AT&T is vowing a fight, but if the carrier’s $39 billion buy of T-Mobile falls through, one big implication is ramped up pressure on federal policymakers to get more spectrum online quickly for wireless broadband, industry officials and analysts said Thursday. Pressure was already strong for the FCC and NTIA to make good on administration promises to make another 500 MHz available for broadband.
NAB President Gordon Smith has a connection to the new staff director for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. The committee’s co-chairs -- Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas -- announced Tuesday that Mark Prater, Republican deputy staff director and chief tax counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, will lead staff on the so-called “supercommittee.” Prater’s wife Lori worked for Smith from 2003 to 2008 in the Senate. Mark Prater himself has not focused specifically on telecommunications but has dealt with broader tax issues that affect telecom companies, a telecom lobbyist said. Last year, for example, he helped pass a bill with language removing wireless devices from IRS “listed property” rules, the lobbyist said. Prater also spoke about telecom tax issues at a 2004 summit hosted by USTelecom and Deloitte. The select committee is expected to consider spectrum auctions as it looks this fall for $1.5 trillion (CD Aug 11 p1) in budget cuts and revenue increases. The six Republicans on the select committee met Tuesday on Capitol Hill. The full group is expected to formally meet soon after Congress returns from recess Sept. 6. NAB didn’t respond to a request for comment.
As the FCC seeks authority from Congress to do incentive spectrum auctions to clear part of the TV band, little consensus seems to exist about how much it will cost to move the remaining TV stations onto new channels and make room for wireless broadband services. On the lower end of estimates, CTIA and CEA projected in February it would cost about $565 million to move the stations, citing NTIA data that the cost of buying and installing a new antenna and transmitter would be $898,000 per station. But NAB has told the FCC it will cost the industry roughly $2.5 billion. And legislation in the Senate would set aside $1 billion for repacking costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Broadcast technical consultants we interviewed also had a range of estimates for the costs, but they were reluctant to extrapolate what the entire cost of repacking could be because so many variables remain. “So much of it depends on what the commission will do,” said consultant Merrill Weiss.
Building a national wireless broadband network for public safety is the top telecom priority this fall for the Senate Commerce Committee, committee aides said. House Democratic and Republican staff, meanwhile, have continued discussions on spectrum legislation through the August recess, House officials said. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., also is closely watching the FCC as it attempts to overhaul the Universal Service Fund and the committee may have a hearing on the AT&T/T-Mobile deal, his spokeswoman said. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are poised to move their Congressional Review Act rebuke of the FCC’s net neutrality order.
The FCC should work with the White House to see how tax certificates for selling media properties to minorities “could be worked into legislation to incentivize broadcasters to participate in spectrum auctions,” the Minority Media and Telecom Council said. Representatives met with FCC Chief of Staff Eddie Lazarus, MMTC said in a filing posted Friday to docket 09-182 (http://xrl.us/bk9g72). “A significant portion of the Commission’s research efforts should be used to research the Diversity Committee’s recommendation on creating an Overcoming Disadvantages Preference and completing disparity studies,” it said of the agency’s panel. The group also asked the regulator to relax foreign ownership policies, to “provide struggling broadcasters with capital and open the door for potential reciprocal investment in other countries.” The minority tax certificate program was rescinded by Congress in 1995, over concerns it was abused.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., appointed Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn, D-S.C., Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., to the Congressional joint select committee on deficit reduction. Clyburn is the father of FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. House and Senate leaders earlier this week (CD Aug 11 p1) named the special committee’s other nine members, including House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass. The select committee is expected to consider spectrum auctions this fall during its search for $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years.
Three Commerce Committee members will be on Congress’s joint select committee on deficit reduction. Late Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he appointed Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass. On Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, selected House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., chose Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. The lawmakers’ presence on the committee may increase the chances that spectrum is part of final legislation, lobbyists and industry analysts said.
Get ready for a busy autumn on spectrum legislation after Sunday’s debt limit compromise by congressional leaders and President Barack Obama, Hill and industry officials said. The debt limit agreement had no spectrum provisions. Auctions may still be an attractive option for a joint select committee set up by the proposal to find $1.5 trillion in additional savings from 2012 t0 2021 by mid-November, the officials said Monday. The House was expected to vote Monday night on the debt compromise, with a Senate vote to follow.
The National Religious Broadcasters warned that Senate Democrats’ debt limit plan could hurt non-commercial broadcasters. The plan by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would authorize voluntary incentive auctions. “Religious television broadcasters were called on by Congress to make significant sacrifices in the move to digital television and subsequent spectrum auctions just a few years ago,” said NRB General Counsel Craig Parshall. “With questions about current broadband spectrum allocations not being fully utilized, we wonder if a new auction is truly necessary.” If Congress moves ahead with an auction, lawmakers should “seek out and include explicit provisions and protections that fairly honor the services and investments of religious full power, Class A, and low power television broadcasters in their local communities,” Parshall said.
"Just in case,” a senior House Republican introduced the Senate debt limit proposal by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Calif. As Congress continued to wrangle over the debt limit, House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif., introduced the Reid plan late Thursday as HR-2693. “Dreier intro'd it as a just in case,” a Dreier spokesman told us. “It’s not being considered.” Using exactly the same language as Reid, Dreier’s bill (HR-2693) reallocates the 700 MHz D-block to public safety and provides $7 billion for the building of the network. It also authorizes voluntary incentive and other spectrum auctions. The bill was referred to several House committees: Budget, Commerce, Education, Rules, Science and Ways and Means.