Is the C-block PCS auction successful? Is it unsuccessful? Or, as Thomas Gutierrez and David LaFluria ask in an RCR guest article this issue, is it too successful?
The answer to these questions depends on your point of view. Yes, in terms of raising money for the U.S. Treasury, this auction is (understatement) successful. The New York basic trading area license is fetching $900 million dollars. If that money materializes-and doesn’t have the Monopoly logo on it anywhere-the auction has been extremely successful.
In terms of what the C-block entrepreneurial auction was designed to do, it hasn’t lived up to expectations as a way to allow small businesses, and specifically, women and minorities, a chance to compete in the new wireless telecommunications market.
But while the C-block auction has been lost for the small businessman, people are pointing to other ways to get into the PCS business, including construction, software development, equipment manufacturing, content production and reselling opportunities.
Good point. These are the areas where entrepreneurs will be better able to control their own destinies and where agencies like the Small Business Administration can help. (The average-sized SBA loan is $170,000, which is peanuts if one is planning to build a PCS network, but can contribute toward an ancillary small business opportunity.)
PCS is going to need resellers to get online quickly in order to compete with entrenched cellular operators. Besides, as a reseller, entrepreneurs aren’t limiting themselves to one technology or one type of service. Cellular service, products and accessories can be sold next to PCS items, depending on what the customer wants.
And wireless is still one of the hottest industries around, with 20,000 more jobs expected to be added this year, according to executive recruiters Christian & Timbers Inc.
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association echoed that sentiment by releasing year-end numbers that show cellular is booming with another 40 percent growth this year.
So perhaps instead of pinning hopes on the C-block auctions as a way to increase diversity in the wireless telecom arena-and seeing failure-we should look at the larger picture of wireless and figure out how to promote small business as part of a big industry.
Mark Head, a wireless reseller in Washington, D.C., may have the right idea. “No one really knows who is going to win the wireless revolution. Whomever wins, I will be selling their products.”
