The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) upcoming 2.5 GHz spectrum auction is generating some excitement among smaller rural U.S. operators because of the FCC’s decision to offer flexible-use, county-based overlay licenses. The auction, which will start July 29, will be for licenses in the 2.5 GHz band where no one currently owns the spectrum.
During the FierceWireless Executive Panel on 5G at the Competitive Carriers Association’s Mobile Carriers Show in Tampa, Florida, this week, top executives at several smaller operators said that they were encouraged by the FCC’s format for Auction 108 because it will be amenable to rural operators.
“We like this auction because it’s rural focused,” said Brighid Riordan, CEO of Cellcom, a Wisconsin-based operator. “When we look at auctions, and they’re for the large PEAs [partial economic areas], they tend to scoop in some areas that everybody wants,” she added. “That makes the prices go up.”
For example, during the C-Band auction, the FCC issued PEA licenses, each covering a fairly large areas and often including a larger market that was appealing to the big wireless operators.
Appalachian Wireless CEO Allen Gillum agreed with Riordan, adding that during previous spectrum auctions, his company had to invest a lot of money to buy spectrum licenses that included areas outside its footprint. Gillum said that his company is planning to participate in the upcoming auction. “We will participate in it on a county-by-county basis.”
USCellular’s VP of Government Affairs Grant Spellmeyer wouldn’t say for sure whether USCellular will participate in the 2.5 GHz auction but said that the mobile operator has participated in almost every major auction in the last 20 years. “I’m sure we’ll take a good hard look at this one,” he added.
Not surprisingly, Steve Sharkey, VP of government affairs, technology and engineering policy at T-Mobile, was very complementary of the FCC’s auction rules established for the 2.5 GHz auction. The company is interested in Auction 108 because it already owns or leases much of the 2.5 GHz spectrum in the U.S. and wants to fill in the gaps in its coverage.
“The FCC really ended up in a good place on the auction rules,” Sharkey said, referring the FCC’s decision to use an ascending clock format for the auction. T-Mobile had requested this format because it will allow the operator to more precisely target its bids.
5G deployments move forward
The big three nationwide wireless operators are putting their marketing muscles behind 5G and that’s pushing smaller operators to make as much progress with their 5G deployments as possible.
Riordan said that Cellcom has deployed 5G in 20% of its coverage area but said that as a rural carrier, the company has to be very creative in how it uses its spectrum and refarming spectrum for 5G has been critical to the process.
Riordan also joked that Cellcom’s wireless competitors “have done a fantastic job of advertising 5G,” and said that about half of Cellcom’s customer base “either thought we had 5G already or wasn’t sure.”
Meanwhile Appalachian Wireless, which is jointly owned by five rural telephone companies, is planning to start rolling out 5G this year. Gillum said that the company will initially deploy 5G in its low-band spectrum and “mirror” its LTE coverage areas. The company also has mid-band and mmWave spectrum that it plans to use.