Will the Cablecos Be 700 MHz Bidders?

Sharon Armbrust | February 12, 2007, 03:35 PM

SpectrumCo, the Sprint and Cable MSO jv, weighed in at the FCC 1/11 with regard to the appropriate license sizes for the U.S. government’s upcoming auction of Upper 700 MHz spectrum. It proposed multiple licenses of different MHz and geographic sizes (as did T-Mobile and other mid-sized carriers), opposing a petition by DirecTV and Echo to auction a national license. An open question is whether its interest in the proceeding signals MSO interest in participating in the 700 MHz auction or is simply blocking and tackling against the satcasters, whom Cable MSOs wouldn’t relish seeing win a valuable swath of nationwide 700 MHz in one fell swoop. But its attention to the 700 MHz activity heightens anticipation over who will bid in that auction and with what size war chest. The big MSO consortium currently owns 20 MHz of spectrum won in the AWS auction. But a credible voice/broadband data offering probably needs 40 MHz+.

More similar to the DBS operator proposal, Verizon has also weighed in in favor of the large supra-regional license plan that is provisionally in place (6 covering the U.S. and Territories) vs the smaller metropolitan geographic area that were part of the AWS auction. The larger the license areas, the fewer the bidders there are who would be financially capable of participating. The current band plan for the upper 700 MHz auction calls for six 10 MHz licenses and six 20 MHz licenses to be auctioned—30 MHz in all.