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White House backs plan to reserve 700MHz 'D Block' for public safety network
Public safety agencies in the US have been pushing for some time to have the so-called 'D Block' portion of the 700MHz wireless spectrum all to themselves, and it looks like they can now officially count on the support of the White House in that effort. The Obama administration announced today that it's backing plans to reserve the airwaves -- estimated to be worth $3 billion if they were auctioned off -- for a new national public safety network, and it also plans to ask Congress to approve the additional spending needed to actually build out the network, which the FCC estimates could cost as much as $15 billion. As The Wall Street Journal notes, the fate of the proposed network is now largely in the hands of House Republicans, who remain divided on the plan -- although some key members have come out in support of it in recent days.
Public safety agencies want D Block for themselves, FCC still seeking auction
The 700MHz 'D Block' has been the subject of much debate over the past few years, primarily because the FCC's master plan to auction it off -- yet require the winner to open up the waves for public safety use on command -- didn't exactly pan out. Post-failure, the agency made clear its plans to host up another auction or two in order to accomplish the same goal via slightly different means, but now public safety entities are coming forward with a healthy amount of opposition. Rob Davis, head of the San Jose Police Department, puts it bluntly: "If they auction this spectrum, we've lost it forever." These public safety officials also have allies in Congress, with many worried that auctioning off the spectrum may lead to an inability to accurately wield bandwidth in a hurry if needed during a national emergency. The FCC plan also alleviates the cost issue, but public advocates have a solution there as well -- they say that if given the 'D Block' outright, they could "lease excess airwaves to commercial carriers since they would not always need all of it." Of course, that's a pretty big assumption about the willingness of carriers to lease space, and we suspect a lot more back-and-forth will go on here in the coming months. Oh, the drama.
FCC expects 700MHz 'D Block' to see auction in 2011
Birds fly, grass grows, and the FCC auctions off wireless spectrum. It's just one of those inevitable facts of life. In 2008, the Commission sure sold plenty of the stuff, with both AT&T and Verizon trading billions of dollars for enough building-penetrating 700MHz bandwidth to start LTE networks (that's 4G, vaquero!) as early as next year. One huge chunk of spectrum didn't sell, however: the infamous Block 'D,' subject to a unique FCC mandate that required it to be shared with first responders and government agencies for public safety. Last we heard, 'D' was in limbo awaiting a new auction, but Reuters reports that said wait may be nearly over. According to Jamie Barnett, the FCC's Chief of Public Safety, the entity could test the waters as early as this summer, and start Auction 76 in earnest by Q1 or Q2 of 2011. Who might bid at that late date is still uncertain -- would-be 4G competitors will be way behind Verizon and AT&T by that time -- but it seems a mighty fine idea for paramedic phones to work while buried under rubble, regardless.
700MHZ public safety "D Block" might be going regional for a new FCC auction
Yeah, this does nothing for your own mobile surfing habits, but the FCC's desires to create a much-needed national wireless broadband standard for various public safety agencies are seeing a much-needed push. The safety-allotted 700MHz "D Block" didn't meet its reserve price in the auction earlier this year, since nobody thought they could manage a profit building and running a national public safety network. The new plan is to divvy up the spectrum space into regional licenses, but the FCC's auction strategy is two-fold. They've reduced the reserve price on the national network, and if a single bidder hits that $750 million pricetag the FCC will be selling the spectrum whole. Meanwhile they'll be running a piecemeal auction for 58 regional licenses, but they have to collectively pony up more than the single license auction nets. Mixed in with all this is an even more complicated winner-takes-all competition between WiMAX and LTE -- a win either way in the public sector could give the commercial proponents that edge they need in the consumer market. The FCC's going to decide on these crazy proposals on September 25th.
Update on the 700MHz auction: "C" block at $4.3 billion and rising
Here's some up to date 700MHz bidding news for you. Currently, bids on the hotly contested "C" block have risen to almost $4.3 billion, or just a few dollars away from the FCC's reserve price of $4.6 billion. That number puts us perilously close to triggering the "open-access rule" which pretty much everyone (Google especially) has been clamoring for (or fighting). The total bids on the spectrum are also hovering near the $10 billion mark, which has been the FCC's goal all along, ostensibly demonstrating that everything is going according to plan. There is one small snag, with the "D" block -- the public safety / first responder band -- not seeing the kind of action the agency had hoped for, nabbing only $472 million in bids, a far cry from the minimum requirement of $1.6 billion. Of course, bidding has six weeks to go, so no one seems to be sweating just yet, though "lawmakers" are swearing they'll take "quick action" if the numbers don't rise.[Thanks, Aaron]Read -- 700Mhz Auction Approaches $10 BillionRead -- House Panel Bird-Dogging 700MHz Auction
700MHz hopeful Frontline "closed for business"
There's a bit of a mystery emerging on the 700MHz auction front. Frontline Wireless, which has made no secret of its desire to bid and win on the D-block spectrum, has a released a statement saying "Frontline is closed for business at this time. We have no further comment." At the risk of stating the obvious, we'd say that it's a rather inconvenient time for the company to be "closed for business," and this could spell doom for the company's efforts in the 700MHz auction -- or not, there's really no way to tell at this point, and Frontline's industry connections run deep, including a sketchy sounding partnership with "Backline." In time all will be made clear, but for now we've got to wait out this silent auction with everybody else, which may or may not include Frontline Wireless.Update: Both GigaOm and the New York Times are reporting that apparently Frontline Wireless was unable to raise the deposit required to participate in the auctions. What boggles is that the $128 million required up front is a pittance compared to the money spent in the actual bidding process. While it's sad to see that Frontline has lost the keys to "unlocking the value in 700 MHz" we're stoked for the fun to get started.
