The FCC’s first high-band spectrum auction, for the 28 GHz band, had $690 million in provisionally winning bids when it closed for the holidays. It was still unclear whether it will reopen Thursday, an issue expected to be addressed in the FCC’s Wednesday shutdown public notice. Industry analysts said the numbers so far, though far lower than some previous spectrum auctions, aren’t surprising. The AWS-3 auction ended in 2015 at a record $44.9 billion and the 600 MHz TV incentive auction two years later at $20 billion.
The FCC electronic comment filing system, electronic document management system, Daily Digest, universal licensing system and network outage reporting system will remain up during the partial government and agency shutdown, said a public notice Wednesday. Shot clocks on deals will be paused, though some incentive auction activities will continue, the PN said. Comment deadlines also will be paused.
Whether the 3.5 GHz band paradigm becomes the new norm or a specialty tool for particular occasions was debated by FCC Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Jessica Rosenworcel at a WiFiForward coalition event Thursday. "It's almost radical," eschewing the binary approach of licensed vs. unlicensed spectrum and going instead with the hierarchy of incumbents, secondary licenses and opportunistic use, Rosenworcel said. She hopes that approach will be used in other bands globally.
The FCC has rarely held multiple spectrum auctions at once, but it’s not clear what industry wants the agency to do, Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale said at an FCBA lunch Wednesday. Meanwhile, the FCC started its first millimeter-wave auction, with bids coming in at just under $41.7 million after two rounds. It reported provisionally winning bids on 2,065 of the 3,072 28 GHz licenses for sale in the auction. The FCC plans three rounds Thursday, starting at 10 a.m.
Opening the 6 GHz band for unlicensed is seen by advocates as important to move many applications to the next level. There's pressure on the FCC to address the band. Commissioners approved an NPRM at their Oct. 23 meeting (see 1810230038).
Bipartisan interest in federal broadband funding mechanisms and criticism of FCC coverage data collection practices dominated Thursday's Senate Commerce Committee hearing on rural broadband, as expected (see 1810030055). The panel also became a forum for Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and other committee members to tout broadband-related legislation eyed for potential combination into a package bill (see 1807250056).
Since the original estimate of the broadcast station 600 MHz repacking price tag was off, there's no reason to think the predicted time frame for completion is any more accurate, said NAB Associate General Counsel Patrick McFadden Wednesday at the Americas Spectrum Management Conference. There was also a clash over the 6 GHz proceeding on October's FCC member-meeting agenda. "This is a big step forward," said 6 GHz Coalition counsel Paul Margie of Harris Wiltshire.
A 3.5 GHz draft spearheaded by Commissioner Mike O'Rielly would mandate the FCC auction priority access licenses (PALs) on a countywide rather than census-tract basis. The agency would increase license terms of the citizens broadband radio service PALs to 10 years with an expectation of renewal and take other steps designed to make an eventual PAL auction a success. The FCC Tuesday posted draft items for the Oct. 23 commissioners’ meeting (see 1810010027) to address two other wireless proceedings, revise rural telco and some price-cap business data service (BDS) regulation and "modernize" cable rate regulations and broadcast filing requirements.
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (D) slammed the FCC’s 5G infrastructure order and said his office “will consider all of our legal and political options to ensure that the voices of local communities are heard, to achieve a more inclusive vision of our digital future.” Local governments expect to challenge the FCC order adopted Wednesday (see 1809260029). “The new FCC rules undermine the ability of local communities to negotiate fair, market-based broadband deployment agreements that benefit all of our residents,” he said Wednesday in a statement. Liccardo, who quit the FCC’s Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee in January (see 1801250049), is “not surprised by this result,” he said. “Rather than encouraging balanced, common-sense recommendations that advance equitable broadband infrastructure deployment, the FCC’s move will force taxpayers to subsidize industry access to publicly-owned infrastructure -- with no obligation to serve the 34 million Americans in low-income and rural communities who remain on the wrong side of the ‘digital divide.’ Thousands of students in cities like San Jose will continue to have to borrow their friends’ smartphones while huddling outside of a Starbucks in order to get access to a wi-fi network they need to do their homework, due to the unwillingness of the federal government and telecommunications industry to serve them.” Commissioner Brendan Carr's spokesman fired back: “There’s a reason why zero small cells were deployed in San Jose. It’s Mayor Liccardo. Under his leadership, as he puts it, San Joseans have been ‘huddling outside of a Starbucks in order to get access to a wi-fi network.’" Wednesday's vote "is a win for them and for Americans across the country who want better, faster, and cheaper broadband," he said. The FCC is doing its part to open a path for the U.S. to lead the world on 5G, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a Washington Post opinion piece. “The FCC has been aggressively making more radio waves available for Americans to use,” Pai said. “Last year, we concluded the world’s first incentive auction, in which spectrum once used by TV broadcasters was sold to wireless companies to expand bandwidth and coverage for consumers. We’ve scheduled the United States’ first two high-band 5G spectrum auctions, which will begin later this year, and we are on track to auction off three more bands next year.” Infrastructure is also critical, Pai said. “To deploy the hundreds of thousands of small cells and miles of fiber needed for 5G, we need to streamline regulations,” he said. “We will never realize the 5G future if we impose federal, state, local and tribal regulatory burdens designed for large towers on every single small cell.”
Initial applications to bid in the FCC’s first high-band spectrum auctions were due 6 p.m. EDT Tuesday. The agency eventually will publish a list of short-form applications, both those deemed complete and incomplete. The 28 GHz auction starts Nov. 14 and 24 GHz auction about one month after completion of the 28 GHz auction. Cowen’s Paul Gallant wrote investors earlier Tuesday that one big question is whether Dish Network will jump in. “If Dish submits an application, it could complicate any merger or spectrum sale discussions with wireless carriers” because of anti-collusion rules, he noted: But talks are still possible as long as a company “cordons off its bidding team from its deal team.” Gallant is also watching other non-carriers that file applications. “No pre-auction analysis would be complete without noting the distant possibility of Amazon, Google or some other deep-pocketed, non-traditional bidder jumping in,” he said. Dish has gone big in other auctions, especially the AWS-3 and TV incentive auctions.