Chairman Wheeler: Spectrum Auction Was Congress' Directive

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler says that the spectrum auction will clear the second most spectrum of any FCC auction, but that it was not the FCC's role but the marketplace's to determine that price or how much spectrum should be given up.

He was asked about the supposed demand for wireless beachfront spectrum given the demand that the auction revealed—broadcasters have been questioning that demand after the total broadcasters were willing to give up was reduced repeatedly after wireless companies declined to bid for the higher spectrum targets. Chairman Wheeler said it was Congress (in auction legislation) "that told us to create an auction that gave broadcasters an opportunity to sell their spectrum to us, and us to re-band it and turn around and sell it to wireless carriers." But it was Congress implementing an element of the National Broadband Plan offered up by the FCC and Chairman Wheeler's predecessor, Julius Genachowski. Chairman Wheeler said the FCC's job was to create the marketplace, "not so say 'this is how much spectrum has to clear, this is how much it has to generate.'" He said marketplaces "are frequently unpredictable."