FCC commissioner: No 'plan b' in auction of TV airwaves to cell carriers

Appearing on C-SPAN's "The Communicators", Mignon Clyburn, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), expressed confidence in the agency's ability to execute its ambitious plan to auction off television stations' airwave licenses to cellular service providers.

"We have no plan B, there's a plan A. We're doing all that we can to make sure that there are market synergies, that there are market forces, that there are market opportunities that both the buyers and sellers can take advantage of," Commissioner Clyburn said. She said the auctions could be extremely beneficial to the United States and the FCC is working hard to make sure the process is underway by its 2014 deadline, so she's not concerned that wireless carriers will go to back Congress to ask for more spectrum. "It has the opportunity to bring more spectrum into play than we've seen in 25 years, so I am not concerned. We are doing all we can to make it all that it can be," Commissioner Clyburn said. "I'm not going to be speculative as to how much [spectrum] it will bring to market, but it has the potential to really put us on a firm pathway of meeting the needs of this nation by way of mobile engagement."