AT&T, Frontline Petition FCC To Change 700 MHz Auction Rules

More companies have come out against the rules set by the FCC for the upcoming 700MHz auction, with both AT&T (NYSE: T) and Frontline filing petitions with the FCC to reconsider the rules for the auction. This falls short of the move by Verizon (NYSE: VZ), which went straight to the US Court of Appeals to get the open-access provisions removed from the auction. For its part, AT&T wants the FCC to reconsider the requirement for the winner of a block of spectrum to build a nationwide broadband network for public safety agencies.

Frontline, the start-up which proposed special rules for the auction, is asking the FCC (again) to require that the winner of a portion of spectrum be forced to resell it at wholesale rates. “Wholesaling is also the only model a new nationwide wireless network operator could realistically afford to adopt, given the massive costs associated with providing retail service — consider Verizon’s 2,300 retail outlets and its $1.9 billion annual advertising budget,” Frontline said in its petition. Of course this would give new entrants a boost, since the FCC would effectively be mandating a business model for the spectrum which they’d have to adopt anyway. Frontline is also upset that the FCC didn’t include credits (bidding discounts) for small business wholesalers, and argued the minimum reserve for the two blocks of spectrum are too high — especially considering the roll-out which would be required to meet other requirements in the auction.

There’s a school of thought that says that if you aren’t pleasing anyone you must be doing something right by finding the middle ground, but I’m not sure it applies in this case… RCRNews has a piece on the auction saying it “could give birth to an unprecedented infrastructure that could serve countless rural consumers as it provides a crucial boost to the nation

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