FCC Commits To 600 Mhz Wireless Spectrum Auction

LAS VEGAS — Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has committed to a March 29 start date for an unprecedented auction of 600Mhz wireless spectrum currently under the control of the nation’s broadcasters.

The auction has already been delayed two years, but Wheeler was adamant it will move ahead on a timeline that allows input from broadcasters as well as from wireless providers that would be potential spectrum buyers.

The broadcast spectrum in the 600Mhz band offers the potential to wireless carriers to send data, including video and other multimedia at much faster speeds and with lower latency. Latency refers to the speed required to generate a response to a wireless signal.

“I’m supremely confident [the auction] starts March 29,” he said in keynote comments at CTIA Super Mobility Week 2015 here. Explaining the delays, he said the planned auction is like a “Swiss watch with so many moving parts.”

The FCC plans to issue a new public notice in October that will give further details on the planned schedule. Wheeler said that around Thanksgiving, broadcasters will be able to indicate whether they want to participate in offering up the spectrum they use today.

Once the FCC establishes pricing, the broadcasters can decide whether to move forward or withdraw from the process if the prices don’t meet their needs, Wheeler said. In January, wireless providers — including newcomers, possibly — will be prompted to express interest in joining the auction to buy spectrum.

Wheeler contended that the 600MHz spectrum auction shows the FCC is moving to free up spectrum that the cellular industry says it urgently needs.

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Mobile Carriers Dash To Enter FCC Auction

Three of the four largest U.S. mobile operators and satellite provider Dish Network Corp plan to bid in the Federal Communications Commission’s November auction of airwaves, according to initial applications released on Wednesday.

As expected, the largest U.S. wireless carrier Verizon Communications Inc, No. 2 AT&T Inc, No. 4 T-Mobile US Inc and Dish appeared to be the largest companies to indicate an interest in bidding in the upcoming auction of frequencies known as AWS-3.

Applications from Northstar Wireless LLC and SNR Wireless LicenseCo LLC reported they had entered bidding agreements with Dish, which had indirect ownership interest in both companies.

Northstar’s disclosures showed direct and indirect ownership interest by Alaska Native corporation Doyon Ltd and indirect ownership interest by financial firm Catalyst Investors. Asset manager BlackRock Inc had membership shares in SNR, according to the documents.

T-Mobile and AT&T did not appear to plan joint bids with other companies, and T-Mobile’s Kathleen Ham, vice president of federal regulatory affairs, said the carrier had no such agreements with any company.

A Verizon spokesman did not respond to inquiries about potential joint bidding and Dish representatives declined comment beyond confirming the submission of its application, citing FCC’s anti-collusion rules.

A total of 80 entities submitted initial applications. Interested parties, which may or may not actually bid for wireless licenses in the auction, included smaller U.S. companies such as Bluegrass Wireless LLC, Guam-based wireless company Docomo Pacific Inc and individual spectrum investors.

Scheduled to begin on Nov. 13, the auction is expected to raise at least $10 billion and will include airwaves previously occupied by multiple federal users, including the Department of Homeland Security.

Dish applied to bid in the auction as American AWS-3 Wireless I LLC and disclosed joint bidding arrangements with SNR and Northstar, which in turn had to disclose ownership and other information.

SNR listed former FCC Wireless Bureau Chief John Muleta, now CEO of consulting firm Atelum LLC, as a contact. Muleta, reached late on Wednesday, declined comment, citing FCC’s restrictions.

Northstar’s disclosures listed Allen Todd, assistant secretary at Doyon, a Fairbanks-based Alaska Native Regional Corporation with numerous affiliates in various fields including oil and gas land drilling. Todd could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

SNR’s and Northstar’s, as well as AT&T’s, initial application appeared to be incomplete, which can be caused by small bureaucratic omissions. Of the 80 applications, 47 were deemed incomplete and have to be properly finished by Oct. 15 to allow the companies to participate.

All initial applications have to put down an upfront payment by Oct. 15 to confirm participation.

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Will Sprint Acquisition Efforts Succeed

Sprint Corp is meeting with banks to devise a funding plan for its bid for smaller rival T-Mobile US Inc, a source familiar with the situation said, as the mobile carrier works to ease regulatory concerns that the deal would hurt competition.

The source said that Sprint, which is owned by Japan’s SoftBank Corp, is looking to fund the bulk of T-Mobile’s estimated $50 billion price tag with corporate bonds and cover the rest with syndicated loans and convertible bonds.

Sprint is currently having discussions with at least five banks, the source told Reuters, including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.

Bloomberg, which first reported that Sprint was in talks with banks on Thursday morning in Asia, said the carrier was also talking to Mizuho Financial Group Ltd and Citibank. Softbank is expected to make a formal offer in June or July, Bloomberg added.

Sprint spokeswoman Roni Singleton told Reuters the company does not comment on rumors and speculation. T-Mobile and SoftBank both declined to comment on the Bloomberg report.

