FCC sets Jan. 16 date for 700MHz auction

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor -- Electronic News, 8/20/2007

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has set the auction for 1,099 licenses in the 700MHz band to start on January 16, 2008.

The spectrum, which runs from 698MHz to 806MHz, and is currently occupied by television broadcasters, will be vacated with television's move to digital transmission. The details of the spectrum's next usage have become an increasingly hot topic of late, as the Digital Television and Public Safety Act of 2005, which set a firm deadline of February 17, 2009 for the completion of the DTV transition, requires the FCC to commence an auction of the previously unauctioned commercial spectrum in the 700MHz band no later than January 28, 2008.

For months now, corporations and regulators have been debating the best and fairest way in which to utilize the much-coveted 700MHzs of communications real estate. Last month, the FCC revised the 700MHz band plan and service rules to allow for a portion of the spectrum to have "open access," that is, a nationwide interoperable broadband network not controlled by a single telecommunications carrier. The decision was influenced in large part by an industry group led by Google and including Intel, Yahoo, and eBay, which lobbied the FCC to set aside part of the 700MHz spectrum in the auction for open public use, so that corporate telecom providers do not have complete rule over the addition to the wireless landscape. Under the ruling the FCC made in July, 62MHz of spectrum, divided into five spectrum blocks, will be auctioned for commercial uses; one of the spectrum blocks to be auctioned -- the large, 22MHz upper 700MHz C block -- will be required to provide a platform that is "more open" to devices and applications.