US mobile operators ask FCC to pay $4billion to NextWave

date: July 26, 2001

Five major US 3G license holders including Verizon, VoiceStream and AT&T on Wednesday proposed that the FCC offer NextWave Telecom $4 billion in to abandon its claims on the 3G wireless licenses that an appeals court said belonged to the company.

The companies bid $15.9 billion for the licenses in January but were stymied after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled last month that the airwaves were illegally repossessed by the Federal Communications Commission even though NextWave did not make timely payments.

"Remarkably, despite their statements to the Court of Appeals, the same carriers who urged the agency to stop NextWave's reorganization are again threatening to tie up NextWave's licenses with further litigation unless their demands are met," said Mr. Wack, NextWave's Deputy General Counsel. "Today's filing further reveals that the petition several of them filed last week at the FCC is nothing more than a baseless and unfounded effort to stop a competitor from entering the marketplace. Consumers are waiting for this spectrum to be put into use to deliver them the next generation of wireless services."

Taking the position that further litigation serves no one's interest, the petitioning group now wants the FCC to take the money garnered from the auction back in January and use it to pay NextWave a sum starting between $4 and $5 billion. The remainder of the $15.8 billion would go to the Treasury Department.

"The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled last month that NextWave's efforts to commercialize its license in January 2000 should never have been derailed by the FCC," said Wack. "There would have been another national carrier competing in the market today had NextWave's reorganization not been stopped. The FCC and the incumbent carriers told the Court of Appeals that NextWave would get its license back if we prevailed on appeal, and we did prevail. NextWave has informed the FCC and others that we will now proceed with the construction of the first nationwide 3G wireless network."

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