Will The 600 MHz Incentive Auction Meet Short-term Spectrum Needs? – Carrier Wrap Episode 27

The Federal Communications Commission’s ongoing 600 MHz incentive auction is the latest attempt by the current leadership to meet President Barak Obama’s stated goal of freeing up 500 megahertz of new spectrum for wireless communications by 2020.

The FCC recently noted it hit the maximum 126 megahertz initial clearing target in the reverse auction process of the proceedings. More importantly for the mobile telecom industry, the FCC said 99.6% of the spectrum being offered up by television broadcasters have less than 15% interference impairment, with 99% of those set for no interference impairment from continuing television broadcasters.

Setting aside guard bands, the FCC said it plans to offer 10 blocks of spectrum, each with 10 megahertz of spectrum across most of the country. Those licenses will be split into 428 partial economic area coverage blocks, with a total of 4,030 licenses with less than 15% impairment and 18 licenses with between 15% and 50% impairment set to be included.

On this week’s Carrier Wrap, we speak with Angela Giancarlo, partner in the technology, media and telecom practice at Mayer Brown and former chief of staff for FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, to get her views on the current 600 MHz incentive auction process and how the auction is set to address short-term spectrum needs.

Make sure to check us out again next week when we are scheduled to speak with Berge Ayvazian, senior analyst at Wireless 20/20, to get his views on where the FCC and wireless carriers stand as the 600 MHz auction process continues towards forward bids.

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