FCC Looks to Delay Choice of High-Speed 3G Spectrum
Plunging the wireless industry into further turmoil, a top federal regulator is seeking to postpone the selection of spectrum for high-speed mobile Internet access and other advanced services.
The Federal Communications Commission had been expected to recommend next month which of two valuable blocks of airwaves would be auctioned to the industry for so-called 3G, or third-generation, wireless. Schools now use one block for wireless networking and educational television, and the military uses the other for defense operations.
But FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell, in a letter Tuesday to Commerce Secretary Don Evans, said the FCC needed “additional time . . . to allow the commission and the executive branch to evaluate the various options for making additional spectrum available for wireless services.”
The request comes four days after the federal appeals court here revoked the FCC’s sale of $17 billion in airwaves to Verizon Wireless Inc. and 20 other carriers and ordered them returned to bankrupt NextWave Telecom Inc. The court said the FCC could not repossess airwaves held by a bankrupt company until it completed its bankruptcy proceedings.
The latest delay--which had been sought by the wireless industry--probably will further slow the roll-out of the next generation of mobile phones.
The fight over advanced wireless communications represents a crucial challenge for the Bush administration. The world’s nearly 500 million wireless subscribers are projected to nearly triple to 1.3 billion in 2005--creating a $561-billion market in high-speed wireless Internet devices.
Military officials and educators have lobbied furiously to keep from being dislodged from their airwaves.
An official for California State University, whose educational facilities use airwaves being eyed by the FCC for possible 3G use, said she was disappointed by the delay.
“One of our big concerns . . . is the progress we could be making using this spectrum,” said Barbara Bennison, the university system’s director of federal relations. Instead, she said, “we are being stopped in our tracks” by the latest delay.
And in a potential blow to Sprint and WorldCom, the FCC might seek public comment on a proposal to expand the 3G airwave search to spectrum held by commercial fixed wireless providers, industry sources said.
An FCC spokeswoman declined comment.
Before leaving office, President Clinton had set a July 30 deadline for earmarking spectrum for 3G and slated an auction of the airwaves for 2002. Most experts believe the actual auction could now be delayed a year or more.
“No one has a good answer on 3G spectrum yet and it would be foolish to make a decision when you don’t have spectrum,” said Scott Blake Harris, a Washington communications lawyer who formerly headed the FCC’s international bureau.
