FCC maintains open stance on 700MHz spectrum

Stephen Withers
Monday, 15 October 2007 05:44

IT Policy - Regulation

The chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission has confirmed plans to require licence winners in the forthcoming 700MHz spectrum auction to allow customers to use the device or software of their choice.

"The license winners for about one-third of the spectrum will be required to provide a platform that is more open to devices and applications," FCC chairman Kevin Martin told the House of Representatives Committee on Small Business.

More than 60MHz of spectrum will be freed up as a result of the transition from analogue to digital television, and will be used instead for wireless broadband.

To prevent large companies from buying blocks of licences and then letting them lay fallow indefinitely, licence terms will set a series of benchmarks for coverage. Companies failing to meet the milestones will ultimately lose the rights to the unserviced areas.

Smaller businesses seeking to offer wireless broadband services will benefit from the relatively small areas covered by each licence, as well as a system of bidding credits for designated small businesses. The latter scheme resulted in half of the winning bids in the 2006 AWS-1 auction coming from designated entities.

The 700MHz auction is scheduled for January 24, 2008.