[Federal Register Volume 68, Number 26 (Friday, February 7, 2003)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6452-6454]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 03-3071]


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FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION

[Report No. AUC-03-49-B (Auction No. 49); DA 03-100]


Revised Inventory and Auction Start Date for Auction of Lower 700 
MHz Band Licenses; Comment Sought on Reserve Prices or Minimum Opening 
Bids and Other Auction Procedures

AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: This document revises the Auction No. 49 inventory to include 
five additional licenses, and seeks comment on procedural issues 
related to the auction of these additional licenses. This document also 
revises the starting date for Auction No. 49 to provide additional time 
for bidder preparation and planning.

DATES: Comments are due on or before February 12, 2003, and reply 
comments are due on or before February 19, 2003. Auction No. 49 is 
scheduled to begin May 28, 2003.

ADDRESSES: All comments and reply comments must be filed electronically 
to the following address: [email protected].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For legal questions: Howard Davenport 
at (202) 418-0660. For general auctions questions: Lyle Ishida at (202) 
418-0660 or Linda Sanderson at (717) 338-2888. For service rule 
questions: Amal

[[Page 6453]]

Abdallah, Evan Baranoff, Joanne Epps or Melvin Spann at (202) 418-0620.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a summary of the Auction No. 49 
Revised License Inventory Public Notice released on January 29, 2003. 
The complete text of the Auction No. 49 Revised License Inventory 
Public Notice, including attachments, is available for public 
inspection and copying during regular business hours at the FCC 
Reference Information Center, Portals II, 445 12th Street, SW., Room 
CY-B402, Washington, DC 20554. The Auction No. 49 Revised License 
Inventory Public Notice may also be purchased from the Commission's 
duplicating contactor, Qualex International, Portals II, 445 12th 
Street, SW., Room CY-B402, Washington, DC 20554, telephone (202) 863-
2893, facsimile (202) 863-2898, or via email to [email protected].

I. Background

    1. In the Auction No. 49 Comment Public Notice, 67 FR 72946 
(December 09, 2002), the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau 
(``Bureau'') announced the auction of 251 licenses in the Lower 700 MHz 
band C block (710-716/740-746 MHz) scheduled to commence on April 16, 
2003 (``Auction No. 49''). The Bureau also sought comment on procedures 
for the auction of those licenses. In response to the Auction No. 49 
Comment Pubic Notice, several commenters requested that the Bureau 
include the Lower 700 MHz band D block (716-722 MHz) licenses in 
Auction No. 49. By the Auction No. 49 Revised License Inventory Public 
Notice, the Bureau revises the auction inventory to include the five 
licenses in the Lower 700 MHz band D block (716-722 MHz band) that 
remained unsold in Auction No. 44. These five additional licenses, as 
well as the other licenses to be offered in Auction No. 49, are 
identified in Attachment A of the Auction No. 49 Revised License 
Inventory Public Notice. The Auction No. 49 Revised License Inventory 
Public Notice seeks comment on procedural issues related to the auction 
of the D block licenses. Also by the Auction No. 49 Revised License 
Inventory Public Notice, the Bureau revises the starting date for 
Auction No. 49 to May 28, 2003, in order to provide additional time for 
bidder preparation and planning.
    2. The Bureau has before it a Request for Waiver of Auction 
Procedures and Section 1.2109 of the Commission's Rules filed on 
October 2, 2002, by Banks Broadcasting, Inc. (``Banks'') and a Petition 
to Promptly Resolve Waiver Request or Remove Four Licenses from Auction 
No. 49 Pending Resolution of Outstanding Waiver Request, filed by Banks 
on December 17, 2002. In these filings, Banks seeks to have the Bureau 
offer it four of the licenses listed in Attachment A of the Auction No. 
49 Revised License Inventory Public Notice, based on high bids Banks 
formerly held on these licenses in Auction No. 44. The Bureau will 
respond to Banks's request in a separate Order.
    The following table contains the block/frequency cross-reference 
for the 710-716/740-746 MHz and 716-722 MHz Bands:

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                                             Bandwidth                            Geographic area     Number of
        Block             Frequencies          (MHz)             Pairing                type           licenses
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C...................  710-716, 740-746...  12...........  2 x 6...............  MSA/RSA............          251
D...................  716-722............  6............  unpaired............  700 MHz EAG........            5
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    Note: For Auction No. 49, licenses are not available in every 
market for the frequency blocks listed in the above table. See 
Attachment A of the Auction No. 49 Revised License Inventory Public 
Notice to determine which licenses will be offered.

