NextWave Dispute to Be Appealed

The Federal Communications Commission said Monday that it will ask the Supreme Court to settle its battle with NextWave Telecom over valuable airwaves licenses, even as the company said it has secured financing to pay $4 billion it owes the government.

NextWave confirmed that it has secured $5 billion in new financial backing and plans to use it to pay the U.S. government for licenses it won at auction in 1996. The company paid just $500 million to the FCC before filing for bankruptcy protection.

NextWave, which is based in Hawthorne, N.Y., detailed the financing in a reorganization plan it soon will file with a bankruptcy judge in White Plains, N.Y.

But the FCC said it will ask the Supreme Court to back its revocation of the NextWave licenses. The agency re-auctioned those licenses in January, when Verizon Wireless, VoiceStream and Alaska Native Wireless, which has ties to AT&T;, agreed to pay $17 billion.

Last month, a federal appeals court ruled that the government shouldn’t have resold the licenses, saying they were protected by bankruptcy laws. That decision conflicted with an earlier one by the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled the resale was appropriate.