WASHINGTON-Verizon Wireless has sent a blistering letter to the Federal Communications Commission charging that the FCC is illegally negotiating with Nextel Communications Inc. regarding a key portion of the FCC’s plan to solve public-safety interference in the 800 MHz band.
“We filed the attached letter with the FCC yesterday to expose, and demand a halt to, the private negotiations Nextel is engaged in at the FCC to cut its cost for getting the G-block spectrum. Nextel is trying to increase the ‘value’ of the spectrum it is returning,” said Jeffrey Nelson, Verizon Wireless executive director of communications.
The G-block is the highly contested spectrum in the 1.9 GHz band that Nextel receives as part of the FCC’s plan.
Nextel is to pay money into the Treasury if the value of the spectrum it returns and relocation expenses do not equal $4.86 billion-the value the FCC put on the G-block. The FCC has valued the 800 MHz and 700 MHz band spectrum that Nextel will relinquish as part of the reconfiguration at more than $1.6 billion.
The FCC declined comment.
Nextel declined to comment by press time.
Verizon uses as evidence of the secret negotiations an investor note released by Legg Mason Sept. 9, which reportedly says Nextel is attempting to reduce its payment by $600 million to $700 million.
“If the Legg Mason report is accurate, Nextel appears to be engaged in a post-decisional yet wholly non-transparent effort to significantly reduce its financial obligations to the U.S. Treasury. If such discussions have taken place, Nextel’s ex parte filings certainly do not put the public on notice that the company is seeking to increase the size of its windfall at the expense of the American taxpayer, by some $600 to $700 million,” wrote R. Michael Senkowski, outside counsel to Verizon Wireless. “There can be no serious question that a change with a $600 to $700 million impact to the U.S. Treasury must be subject to open and public debate. It cannot and should not be shoe-horned into an erratum, which the Legg Mason report suggests may be under consideration.”
