Rep Eshoo to FCC: Rescind Spectrum Sales to AT&T, Verizon

In a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) wants the FCC to rethink its approval of deals putting high-band spectrum in the hands of AT&T and Verizon. The FCC's Wireless Bureau approved the transfer of millimeter-band (high-band) spectrum licenses from Straight Path to Verizon and FiberTower to AT&T in settlements with those companies for not building out the spectrum as they agreed to do when they acquired it. Rep Eshoo said the deals put too much valuable spectrum in the hands of companies that already had a lot, and that the FCC should have revoked the spectrum licenses of Straight Path and FiberTower and auctioned them rather than reward those companies with billions of dollars from the sales. Verizon paid more than $3 billion and AT&T about $2 billion for the spectrum. "The bureau-level decisions awarded investors in Straight Path and FiberTower multi-billion dollar windfalls at the expense of taxpayers," she told Chairman Pai. She complained that selling the spectrum to the largest incumbents further concentrated high-band spectrum with companies that dominated the low-band spectrum for decades.