GOP Senators Back Cable in Wireless Auction

Lawmakers: Cable Operators Should Be Allowed to Bid for 700-MHz Spectrum

By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 6/13/2007 12:14:00 PM MT

A group of Senate Republicans wants cable operators to have unfettered access to participate in an upcoming Federal Communications Commission auction that could earn the U.S. Treasury at least $10 billion.

“The FCC should not devise encumbering rules that suppress interest in the auction, including build-out requirements, restrictions on incumbent bidding, net-neutrality and open-access mandates,” the GOP lawmakers said in a June 13 letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican Bush appointee.

Signing the letter were Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), John Sununu (R-N.H.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), John Ensign (R-Nev.), Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and David Vitter (R-La.). All but Martinez hold seats on the Commerce Committee, the panel that directly oversees the FCC.

The FCC is several months from auctioning valuable airwaves now occupied by UHF TV stations, which will lose access to those channels after switching to digital transmission in February 2009. Congress is hoping that wireless broadband companies will pay at least $10 billion for the 60 megahertz up for sale.

Various public-interest groups, including Consumers Union and Media Access Project, have urged the FCC to ban cable and phone companies, claiming that the airwaves should go to those that want to inject competition into the high-speed Internet-access market. Those groups also insist that winning bidders wholesale 50% of their capacity to third parties that want to provide Internet access to mobile users.