FCC delays spectrum auction until August
by Paul Miller 
posted May 20th 2006 at 8:35AM
If you were planning to invite the guys over for everybody's favorite "spectrum auction night," you might want to rethink those plans. Turns out the FCC is delaying the advanced wireless services (AWS) auction from June 29 to August 9. They're excusing it by saying that applicants need more time to prepare for the sale, but there's another problem rearing its head that the FCC might be buying time to deal with: Three small companies are threatening to sue the FCC over the recently revised designated entity rules, which were ironically changed to help out small companies in competing against the big carriers for wireless spectrum. Those very major carriers are fine with the new designated entity rules, which make it harder for large carriers to use small organisations to nab spectrum for them, and want to go ahead with the auction as soon as possible. We're not quite sure what to make of this, but it looks like there might be quite the legal battle, which just means more months between us and that golden dream of free national wireless broadband.[Via Phone Scoop, thanks Marty]
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