it, but the wireless licensees would have the right to do “market testing” of their new spectrum. The tests would take place “in only a fraction of the areas where full commercial launch would occur,” CTIA said. “LPTV stations and other secondary users could continue to utilize the mobile wireless band in the vast majority of areas beyond this stage.” By beginning market testing, the wireless company would have officially commenced operations, under the compromise proposal, CTIA said. Where market testing isn’t required, the definition of commencing operations would be as the FCC has proposed. “Inhibiting market testing in any fashion, and particularly in the limited window available after full power broadcast television stations are relocated, will greatly jeopardize wireless providers’ ability to meet the six-year interim build-out requirement,” CTIA said. “Under the compromise proposal, secondary services will not be impacted in the vast majority of markets and geography.”

LAS VEGAS -- The FCC is doing what it can to minimize the disruption that will be caused by what's expected to be an unusual quiet period tied to the TV incentive auction, FCC Wireless Bureau Chief Roger Sherman said on a panel at CTIA. The FCC has faced recurring questions about the quiet period, which starts when potential licensees file short-form applications to bid in the auction (see 1508130043).

LAS VEGAS -- Broadcasters will come to the table to offer spectrum in next year’s TV incentive auction, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told CTIA Wednesday at its convention. Wheeler also said, emphatically, the FCC has a plan for making more spectrum available for mobile broadband. “I’ve talked to most of the CEOs of major broadcast organizations and I think they’re going to show up” for the incentive auction, Wheeler said.

The FCC will begin issuing specific information and deadlines about the incentive auction sometime this fall, said Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein and Vice Chairman Howard Symons in blog post they described as a road map for the process leading up to the incentive auction. They also announced additional upcoming workshops on the auction in the vein of the recent FCC channel sharing webinar. The next one will concern the recently released auction procedures public notice, and be “shortly after Labor Day,” the IATF said. FCC officials had indicated last week more information on the timetable was forthcoming (see 1508130043).

The agreement the FCC worked out with Canada on a band plan tied to next year's U.S. TV incentive auction is expected to boost prices for TV stations that decide to sell their spectrum in U.S. cities along the border, industry officials said Tuesday. The provision is deep in the statement of intent with Canada, on page 13 of the agreement, which was unveiled Friday (see 1508140049). The agreement discusses the “equation for calculation of opening bid prices for U.S. television stations.” It says the formula used will be the “base clock price x U.S. population x (US constraints + 2.3 x Canadian constraints).”

The U.S. and Canada finalized a Statement of Intent (SOI) establishing both a framework and timeline for repurposing TV spectrum for mobile broadband on both sides of the border, said Gary Epstein, chairman of the FCC Incentive Auction Task Force, Friday in a blog post. Industry officials said last month Canada had released a Consultation on Repurposing the 600 MHz Band last year and was on its way to addressing a post-incentive auction world (see 1507220071).