Aws spectrum licenses

Companies offering cell phone service need licenses from the FCC in order to use those bands. Such licenses are usually sold at auction, but those auctions are rare, and once the licenses are sold, the winning bidders then have a lock on that spectrum. New companies entering the market can't just buy new licenses; they generally have to find some way to deal with the companies that hold the existing licenses.

The same is true for existing companies that find they need more spectrum. Each call and each data connection takes up a bit of spectrum, so as the population grows and more people use cell phones, networks require more spectrum to handle the additional calls and data usage.

Upgrading to new "3G" technologies also requires additional spectrum. Newer technologies are more efficient, but companies usually need to keep the old networks running for many years while they roll out the new technology and transition to it, so customers with old phones aren't left behind. Often the new and old technology each need to run in their own separate chunk of spectrum, as is the case with EVDO and WCDMA, so a surplus of spectrum is required to make such upgrades.

But companies can't just knock on the FCC's door and say "more spectrum please. Spectrum is valuable enough to drive large mergers and acquisitions just to obtain more of it. Large spectrum auctions by the FCC have historically happened about once a decade, but technology seems to be moving faster and requiring more spectrum these days, and no one knows for sure when the FCC will be able to auction off more spectrum after AWS.

All of this is why spectrum is the strategic asset for any wireless company. Lack of spectrum is why T-Mobile hasn't been able to launch 3G before now. Lack of spectrum also hindered Verizon's EVDO rollout in some areas, until they found a company willing to sell them existing licenses in those areas. Conversely, a surplus of spectrum is what has enabled Sprint to rent out its network to a large number of new MVNOs, without worrying about running out of spectrum for its own customers.

That's why AWS spectrum is so valuable, and why most of the large industry players plunked down megabucks to buy some of it, even if they don't yet know what they're going to do with it. No wireless company wants to end up needing more spectrum five years from now, and not able to get any.

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Juniper Service Provider Solutions. Optical Networking Digital Symposium. February 3, Harnessing the Edge. February 10, The Pluggable Optical Edge. License Period and Construction Requirements. AWS-1 Licenses: Authorizations issued on or before December 31, , shall have a term of fifteen years from the date of initial issuance; licenses issued after December 31, , will have a term of ten years from the date of initial issuance or renewal.

Any licensee that fails to meet this requirement will forfeit its license and the licensee will be ineligible to regain it. Broadband PCS Licenses: Licenses will be issued for a ten-year term from the initial license grant date.

Licensees have a renewal expectancy based on the provision of substantial service and substantial compliance with applicable Commission rules, policies, and the Communications Act.

These construction requirements refer to licenses consisting of 10 MHz and 15 MHz blocks. Eligibility for Closed Bidding. Small Business Bidding Credits. Qualifying applicants in Auction 78 are eligible for a small or very small business bidding credit for all 35 AWS-1 licenses and six broadband PCS licenses — the three C block licenses available in open bidding and the three F block licenses.

Bidding credits are not cumulative. Qualifying applicants receive either the 15 percent or the 25 percent bidding credit on their winning bids, but not both.

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