FCC Stops Clock on Verizon-SpectrumCo and Verizon-Cox

On June 25, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile filed five applications requesting Federal Communications Commission approval for the full and partial assignments of certain AWS-1 licenses by and between Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile. The licenses that Verizon Wireless would assign to T-Mobile include 47 licenses (covering all or portions of 98 CMAs) that Verizon Wireless has proposed to acquire from SpectrumCo and Cox Wireless, as well as from Leap Wireless International. T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless state that assignments proposed in the T- Mobile/Verizon Wireless Applications are contingent upon regulatory approval of these other pending applications.

Given the express connection between the T-Mobile/Verizon Wireless Applications and the Verizon - SpectrumCo and Verizon Wireless - Cox Applications pending in WT Docket No. 12-4, the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau issued a Public Notice on June 26 establishing a 14-day period in which interested parties can comment on the impact of the T-Mobile/Verizon Wireless Applications on the transactions in this docket. In light of this comment period, the FCC is stopping for 14 days the commission's informal 180-day clock for the proposed Verizon Wireless - SpectrumCo and Verizon Wireless - Cox transactions in WT Docket No. 12-4, effective June 26 and restarting on July 10, 2012, which will be Day 138.

Petitions to Deny the newly-announced transaction are due July 10, 2012; Oppositions are due July 17; Replies are due July 24.