WASHINGTON-The bankruptcy judge overseeing NextWave Telecom Inc. has given the company until Dec. 6 to file its reorganization plan and until Feb. 11, 2005, to solicit comments on it. The proposal will detail the company’s plans for its remaining assets following the sale of its spectrum to Verizon Wireless last week.
The order signed Wednesday by Judge Adlai Hardin Jr. is the latest in a series of extensions NextWave has received this fall as it plans to emerge from bankruptcy.
When it filed its last extension request Oct. 26, NextWave said it would file its reorganization plan by Nov. 12 and solicit comments until Jan. 25, 2005.
Last week, NextWave said it was selling its PCS licenses to Verizon Wireless for $3 billion as part of an overall reorganization strategy.
“NextWave has signed an agreement with Verizon concerning our PCS licenses, but we need to file a plan of reorganization showing how that agreement will be implemented and including proposals regarding the future deployment of the rest of the company’s assets. That plan, in its entirety, must be submitted to the court for review and to the company’s creditors and shareholders for approval,” said Michael Wack, NextWave senior vice president and deputy general counsel.
The company has consistently pushed back the deadline for detailing its reorganization strategy.
NextWave won a long and involved legal battle with the Federal Communications Commission almost two years ago. Since then NextWave has been selling its assets, all the while maintaining it still plans to go forward with its business plan to lease its spectrum to carriers that want to use it to offer wireless data services.
Earlier this year, NextWave held a private auction of three licenses. It sold its New York license for $930 million to Verizon Wireless and its Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater and Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla., licenses to MetroPCS for $43.5 million. NextWave last year raised $1.4 billion by selling 34 PCS licenses to Cingular Wireless L.L.C.
Verizon Wireless had previously bid on a number of NextWave’s licenses during the FCC’s attempt to re-auction those licenses in early 2001.
