FCC Initiates Review of Mobile Spectrum Holdings Policies to Enable a Healthy and Competitive Wireless Marketplace with Clear and Predictable Rules of the Road

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), initiating a fresh look at its mobile spectrum holding policies given the changes in technology, spectrum availability, and the mobile marketplace since the last comprehensive review of these rules more than a decade ago. In recent years, large and small wireless providers, as well as trade associations and public interest groups, have requested that the FCC review its current policies regarding mobile spectrum holdings to keep pace with market changes. With this NPRM, the FCC seeks comment on ensuring that its policies provide the certainty and predictability needed to make informed investment decisions, including participation in upcoming incentive auctions and secondary market transactions, while also promoting the competition needed to sustain a healthy wireless marketplace.

The NPRM seeks comment on a number of issues, including:

• Continuing the current approach to evaluating mobile spectrum holdings in the context of transactions and auctions—a case-by-case analysis, or moving to a different approach such as bright-line limits;
• Including additional spectrum bands in evaluating spectrum holdings;
• Updating the Commission’s geographic market analysis, including to consider the impacts of mobile spectrum holdings at the national as well as local levels;
• Whether the Commission should make distinctions among bands in assessing spectrum holdings; and
• Updating the Commission’s attribution rules.