Straight Path To Pay $100 Million Fine In Failure To Deploy Investigation

The Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau announced a settlement valued in excess of $100 million with Straight Path Communications to resolve an investigation of Straight Path’s failure to deploy wireless services as required under its FCC spectrum licenses.

The Enforcement Bureau investigated allegations that Straight Path violated the FCC’s buildout and discontinuance rules in connection with approximately 1,000 licenses in the 39 GHz and Local Multipoint Distribution Service GHz spectrum bands. These high frequency bands have been identified by the Commission as extremely valuable for use in the next generation evolution of wireless technology or “5G.” To settle this matter, Straight Path will pay to the United States Treasury a $100 million civil penalty, surrender to the Commission 196 of its licenses in the 39 GHz spectrum band, sell the remainder of its license portfolio, and remit 20 percent of the proceeds of that sale to the Treasury as an additional civil penalty.

“Squatting on spectrum licenses without any meaningful effort to put them to good use in a timely manner is fundamentally inconsistent with the public good,” said Travis LeBlanc, Chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau. “Wireless spectrum is a scarce public resource. We expect every person or company that receives a spectrum license to put it to productive use.”