Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
As I have mentioned before, there is nothing better than when large, faceless corporations act like small children, and thankfully AT&T this week provided me with some of that goodness.
You see, there is this 600 MHz “incentive auction” that the Federal Communications Commission has planned for sometime next year. This auction is sort of a big deal in that the spectrum up for grabs is (say it with me) “beachfront” and the auction process the FCC has set up to conduct the proceedings is exceedingly complicated. Like, real complicated and involving some large, faceless corporations acting like small children.
This auction is such a big deal that wireless carriers currently view themselves at a disadvantage spectrally to others who want the FCC to use this auction to lessen that perceived disadvantage by limiting the participation level of two of those large, faceless corporations. The FCC, under the new leadership from Tom Wheeler, has reportedly been swayed by these arguments with news earlier this week suggesting the FCC would indeed place some limits on the bidding activities of Verizon Communications and AT&T.
Well, this did not sit well with AT&T, which later in the week said that if the FCC does impose such bidding restrictions, it may take its billions of dollars somewhere else. No word on if AT&T will also hold its breath or keep swinging its arms until it gets what it wants.
While there are still a lot of variables involved in this high-stakes game to prevent me from calling it blackmail, AT&T’s wording on the matter would seem to push the labeling of the situation towards that conclusion. In a previous argument against bidding limits, AT&T claimed that for the FCC to meet revenue goals for the 600 MHz auction, which AT&T claims could top $30 billion, the government agency should not limit participation by those with the biggest wallets regardless of how dominant their position in the market.
“The Commission should instead be focused on ensuring that the wireless industry as a whole can raise the $30 billion in auction capital that may be needed to close an 84 [megahertz] auction, especially given capital commitments that will be made for the AWS-3 auction,” noted Joan Marsh, VP of federal regulatory at AT&T. “And notably, as we learned with the H-Block auction, there is no guarantee that all major operators will even show up.”
(Nice dig attempt by Marsh at claiming the H-Block auction was a failure, but somehow the FCC managed to get more than $1.5 billion for a measly 10 megahertz of spectrum that only one company really wanted.)
Some have questioned the voracity of AT&T’s argument, noting that it would seem highly unlikely a carrier the size of AT&T would really sit out an auction of spectrum seen to be as valuable as the 600 MHz band.
Not that I am not excited to see how this high-stakes game of chicken plays itself out, because, believe me, I am. Come on Wheeler. Don’t back down on this one. We all want to see a tractor accident.
And, it’s not like AT&T is the first to threaten bodily harm should it not get what it wants. At last year’s Competitive Carriers Association event in Las Vegas, a number of smaller carriers claimed they would be limited in their attempts to participate in spectrum auctions should the FCC not provide license sizes that they preferred instead of what their larger rivals wanted. These claims were backed by arguments that by not acquiescing to these demands, the FCC would be leaving money on the table. Sound familiar?
In the end, all I really care about is that these large, multi-million/billion dollar companies have the maturity level of a small child and are apparently not afraid to show it. Who cares how old you are. It’s really about how much money you have.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–I know the scale in which mobile devices are graded on begin and end with their specification sheets, but in the real world does it really matter if a device is powered by a 2.2 GHz quad-core processor or a 2.3 GHz quad-core processor, or how pixel-dense its screen is.
To me, the real ways mobile devices need to be graded is on how big is its battery and how will it survive being dropped from my buttery fingers. (Mmmmm, butter.) And thus, I say this is a step in the right direction in grading just how awesome mobile phones are.
–Ah, to be rich and have too much free time on your hands.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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