Charter Pushes for More Reserve Spectrum

Charter Communications had more than the proposed Time Warner Cable deal on its mind, urging the Federal Communications Commission to make plenty of low-band spectrum available in the broadcast incentive forward auction to competitors to AT&T and Verizon. The FCC has proposed reserving 30 MHz of spectrum in the auction for competitive carriers, but Charter says it should be 40 MHz, which would allow for two potential competitors--20 MHz is needed for each of those. Charter agrees that the FCC should put some of the best "category 1" spectrum -- the least impaired by potential interference from TV stations repacked in nearby spectrum -- in the reserve, but also argues the FCC should include some of the second-best, rather than have no reserve where there are no essentially unencumbered (category 1) licenses.

"The Commission proposes to place Category 1 licenses (i.e., licenses with impairments that affect zero to 15 percent of the population) in the reserve, but not to place any Category 2 licenses (i.e., licenses with impairments that affect greater than 15 percent but less than or equal to 50 percent of the population) in the reserve," Charter said in a letter to the FCC about the upcoming incentive auction. "This proposal would effectively eliminate the reserve and foreclose bidding by competitive carriers in areas where there are no Category 1 licenses -- undermining the commission’s goal of using the reserve to advance competition and investment.Therefore, Charter urges the Commission to instead place the least impaired Category 2 licenses in the reserve in areas where there are no Category1 licenses rather than eliminating the reserve."