Frontline Wireless Wins Over FCC Chairman In Run-Up To 700-MHz Auction

FRONTLINE WIRELESS WINS OVER FCC CHAIRMAN IN RUN-UP TO 700-MHZ AUCTION
[SOURCE: InformationWeek 5/8, AUTHOR: Richard Martin]
Speaking at a civic group luncheon in Silicon Valley last week, FCC chairman Kevin Martin gave his clearest indication yet of how he thinks the upcoming auction of 700-MHz spectrum for wireless broadband services should be structured. "One of the things that I think we need to do is [to consider] the potential to have some synergies between the two, some public-private partnerships that would allow for cross-utilization of the spectrum," Chairman Martin said. "Public safety [agencies are] coming to us to say they don't have the resources to build out a next-generation [wireless] network. The question is one of how to work with the private sector." He then described an auction in which two-thirds of the 60 MHz of available bandwidth would be reserved for smaller local players, and the remaining 20 MHz would be offered to larger players to create an entity that "can compete effectively with established phone and cable carriers." That sounds an awful lot like the proposal put forth by Frontline Wireless, a startup headed by a trio of veteran telecom executives including Reed Hundt, himself the former FCC chairman. Backed by prominent Silicon Valley investors including Netscape founder Jim Barksdale and John Doerr of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Frontline is proposing the building of a nationwide broadband network that would be available for public safety use during emergencies and leased to commercial carriers at other times. To ensure that it can successfully compete against the major wireless carriers AT&T (formerly Cingular) and Verizon Wireless, Hundt's group has asked that a portion of the valuable spectrum be set aside in the auction for smaller players.
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