Last Sunday at church the main reading was the parable of the Prodigal Son. You remember the one, about the wealthy farmer with two sons. One son asks for his share of the family fortune and leaves home to squander his money on wine and women while the other son stays cautiously by his father’s side working on the farm. After a while, things are just not working out for the worldly son and he finds himself hungry and penniless, feeding slop to the animals on a pig farm. He decides to return home and ask his father’s forgiveness. He arrives at the farm and is greeted with open arms by his joyful father who welcomes him home and pardons his transgressions. At this the loyal, hard-working son is angered; the father has even thrown a party for the irresponsible son. The story made me think of the C-block auction:
Once there was a great opportunity for some young entrepreneurs to prosper and grow their business called the C-block auction for personal communications services. The wonderful and powerful Federal Communications Commission provided this opportunity for some smaller, less advantaged companies to enter this great new world of digital wireless communications. The FCC opened the bidding and before long the bids sky-rocketed to astronomical amounts of money for not all of the bidders were as small, disadvantaged or entrepreneurial as they first seemed.
Some cautious, conscientious bidders became disillusioned and discouraged and dropped out of the bidding. These responsible bidders could only sit back in amazement as the prices climbed higher and higher, and the bidding grew wilder and wilder, reaching a frenzied pace until finally the auction ended and a handful of companies emerged victorious with large footprints and hopeful plans for the future.
A few of the winners soon found themselves in dire straits, without financing, without money to build a network and without cash to pay for the licenses, for the rest of the world realized that the C block had been severely overvalued and therefore was not willing to invest in these “winners.”
The C blockers returned to the great FCC. “You must help us!” they cried and the soon the FCC responded, “We will draw up new options for C-block payments and provide additional flexibility for licensees exercising these options.” The commission did this, of course somewhat in its own interest for, “receiving some of the payments is better than receiving none at all. At one time, we had billions of dollars in revenue,” said the FCC. “That money was lost, but some of it may be recovered. It is a joyful day in auction land! Let us slaughter the fatted calf and celebrate for the Reconsideration Order has been released!” And the responsible bidders who had dropped out of the auction, grumbled to themselves.