Sprint is facing a battle ahead with U.S. regulators who oppose consolidation in the wireless market on the basis it would inhibit competition. The company is aware it may have to give up some of its spectrum holdings to win over critics, the source said.

Two of the most vocal opponents to the deal are Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler and U.S. antitrust chief William Baer, who have pointed to T-Mobile’s success since U.S. authorities rejected a 2011 merger between AT&T Inc and T-Mobile on the grounds the market needs at least four major players to be competitive.

The failure of that deal cost AT&T a $6 billion break-up fee, a penalty Sprint feels confident it can avoid, the source said, adding that it is leaning towards having Deutsche Telekom, which currently owns 67 percent of T-Mobile, retain part of that stake.

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Is Intel Expanding?

Even if it means that it will be the first to make ARM’s 64-bit chips, Intel said that it wants to expand its contract foundry work. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said he would expand his company’s small contract manufacturing business, paving the way for more chipmakers to tap into the world’s most advanced process technology.

Krzanich told analysts that he planned to step up the company’s foundry work, effectively giving Intel’s process technology to its rivals. He said that company’s who can use Intel’s leading edge and build computing capabilities that are better than anyone else’s, are good candidates for foundry service. Krzanich added that the slumping personal computer industry, Intel’s core market, was showing signs of bottoming out.

Intel also unveiled two upcoming mobile chips from its Atom line designed interchange features to create different versions of the component. A high-end version of the new chip, code named Broxton, and is due out in mid-2015. SoFIA, a low-end chip was shown as an example of Intel’s pragmatism and willingness to change how it does business. Krzanich said that in the interest of speed, SoFIA would be manufactured outside of Intel, with the goal of bringing it to market next year.

Intel will move production of SoFIA chips to its own 14 nanometer manufacturing lines, Krzanich added.

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Intel Buys KNO Software

Intel has acquired educational software developer Kno to add to its Education division.

Speaking in the company blog, Intel Sales and Marketing Group VP John Galvin explained that in a world where kids are being bombarded by technology, Intel Education has a mission to support the rollout of technology in the classroom.

Galvin said, “The Kno platform provides administrators and teachers with the tools they need to easily assign, manage and monitor their digital learning content and assessments.”

This acquisition brings Intel’s global digital content library to over 225,000 [higher education] and K-12 titles from 74 education publishers. “We’re looking forward to combining our expertise with Kno’s rich content so that together, we can help teachers create classroom environments and personalized learning experiences that lead to student success,” Galvin added.

Intel Education has been working for the past decade with over 10 million teachers that it has assisted to integrate technology with education.

In the UK alone there have been tremendous strides in educational software over the past 30 years, dating back to the government pledge to provide a computer in every school, which led to the creation of the BBC Microcomputer designed specifically for that purpose.

Today, not only is ICT a dedicated lesson in its own right, but it forms one of the key skills that educators are expected to incorporate into all lesson plans, putting it on a par with English and Maths, showing just how far we’ve come from making Venn diagrams with ascii art.

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FCC To Auction Spectrum

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will sell 10 megahertz of spectrum in the 1900MHz band for commercial mobile services in an auction set to start on Jan. 14, the agency announced.

The agency on last  Friday set a minimum price for licenses in the so-called H block of $1.56 billion, with some of the money funding the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet), a government board building a nationwide broadband network for public safety agencies.

The auction will help mobile providers address a predicted spectrum shortage, said Mignon Clyburn, the FCC’s acting chairwoman. The auction “will help close the spectrum gap as well as contributing to the goal of making mobile broadband available to our nation’s first responders,” she said in a statement.

Congress, in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, required the FCC to license 65 megahertz of spectrum, including the 10 megahertz in the H block, by February 2015.

The FCC has considered auctioning the 1915-1920MHz and 1995-2000MHz spectrum in the past, but concerns about interference with a nearby PCS block kept the commission from moving forward. An FCC order adopted in June created technical rules to keep the H block from interfering with PCS signals.

Commissioner Ajit Pai praised Clyburn for scheduling the auction. The spectrum “will help deliver bandwidth-intensive mobile services and applications” over mobile networks, he said in a statement.

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The DoD May Share Airwaves

The U.S. Defense Department is proposing to share some of its radio airwaves with private industry, a nod to growing pressure from the wireless industry and the Obama administration that federal agencies ease their control of valuable spectrum.

In a letter released by the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, the Department of Defense offers to share the airwaves it now dominates in the slice of frequencies from 1755 megahertz (MHz) to 1780 MHz with spectrum-hungry wireless and Internet companies.

The military would rearrange its systems within that slice of spectrum as well as the 2025-2110 MHz band and compress programs into the 1780-1850 MHz band that it would retain.

The Defense Department uses the airwaves for programs such as pilot training and drone systems and has faced criticism from some in the industry and in Congress for resisting efforts to open those airwaves for commercial use to satisfy growing demands posed by data-hungry gadgets and services.

