Smaller 5 x 5 MHz licenses are far...

Smaller 5 x 5 MHz licenses are far preferable to bigger licenses in the AWS-3 auction, said Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute, in a meeting with various FCC offices, according to an ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/QchLvN). Most public interest groups “strongly oppose a band plan with block sizes premised on more than one 10 x 10 MHz license, particularly if both 10 x 10 MHz licenses use Economic Areas (EAs) as the geographic unit,” Calabrese said. “This would be a recipe for acquisition of 40 MHz by the two dominant national carriers, leaving one 5 x 5 license for all the rest of the industry to fight over.” Calabrese also supported Dish Network arguments that the FCC should extend the interoperability requirement in the AWS-3 band to cover the AWS-4 band at 2180-2200 MHz. “I asserted that it would damage the public interest if the AWS-4 band became ’stranded’ with respect to interoperability and access to the LTE devices otherwise available to carriers operating on 2110-2180 MHz post-auction,” said Calabrese.