FCC Chair Talks Spectrum to Congress

FCC chair Kevin Martin appeared before a House committee to provide details on the recently-complete spectrum auction, and provided a glimpse into the commission’s thinking on why the D Block for public safety did not receive a winning bid. Martin said the FCC, “needs to consider whether the demands that were being placed on the prospective D Block winner were too great. Were the network expectations reasonable? Was the build-out requirement imposed on the D block winner too ambitious?” Martin said he was aware of allegations made against the Public Safety Spectrum Trust and their advisor Cyren Call, and told the committee he’s asked the U.S. Inspector General to investigate the claims. Most interestingly, Martin said the FCC needs to be clearer about the public safety licensee’s day-to-day role in operating the completed network. “I do not believe the Commission envisioned that the Public Safety Broadband Licensee would function as a commercial reseller of the D Block licensee’s services,” Martin said, “nor did the Commission envision large-scale network operations being undertaken by the public safety licensee.” NENA issued a statement saying it remains ““convinced that a public-private partnership between the commercial D block licensee and public safety is currently the most viable option for funding and deploying a national interoperable broadband network. Download (pdf) his entire prepared remarks here. Commissioner Michael Copps also had interesting remarks on D Block’s future, for download here. Read a news story about the questions and statements from committee members here.