Categories: Insight

FCC provides opt-out from spectrum obligations

The US Federal Communications Commission is set to free several major operators from their commitments to pay up for spectrum licences. Several mobile companies in the US had bid a total USD 16 billion for the spectrum licences owned by bankrupt mobile company NextWave.

The FCC will reportedly propose that the carriers be allowed to opt out of the auction and thereby cut themselves free from the obligation to pay the government. The 63 spectrum licences were reclaimed by the FCC from the bankrupt NextWave in January 2001. The regulatory body then resold them at auction, receiving bids totalling some USD 16 billion for the various licences, including a sum of USD 8 billion bid by Vodafone’s joint venture with Verizon Communications, Verizon Wireless.

Marek Pawlowski

Marek Pawlowski is the founder of MEX. Since 1995, he has focused the MEX business on helping digital industries to develop better, more profitable products through improved understanding of user behaviour with mobile devices and wireless networks. MEX is best known for its events, research and consulting, which balance commercial, technical and user insights to define the future of mobile user experience.

Share
Published by
Marek Pawlowski

Recent Posts

Design Talk 80. Digitally sustainable; Mirren Fischer, Founder, Brilliant Product Design

Mirren Fischer is someone who finds herself at the confluence of some really big challenges:…

5 years ago

Design Talk 79. Our future towns; Dan Phillips, Royal College of Art

Poetry and place...listening and lockdowns... Dan Phillips, who led the Royal College of Art's (RCA)…

5 years ago

Design Talk 78. Mark Baldino, co-founder, Fuzzy Math

Mark Baldino's path to co-founding a Chicago-based design agency wends its way from a degree…

5 years ago

Design Talk 77. Paul Campbell, Chief Product Officer, Centaur Robotics

Paul Campbell, a former chief designer at Ford, is now re-imagining the wheelchair at Centaur…

6 years ago

Interaction unintended

Opening the oven released a cloud of steam. I should have been expecting it. It's…

6 years ago

Design Talk 76. Placeful computing; Jared Ficklin, Chief Creative Technologist & founding partner, argodesign

Jared Ficklin's approach of 'think by making' has led him to produce remarkable digital design…

6 years ago