The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to kick off next year’s incentive auction by 29 March, and to that end it has outlined the next steps in the process.
In early autumn, the watchdog will publish instructions about how to apply, as well as a detailed auction timetable and the opening bid prices for the reverse auction, which will see willing broadcasters sell their 600-MHz spectrum back to the FCC.
At the same time, the FCC also plans to publish the opening price for the forward auction, which will offer the 600-MHz frequencies for sale to mobile operators.
Once opening prices for both auctions have been established, the FCC will start accepting applications.
"The application windows will close before the end of the year. After the application deadline, FCC staff will review the applications for completeness and accuracy," explained Gary Epstein and Howard Symons, chairman and vice chairman respectively of the FCC’s incentive auction task force, in a blog post on Thursday.
The aim of the auction is to reallocate a chunk of the 600 MHz band for mobile broadband and ‘repack’ broadcasters into other frequencies.
The FCC hoped to complete the process by the end of 2014, but the complexity of designing the auction rules led to its postponement in late 2013. Then in August last year, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) filed a lawsuit claiming that the auction would leave some broadcasters short-changed by curtailing their coverage areas, leading to a loss in viewership.
The incentive auction’s complexity coupled with the lawsuit prompted the FCC in October 2014 to postpone the sell-off until early 2016.
To help participants make sense of the aucti on, the FCC has scheduled a number of webinars and workshops that will explain the process.
"We recognise that this is a great deal of information, especially for entities that have not participated in an FCC auction before. Staff will therefore be offering three types of training this fall, even before applications are due: workshops, webinars and an interactive on-line tutorial," said Epstein and Symons.
"We look forward to working with you to give you the information you need to make the incentive auction a success," they said.