The Pentagon had pointed to its own need for airwaves as its use of drones and other reliance on wireless technology grows. It also had estimated the process of moving its programs to new frequencies would cost more than $12 billion.

Under the new plan, the Defense Department drops the cost estimate to $3.5 billion by compromising on sharing slices of airwaves without completely clearing any of the spectrum bands.

In the letter, originally sent on July 17 to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which oversees federal airwaves, DOD Chief Information Officer Teresa Takai called the proposal “a workable balance to provide access to the 1755-1780 MHz band most desired by the commercial wireless industry while ensuring no loss of critical DoD capabilities.”

The NTIA, in its own letter to the FCC, said it had not had enough time to review the proposal and could not yet endorse it.

The FCC, with NTIA’s help, is preparing for several auctions of airwaves to take place in coming years, including one that would sell off chunks of federally controlled spectrum. They will be the first reshuffling of airwave ownership since 2008.

Congress has required the FCC to auction off the 2155-2180 MHz band by February 2015 and the industry has sought to pair up that slice of spectrum with the valuable 1755-1780 MHz band, arguing it would collect more money. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives have introduced a bill to ensure such pairing.

The FCC has been drafting a notice of proposed rulemaking that would seek public comments on how the FCC should auction those federally owned or already cleared airwaves to the wireless companies and an FCC official said the agency’s notice will address the Pentagon’s new proposal.

President Barack Obama last month directed federal agencies to look for ways eventually to give up or share more of their airwaves with the private sector. This followed his June 2010 call to open up 500 MHz of federal spectrum for commercial use.

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Is Verizon Interested In Clearwire?

Verizon Wireless reportedly has offered $1 billion to $1.5 billion to acquire some of Clearwire’s spectrum leases, possibly complicating Sprint Nextel’s attempt to buy out the company in conjunction with its acquisition by Softbank.

Clearwire is struggling financially but owns broad swaths of spectrum, the lifeblood of wireless networks. The April 8 bid from “Party J,” which Clearwire disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday, is the latest in a series of offers for its spectrum licenses. Unnamed people familiar with the matter identified “Party J” as Verizon Wireless, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Clearwire is a key part of a complicated set of possible transactions that could make a much stronger competitor out of Sprint, the country’s third-largest mobile operator. Sprint already owns roughly half of Clearwire and is bidding about $2.2 billion to buy the rest of its stock. That deal depends on Softbank’s planned $20.1 billion offer for 70% of Sprint, which is still undergoing regulatory review.

Clearwire holds 150MHz of spectrum or more in most major markets of the U.S. Verizon would buy only a portion of that spectrum. “Party J offered to acquire Clearwire spectrum leases generally located in large markets,” Clearwire said in the Friday filing, a proxy statement to shareholders on the Sprint buyout bid. The proposed gross price of $1 billion to $1.5 billion would be reduced by what Clearwire pays for the leases, which could be substantial, according to Clearwire’s filing. The company said it would discuss the offer with “Party J” and Sprint.

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Sprint Ending Lightsquared Relationship

Sprint Nextel will end its planned 15-year 4G network relationship with would-be hybrid network operator LightSquared, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The end of the Sprint partnership, which was due to expire on Thursday, would be nearly as big a blow to the foundering LightSquared as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s proposal last month to revoke the carrier’s authorization to build a land-based network.

Since the deal was announced last July, Sprint had been planning to host LightSquared’s radio spectrum on its Network Vision infrastructure. LightSquared was to pay Sprint US$9 billion in cash for that hosting and said the plan would save it $13 billion over eight years.

For its part, Sprint had looked to the partnership for extra spectrum on which to run its own planned LTE network. It would get $4.5 billion worth of credits to use some of LightSquared’s spectrum in addition to its own and that of longtime partner Clearwire. Sprint extended the deal twice to give LightSquared more time to win FCC approval for its network.

Sprint will terminate the LightSquared deal on Friday and return $65 million in prepayments by LightSquared, according to the Journal.

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Intel Buys RealNetworks Patents

Intel on Thursday said it had agreed to acquire RealNetworks streaming media patents and video codecs in a move aimed at improving the multimedia experience delivered through devices based on its chips.

The chip maker has agreed to purchase video codec software and about 190 patents and 170 patent applications worldwide, for $120 million. RealNetworks is best known for its RealPlayer multimedia software, which offers multimedia streaming based on its own codec.

The purchase will help Intel offer “richer experiences” across a wide spectrum of devices, including through laptops and smartphones, the company said in a statement. A company spokeswoman declined further comment on specific plans for patents and software.

Intel has been beefing up its on-chip multimedia capabilities to handle more realistic graphics as the company develops newer generations of chips. The new laptop chips code-named Ivy Bridge due later this year for ultrabooks will be the first to have integrated support for Microsoft’s DirectX 11. Smartphones and tablets based on Intel’s Atom chip code-named Medfield will be released later this year.

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