M2Z ‘pressing ahead’ amid AWS-3 auction delay

A cancelled hearing has not slowed down M2Z Networks Inc.
John Muleta, CEO of M2Z, insists that the FCC’s recent cancellation of a hearing to discuss auction plans for the AWS-3 spectrum has not weakened the company’s spirits.
Muleta still believes that the free broadband initiative M2Z has planned is a sound business model and will continue to push for the spectrum needed to run the service, despite the FCC’s announcement that it had cancelled its Dec. 18 meeting regarding the spectrum after receiving a harsh letter from Congress. The letter, from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) urged the FCC to keep its focus on the upcoming digital TV transition and put other tasks on the back burner.
“We will keep pressing ahead,” Muleta concluded. “Again, I think really, at the end of the day commissioners have a moral obligation.”
Muleta said it’s been difficult for him to understand the commission’s reasoning and wonders what time-consuming activities go along with the digital TV switch, especially since it’s once again delayed M2Z’s proposition.
“It’s a policy call,” Muleta said. “They say they’re going to do that and not move forward on any other issue, but they have not come out with what those activities are.”
M2Z has been pushing the FCC to allow it to use the AWS-3 spectrum to offer free broadband service. Muleta and his company have faced challenges from opposing carriers, most publicly T-Mobile USA Inc. The industry’s No. 4 operator has openly opposed M2Z’s plans for free broadband using AWS-3 spectrum, saying the service would interfere with its burgeoning 3G network that uses the AWS-1 spectrum the carrier spent more than $4 billion to acquire in 2006. T-Mobile USA has continually asked for more time to test and see if interferences actually exist.
“If you can delay the regulatory process, it causes entrepreneurs to back away,” Muleta said. “Carriers believe that if they delay things long enough our investors will quit.”
However, Muleta said that neither he nor his three investors, John Dorr, Jeff Yang or Bruce Sachs, are backing away anytime soon.
“These guys are truly long-term investors,” Muleta said.
Other than to reaffirm its position on the AWS-3 auction, T-Mobile USA declined to comment on the delay.
Muleta is not alone in his frustration with the delayed meeting. In a letter from the Institute for Policy Innovation last week, the organization voiced its disagreements with the FCC’s recent decision.
“The FCC cannot seem to give up on a vote for a proposal for auction 25 megahertz of spectrum to be used to create a government-sponsored ‘free’ national wireless network operated by a single provider, creating yet another government-mandated firm at risk for collapse and inevitable taxpayer bailout, unfairly undermining investment in networks currently under construction as well as the effective speed of broadband,” said Solveig Singleton, IPI adjunct and author of the IPI publication.”Policy makers should stay out of the business of designing broadband business models.”
Singleton went on to say that even though a government-favored wireless network would have little flexibility in altering its business models, it likely wouldn’t be allowed to fail.