The FCC is proposing to reserve at least one blank TV channel in every market for white spaces devices and wireless mics after the incentive auction and repacking, said a rulemaking notice released Tuesday. The NPRM tentatively finds that this channel should be located in the UHF band, above Channel 21, though the commission seeks comment on that and other proposals. Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly dissented.

The FCC appears to be on the right track as it looks at impairment and spectrum clearing in the TV incentive auction planning, wireless industry commenters said. The FCC Incentive Auction Team released a public notice offering a new look at the issue last month and comments were due Wednesday at the FCC (see 1505210054). CTIA called the PN a good first step, while NAB and the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance (ATBA) complained it doesn’t convey enough information to allow for substantive comments. Comments were posted in 12-268.

The FCC should consider adopting safeguards that allow all wireless providers equal opportunity to secure critical spectrum resources in the upcoming 600 MHz auction, said Rep. Robert Godshall, majority chairman of the Pennsylvania House Consumer Affairs Committee, in a letter to the FCC in docket 12-268. The commission should consider increasing the size of the reserve in each market to reduce market concentration and protect consumers, government and business from paying more for wireless service than they would if the market were more competitive, he said. Preserving competition in the wireless market will benefit consumers through increased choices, lower prices, and higher quality and more reliable services, Godshall said.

Sennheiser representatives met with aides to all FCC members on the wireless mic maker's proposals for devices in the TV band, after the incentive auction, the company said in an ex parte filing in docket 12-268. The Sennheiser reps “disabused the myth that wireless microphone technology is not cutting edge or spectrally efficient” and “emphasized the importance of wireless microphones to one of our country’s most vital industries, content creation,” said the filing. It said Sennheiser highlighted the differences between wireless mics and white spaces devices “which allow wireless microphones to be good spectrum neighbors to incoming 600 MHz licensees and to not require control by a database.” Two clear UHF channels for wireless mics without white space devices “is a need not a want,” the company said.

The FCC Incentive Auction Team released a public notice offering a new look at impairment and clearing spectrum in the auction. The auction team also sought comment on the PN, due at the FCC June 3. Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly immediately slammed the notice. Chairman Tom Wheeler defended it Thursday.

The FCC should rethink a proposal that would force licensed, professional wireless mics to exit parts of the 600 MHz band earlier than other users, wireless mic maker Shure said in comments. These mics should be able to operate as long as low-power TV stations and TV translator stations, Shure said. “Wireless microphones have successfully operated, on a secondary basis, on unassigned channels in the TV spectrum for decades,” Shure said. “Wireless microphone use has grown rapidly and today, these devices provide critical support to a wide range of sectors including TV broadcasting, news casting, theater, live music, sports, religious, civic and academic institutions.” The transition timeline is “critical to users in these sectors and to wireless microphone manufacturers compelled to ensure that the dramatic change in available UHF spectrum resulting from the Incentive Auction and TV broadcast rebanding does not disrupt existing operation of wireless microphones or stymie continued availability of high quality wireless microphone equipment,” Shure said. It filed reply comments in the proceeding defining the official start date of operations for carriers that buy licenses in the TV incentive auction (see 1505190047). The comments were posted Tuesday in docket 12-268.

Sprint said the FCC should make changes to the rules for the TV incentive auction, which set aside “reserve” spectrum blocks for carriers that don't already own significant amounts of low-band spectrum. The FCC approved rules for the set-aside at its May 15, 2014, meeting (see 1405160030). The FCC “established a reserve to lessen the likelihood that the two largest providers, with their vast resources, could foreclose their much smaller rivals from obtaining 600 MHz spectrum in the auction to better compete in the downstream mobile broadband market,” Sprint said. “The Commission set the right goal, but its implementation plan could create the very foreclosure risk it intended to prevent.” Sprint proposed that the FCC change its rules to establish the reserve blocks at the start of the forward auction, rather than toward its end, and allow eligible bidders to bid on the blocks from the start of the auction. “The Commission could adopt these two changes quickly, without delaying the auction or extensively revising the proposed auction processes,” Sprint said. “With these modifications, the Commission can help ensure that consumers ultimately benefit from the 600 MHz auction by giving competitive carriers a fair shot at getting the low-band spectrum they need to compete more effectively with the two largest providers.”

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler expects the incentive auction to be well underway a year from now with active broadcaster participation, he said Wednesday. He also defended the net neutrality order as creating a flexible, not dictatorial, broadband Internet framework. The planned takeover of Suddenlink by a European company showed that the regulation wasn’t chilling investment in the U.S., he said in a Q&A session with Accenture Managing Director Shahid Ahmed at the management consulting firm’s Network Summit.

The Competitive Carriers Association urged the FCC to change its proposal for defining the commencement of operations for carriers that buy licenses in the TV incentive auction. CCA’s stance put the group in agreement with CTIA (see 1505180034) and AT&T, a nonmember. But Google discounted claims that carriers need to shut down other operations relatively early in the buildout process. NAB and public broadcasters lined up with Google. Reply comments on the commencement of operations rules were posted by the FCC Monday and Tuesday in docket 12-268.

The FCC should reject a proposed incentive auction rule that would prevent a bidder from reducing the quantity of blocks it demands in a category if the reduction will result in aggregate demand falling below the available supply of licenses in the category, said AT&T. Its filing includes a paper written by Yale economics professor Philip Haile. He called the provision a no-excess supply (NES) restriction. “For many bidders, licenses are complementary, which means that their per-license valuations are higher for pairs of licenses than for a single license,” the paper said. The NES restriction “makes it dangerous for a bidder to risk bidding any price above” its lower single-license valuation, he wrote. Doing so creates “substantial risk of being forced to choose between two money-losing options: (1) purchase a single license at a price exceeding its standalone value; or (2) buy the pair of licenses at a total price exceeding their value.” Because of the risk, bidders may bid more conservatively and drop their bids earlier, he said. A second paper by Haile opposes a U.S. Cellular proposal for using a point system to determine which licenses in the 600 MHz band a bidder will be assigned after the TV incentive auction (see 1504240023). U.S. Cellular’s proposal to give each bidder the same number of points in each market “would give a systematic and unwarranted advantage to bidders that have fewer feasible allocations,” Haile wrote in the second filing, which also is in docket 12-268. The carrier’s alternative proposal, in which bidders would “score” their preferences in each market, “would systematically disadvantage bidders seeking to build larger (e.g., 10x10 MHz) blocks of spectrum, and such a system also would not provide enough information about the intensity of bidders’ preferences,” Haile said.