WASHINGTON-A group of 310 C-block personal communications services licenses should be issued within the next two weeks, but it is doubtful that those won by NextWave Personal Communications Inc., PCS 2000 L.P., DCR PCS Inc. and Meretel Communications L.P. will be among them.
The Federal Communications Commission has begun looking at petitions to deny filed against the four along with oppositions to such petitions filed last week by the tentative licensees. A decision could be made within 90 days.
DCR PCS Inc., whose parent company is Pocket Communications, defended charges that its alien ownership potentially could exceed the FCC’s 25-percent rule if Pocket ever were forced to repurchase shares currently owned by Teleconsult, a Hispanic-owned small business with interests in DCR that contributes to the carrier’s standing as a small business.
“The theoretical possibility that Pocket might be forced to repurchase Teleconsult’s stock at some future time provides no basis*…*for treating Teleconsult’s present ownership of capital stock as if it does not exist,” DCR wrote. “Moreover*…*the determination of whether that repurchase would increase Pocket’s alien ownership above 25 percent would depend upon the equity structure of Pocket at that future time.”
PCS 2000 L.P., whose control group-which now does not include principal Susan Easton-has changed its name from Unicom Corp. to SuperTel, refuted claims made by Easton and WillowRun L.P. that being awarded 15 C-block licenses would be detrimental to Easton and WillowRun’s future. The peg upon which PCS 2000 hung most of its rebuttal was that both petitioners have pending partnership disputes with the C-block winner or with its principals and that such disputes are not considered by the commission to be a deterrent to awarding a license.
The tentative licensee also detailed how it solved problems regarding a bidding error made early in the C-block process and regarding alleged wrongdoing by certain PCS 2000 principals who no longer are a part of the company. PCS 2000 wrote that “there is no basis for delaying grant of the applications until after public comment on the `results’ of a supposed commission investigatio … The petitions represent nothing more than an effort by parties lacking standing to misuse the commission’s licensing process to pursue purely private claims.”
Disputing claims made by Antigone Communications L.P. and PCS Devco Inc., NextWave Personal Communications-the big C-block winner-pointed out in its opposition that neither entity was hurt by NextWave’s participation in the auction because both dropped out of the bidding before even half of the auction was over.
Regarding a more serious charge of attributable alien ownership, NextWave reiterated to the commission that the shareholder in question-Pohang Steel America Corp. along with its Korean parent-own 5.13 percent of NextWave, “far below the 25-percent threshold for nonattributable equity that would cause their assets and revenues” to be considered attributable. NextWave also wrote that attempts to calculate foreign ownership at more than 25 percent failed to take into account the control group’s Series A stock.
On a similar note, NextWave one again denied any allegations that Qualcomm Inc., a NextWave investor, is an attributable owner capable of exercising control over the licensee.
