United States Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards has called on the Federal Communications Commission to set spectrum auction rules "that ensure that the airwaves benefit everyone, not just big companies."
Edwards, a Democrat, spoke today at Google's Mountain View, California headquarters. His press release coincides with MoveOn.org [2]'s campaign to get the FCC to reform its impending auction of spectrum in the 700 MHz region, known to the industry as a "beachfront band," ideal for common broadband services.
Edwards' recommendations are similar to those advocated by a consortium of public interest groups called the Ad Hoc Public Interest Spectrum Coalition. He calls for the FCC to:
- Set aside half the auctioned spectrum for small companies that seek to serve rural and other under served areas.
- Require auction winners to adhere to non-discrimination or "net neutrality" rules.
- Establish anonymous bidding rules so as to prevent collusion among auction contestants. The Commission has established some non-collusion safeguards [2], but only if a relatively small number of bidders participate in an auction.
"By setting bid and service rules that unleash the potential of smaller new entrants, you can transform information opportunity for people across America—rural and urban, wealthy and not," Edwards' statement concluded.
The Ad Hoc group includes Free Press, Educause, the Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America, the Media Access Project, the New America Foundation, Public Knowledge, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Their recommendations go well beyond Edwards', and include:
- excluding incumbent spectrum owners from the auction, or creating a "new entrant" credit, essentially a discount that will allow smaller bidders to compete with established deep pocketed rivals.
- establishing a "use or lose" clause to prevent auction winners from "warehousing" their spectrum, rather than rolling it out to full availability
Google has also filed comments on the auction that, while agreeing with many of the Ad Hoc groups' proposals, play down the auctions' significance.
"There is no clear evidence that a wireless commercial platform based on available 700 MHz spectrum can compete effectively with entrenched broadband incumbents," the company wrote to the FCC on May 23d.
The filing reiterates the company's efforts to get the agency to permit "unlicensed devices" to access temporarily unused 700 MHz spectrum, also known as "white space." [2]
"Google views the unused slices of spectrum between TV channels as key to the development of, among other things, innovative new applications utilizing non-interfering low-power devices," its statement discloses.
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