NextWave, FCC Close to Legal Settlement

A large, empty wedge of the country’s wireless spectrum may soon be freed for use by carriers in a settlement involving NextWave Telecom Inc. and the Federal Communications Commission.

Lawyers for the FCC and NextWave, along with four wireless telecom carriers, are close to resolving the legal dispute, which stems from NextWave’s successful $4.7-billion bid for 95 wireless licenses at auction in 1996, according to sources close to the talks.

A final deal could be announced as early as today, one source said.

FCC spokesman David Fiske declined to comment on the progress of negotiations.

The FCC seized the airwave licenses after NextWave sought bankruptcy protection in 1998, reauctioning them in January for almost $16 billion in a sale later vacated by a federal court. The FCC’s pending Supreme Court appeal against that decision will be dropped as part of the settlement, one source said.

The proposed settlement would hand $5 billion to Hawthorne, N.Y.-based NextWave. The FCC would be paid the remaining $11billion, sources said.

Companies that would receive the NextWave licenses include Verizon Wireless, investment partners of AT&T; Wireless Services Inc., the VoiceStream Wireless unit of Deutsche Telekom and Cingular Wireless.