II. Reserve Price or Minimum Opening Bid

    3. For the five additional D block licenses offered in Auction No. 
49, the Bureau proposes to use the same formula for calculating minimum 
opening bids as proposed in the Auction No. 49 Comment Public Notice. 
Specifically, for Auction No. 49, the Bureau has proposed the following 
license-by-license formula for calculating minimum opening bids:

$0.01 * MHz * License Area Population with a minimum of $1,000 per 
license.

A complete list of all licenses to be offered in Auction No. 49 and the 
proposed minimum opening bid for each is set forth in Attachment A of 
the Auction No. 49 Revised License Inventory Public Notice. Comment is 
sought on this proposal. Alternatively, comment is sought on whether, 
consistent with the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, the public interest 
would be served by having no minimum opening bid or reserve price.

III. Upfront Payments and Initial Maximum Eligibility for Each Bidder

    4. For the five additional D block licenses offered in Auction No. 
49, the Bureau proposes to use the same formula for determining upfront 
payments as previously proposed in the Auction No. 49 Comment Public 
Notice. Specifically, for Auction No. 49, the Commission has proposed 
the following license-by-license formula for calculating upfront 
payments:

$0.005 * MHz * License Area Population with a minimum of $1,000 per 
license.

The specific upfront payment and bidding units for each license are set 
forth in Attachment A of the Auction No. 49 Revised License Inventory 
Public Notice. The Bureau seeks comment on this proposal.
    5. For the additional licenses offered in Auction No. 49, the 
Bureau further proposes that the amount of the upfront payment 
submitted by a bidder will determine the number of bidding units on 
which a bidder may place bids. This limit is a bidder's ``maximum 
initial eligibility.'' Each license is assigned a specific number of 
bidding units equal to the upfront payment listed in Attachment A of 
the Auction No. 49 Revised License Inventory Public Notice, on a 
bidding unit per dollar basis. This number does not change as prices 
rise during the auction. Rather, a bidder may place bids on any 
combination of licenses as long as the total number of bidding units 
associated with those licenses does not exceed its maximum initial 
eligibility and the license was selected on the FCC Form 175. 
Eligibility cannot be increased during the auction. Thus, in 
calculating its upfront payment amount, an applicant must determine the 
maximum number of bidding units it may wish to bid on (or hold high 
bids on) in any single round, and submit an upfront payment covering 
that number of bidding units. The Bureau seeks comment on this 
proposal.

IV. Other Auction Procedural Issues

    6. In the Auction No. 49 Comment Public Notice, the Bureau also set 
forth and sought comment on the following proposals relating to auction 
structure and bidding procedures: (i) Simultaneous multiple round 
auction design; (ii) activity rules; (iii) activity rule waivers and 
reducing eligibility; (iv) information relating to auction

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delay, suspension or cancellation; (v) round structure; (vi) minimum 
acceptable bids and bid increments; (vii) high bids and tied bids; 
(viii) information regarding bid withdrawal and bid removal; and (ix) 
auction stopping rule. For the additional licenses in Auction No. 49, 
the Bureau proposes to use the same auction structure and bidding 
procedures proposed in the Auction No. 49 Comment Public Notice. The 
Bureau seeks comment on these proposals as they relate to the five 
additional licenses in the Lower 700 MHz band D block included in 
Attachment A of the Auction No. 49 Revised License Inventory Public 
Notice.

V. Conclusion

    7. Comments are due on or before February 12, 2003, and reply 
comments are due on or before February 19, 2003. The Bureau requires 
that all comments and reply comments be filed electronically. Comments 
and reply comments must be sent by electronic mail to the following 
address: [email protected]. The electronic mail containing the comments 
or reply comments must include a subject or caption referring to 
Auction No. 49 Comments. The Bureau requests that parties format any 
attachments to electronic mail as Adobe[reg] Acrobat[reg] (pdf) or 
Microsoft[reg] Word documents. Copies of comments and reply comments 
will be available for public inspection during regular business hours 
in the FCC Public Reference Room, Room CY-A257, 445 12th Street, SW., 
Washington, DC 20554.
    In addition, the Bureau requests that commenters fax a courtesy 
copy of their comments and reply comments to the attention of Kathryn 
Garland at (717) 338-2850.
    8. This proceeding has been designated as a ``permit-but-disclose'' 
proceeding in accordance with the Commission's ex parte rules. Persons 
making oral ex parte presentations are reminded that memoranda 
summarizing the presentations must contain summaries of the substance 
of the presentations and not merely a listing of the subjects 
discussed. More than a one or two sentence description of the views and 
arguments presented is generally required. Other rules pertaining to 
oral and written ex parte presentations in permit-but-disclose 
proceedings are set forth in Sec.  1.1206(b) of the Commission's rules.

Federal Communications Commission.
Margaret Wiener,
Chief, Auctions and Industry Analysis Division, WTB.
[FR Doc. 03-3071 Filed 2-6-03; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6712-01-P