Bureaus Won’t Deny D-Block Long Forms if Negotiations Fail
The FCC staff won’t immediately reject the long form application of the D-block auction winner if it can’t reach a network sharing agreement with the public safety licensee, said the Public Safety and Wireless bureaus in an auction procedures notice posted late Friday to the commission’s website. In its 700 MHz rules, the agency created a public- private broadband wireless network using 12 MHz of spectrum from public safety and the 10 MHz D-block license. The D- block auction winner must negotiate a sharing agreement with the public safety licensee, expected to be the Public Safety Spectrum Trust. The D-block winner won’t receive its license until the agreement is approved.
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The rules allowed the bureaus to reject the long-form application if the sharing negotiations failed. But either the bureaus will issue a decision on the disputed issues requiring the parties to reach an agreement or the staff will refer the matter to the full commission. The FCC’s action removed “a key issue of uncertainty,” said Frontline, which has shown interest in bidding for the D-block. “Investors can rely on the commission to not impose a penalty over the failure to enter into a network sharing agreement that would contain any term that was unfair or unreasonable.”
The FCC also reduced the default penalty for the D-block to 10 percent from 15. If the D-block auction winner doesn’t reach a sharing agreement with public safety and doesn’t make its final payment for the license, it will be charged 10 percent of its bid or of the later winning bid, whichever is less. The default penalty for the A, B and E blocks remain 15 percent, the agency said. “We recognize that factors that may contribute to a default by a winning bidder for the D- block may be different in nature from those affecting winning bidders in other blocks,” the FCC said.
In other D-block action, the Public Safety Spectrum Trust will release preliminary details of its broadband wireless network by Nov. 15, its board said late Friday. The document, will provide “sufficient detail to potential D- block auction bidders,” said trust Chairman Harlin McEwen. “This network must work for all parties or it won’t work for any.” Some details of the network will have to be negotiated in the sharing agreement, the trust said.