FCC Foresees 'Significant' Participation in Incentive Auction

The FCC expects “significant” broadcaster and wireless industry interest in March's incentive auction, said Howard Symons, vice chairman of the FCC's incentive auction task force, Thursday at NAB's Content and Communications World show in New York. Agency representatives have met with hundreds of broadcasters about the auction, but Symons gave no specifics on level of participation expected. "The interest is broad and deep," he said, the same as it is among carriers.

Beyond wireless companies that have publicly expressed interest, such as AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, the FCC also expects at least one "nontraditional" participant, Symons said, but didn't elaborate: "We're setting a place at the table." He also demurred on how the FCC would define a successful auction, except to say it would be one that "repurposes a significant amount of spectrum." The agency has no predetermined notion of how much spectrum it wants to change hands, Symons said.

Symons said agency staff had no significant work left on the auction conduct and mechanisms, with the next major step being the Dec. 8-Jan. 12 window for broadcasters filing to show they're interested in participation, though such a filing doesn't commit one to participating, Symons said. Within the next couple of weeks, the FCC will put on a webinar walk-though for broadcasters on procedures and filling out Form 177 on its Auction 1000 website, he said: "Our priority now is bidder education."

Completing that form will require "just what you'd expect," Symons said, including contact and license information, plus preferred bidding options such as going off air or moving from UHF to Hi-V. Information about who's taking part and preferred bidding options will be used to calculate the clearing target, he said. Checking any preferred option doesn't commit a broadcaster to choosing that option, but not choosing an option means being it "won't be available to you in the bidding," he said.

The clearing target likely will be announced sometime in late April or early May, Symons said. The reverse auction will be done in up to 52 rounds, with one to a small handful being done per day, he said. When asked about the possibility of multiple stages of determining new clearing targets, Symons said "we don't know the supply in addition to not knowing the demand" and if not enough money is raised in the forward auction it might require an additional stage of reverse auction. "So much of this auction is planning for contingencies," he said. If the forward auction falls short of financial goals, Symons said, the FCC will partially redo the reverse auction, setting a new clearing target involving only the broadcasters that had been part of the first auction up through the final stage, he said.

Broadcasters will be paid "as soon as practicable," Symons said. Winners likely will be paid on a rolling basis over the course of a few weeks, he said. At the end of the process, the agency will put out a channel reassignment public notice with information about winners and channel reassignments, he said.

Any broadcaster repacking will be announced at the end of the auction. Symons said. In response to some concerns by tower entities, the FCC is discussing expenses for repacking and their reimbursement, he said. While there's a chasm between the FCC and NAB on how long repacking might take (see 1511090042), Symons said "we remain confident in our analysis." He also said it will look at comments submitted on the issue "and act accordingly."