FCC Asked to Act Rapidly, Conclude Auctions By December 2013
The Minority Media and Telecommunications Council (MMTC) commends the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for moving quickly to open a rulemaking proceeding on incentive auctions. At the Sept. 28 FCC open meeting, the Commission invited public comment on auction procedures, including how to structure ownership opportunities for designated entities such as minority entrepreneurs. As MMTC has maintained for over a generation, minority ownership is absolutely as vital to job creation, innovation and opportunity in wireless as it is in broadcasting and cable.
Spectrum has become essential to nearly every element of the nation's economy. Universal nationwide wired and wireless broadband networks would be America's greatest generators of jobs and entrepreneurial opportunity in a generation.
Demand for commercial wireless spectrum is increasing so rapidly that it soon will overtake the supply. That phenomenon, "spectrum exhaust," would be especially detrimental to minorities, who have led the nation in the rate at which they have adopted mobile wireless and its applications to job search, health care, education and civic engagement.
In all of American history, wireless is the first technology for which minority consumers have a head start – an encouraging high tech and civil rights development that MMTC has named the "Minority Wireless Miracle."
There is no time to lose. To ensure that consumers can enjoy the use of new wireless spectrum as rapidly as possible, MMTC strongly encourages the FCC to expedite the rulemaking process so that the auctions can conclude by December 2013.
