After postponing the open meeting on the upcoming 700MHz auction by more than nine hours yesterday, the FCC made no formal rulings on the rules of the auction but did ask for public comments on some of the more controversial proposals. The FCC made Frontline's spectrum proposal a possibility, while ending speculation that Cyren Call's proposal may have a chance. It doesn't.
The Google-led group, Coalition for 4G in America also garnered praise from FCC Chairman Kevin Martin who said he was "surprised" and "puzzled" that his fellow commissioners didn't support the group's requests for rules on building a wireless access network from scratch. Some believe the nine hour delay could have been partially because Martin wanted to institute some of the group's proposed ideas. The coalition is comprised mostly of online content providers like Google, Yahoo and eBay as well as DBS players like EchoStar and DirecTV.
For more on the 700 MHz auction:
- see this article [1] from GigaOM
Links:
[1] http://gigaom.com/2007/04/25/fcc-punts-on-700-mhz-rulemaking/#more-8849