FCC Plans Spectrum Auction

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed to include a slice of spectrum now controlled by the military in its first significant auction of airwaves in half a decade. The move comes after the Defense Department offered to compromise with wireless carriers and relocate its operations from spectrum now used for purposes like training pilots in the Pentagon's drone program.

A provision in a congressional jobs bill in 2012 mandated that the FCC license spectrum in the 2155-to-2180 megahertz band by February 2015. Carriers have pressed to include spectrum in the 1755-to-1780 megahertz band as well in order to create complementary channels for uploading and downloading mobile data. The FCC issued what is known as a notice of proposed rulemaking, indicating that it plans to auction spectrum across several bands, including 1755-to-1780 megahertz. Taken together, the next auction will be known as AWS-3, the FCC said. It is the first significant auction since 2008, and it is expected to take place in the fall of 2014. Now that the FCC has proposed rules, interested parties have until Oct. 16 to weigh in.