FCC Sets Pleading Cycle for Spectrum Deals

T-Mobile, Cricket, CIVS, Savary Island A, and Savary Island B, have filed a series of applications seeking approval to assign Personal Communications Service and Advanced Wireless Service licenses to effect proposed spectrum exchanges.

T-Mobile, Cricket, and CIVS will receive entire and/or partitioned licenses pursuant to the proposed assignments; these Applicants, along with Savary Island A and Savary Island B, also will be assigning entire and/or partitioned licenses as a result of the proposed spectrum exchanges. The Applicants state that the proposed assignments constitute license exchanges that will rationalize the spectrum to allow the Applicants to utilize spectrum more efficiently. The Applicants also state that a significant portion of the spectrum proposed to be assigned will occur as exchanges of spectrum within the same market and that these intra-market exchanges will allow efficiency benefits associated with larger blocks of contiguous spectrum and/or alignment of spectrum held in adjacent markets. The Applicants also assert that as a result of the proposed transactions, T-Mobile and Cricket will increase their presence in certain markets in which they already operate.