RWA is a member of SaveWirelessChoice, a coalition of public interest groups, wireless carriers, consumer and trade groups. The coalition released the statement below in response to the FCC Open Meeting vote on incentive auction procedures.
As representatives of the competitive wireless industry and its stakeholders, we are pleased that the Commission locked in an unprecedented spectrum reserve, but are obviously disappointed it was not expanded to 40 MHz and a single, simplified reserve trigger was not adopted. The spectrum reserve is a critical competitive safeguard to prevent AT&T and Verizon, which already control 73% of the low-band spectrum available in the U.S., from walking away with all the spectrum. We applaud the Chairman for making sure the best spectrum is assigned to the reserve, and commend Commissioner Clyburn for her efforts to include a ‘circuit breaker’ mechanism as a safeguard that the Commission will use if bidding irregularities are detected.