Auctions

The Federal Communications Commission adopted the following items scheduled for consideration at the Wednesday, January 13, 2021, Open Meeting:

Looking ahead, the biggest challenge facing the long-term health of the FCC’s universal service programs is the way they are funded. We are in a unique position to solve this challenge. Here’s how. Back when I was a Commissioner in 2016, I proposed that Congress should authorize a dividend from the sale of wireless spectrum that would go toward closing the digital divide. Whenever the FCC auctioned spectrum for flexible use, we would set aside 10% of the net auction proceeds for the deployment of broadband in unserved communities. I thought it was a good idea then.

In addition to five panels summarizing the work of the Federal Communications Commission over the past four years, the commission will consider the following --

Although Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has yet to issue any plans for narrowing the liability protections for tech companies, as President Donald Trump and some conservatives want, he’s been keeping busy. Chairman Pai is attempting to knock out objectives by circulating proposals for votes rather than holding formal ones during the FCC’s last official meeting under him on Jan.

The House of Representatives’ end of the year omnibus includes:

More than $7 billion in broadband funding as part of COVID-19 relief to:

We’ve been asked to talk today about finding the right balance when it comes to regulating the 5G marketplace. India Mobile Congress' organizers have made no secret about their favored approach when they titled this session “Light Touch Regulation.” Fortunately, I share this approach, so you’ll hear no complaints from me. It is in our mutual interest for the U.S. and India to work together not only on 5G security, but on issues across the communications landscape and beyond.

The Federal Communications Commission kicked off its latest 5G spectrum auction, making available 280 megahertz of prime mid-band spectrum in the 3.7-3.98 GHz band—a portion of the C-band. This is the FCC’s largest midband 5G spectrum auction to date. The first round of the clock phase of the auction will start Dec 8 at 10 a.m. ET. This auction will offer 5,684 new flexible-use overlay licenses based on Partial Economic Areas (PEAs) for spectrum in the 3.7–3.98 GHz band.

On spectrum, we’ve been the most aggressive and successful Federal Communications Commission in history. With three high-band auctions, we’ve made available more spectrum for commercial use than was previously used by all mobile broadband providers in the United States combined. We’ve already finished repurposing low-band spectrum in the 600 MHz band for mobile broadband, which is now being used to provide 5G service coverage to more than 250 million American. And over the past couple of years, we’ve been primarily focused on mid-band spectrum.

The C-band auction gets underway Dec 8, pitting 57 entities against one another for coveted mid-band wireless spectrum. All three major mobile carriers, as well as smaller carriers, cable companies, fixed wireless internet service providers (WISPs) and others have qualified to bid in the auction, also known as Auction 107 or the 3.7 GHz auction. The C-band includes 280 MHz of spectrum between 3.7 and 3.98 GHz. It’s viewed as mid-band spectrum well suited to 5G deployment because it is seen as offering the optimum mixture of range and speed.

On Dec. 8, the Federal Communications Commission will begin selling off another swath of wireless spectrum to accelerate the country’s march toward the full promise of 5G. In an auction projected to yield as much as $50 billion to the U.S. Government, 57 companies have qualified for the opportunity to bid on 5,684 spectrum licenses to serve 406 partial economic areas — or markets — throughout the US. There’s gold in those 5G airwaves. The path to profit and preeminence depends almost entirely on how much spectrum the companies can garner from the US government.