The FCC should allow package bidding in the...
The FCC should allow package bidding in the spectrum incentive auction if it adopts the Competitive Carriers Association’s proposal that the commission use Partial Economic Areas (PEAs) as a geographic licensing area for the auctions, AT&T said Tuesday in a…
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filing (http://bit.ly/1cXfv0H). CCA argued that PEAs would be a beneficial midpoint between smaller Cellular Market Area licenses and larger Economic Area (EA) licenses (CD Nov 29 p17). It’s “all the more imperative” that the FCC allow package bidding if it uses PEAs as its licensing regime because it would “address the even greater exposure risks that would be created by more disaggregated license areas,” AT&T said in its filing. “As AT&T has previously shown, package bidding is necessary, even under an EA licensing regime, to avoid a bid-suppressing exposure problem that is well-recognized both in Commission precedent and in the auction literature. Shrinking the license areas only exacerbates that problem and accentuates the need for package bidding.” If the FCC doesn’t allow package bidding, “a carrier might well get stuck ‘winning’ unwanted licenses because it would have to bid separately for licenses in every geographic area within its footprint,” AT&T said.