FCC Might Limit Spectrum Holdings to Regulate Competition

The Federal Communications Commission could overhaul the way it measures competition in the wireless industry, The Hill's Hillicon Valley reports. Those measures could include both quantitative limits (total amount of spectrum) as well as qualitative standards (how much of the "best" spectrum any single carrier owns or controls). 

According to the report, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski plans to circulate an order with the other commissioners next week that would launch a review of the FCC's rules for analyzing whether any one company has accumulated too much spectrum. 

The commission is expected to vote on the proposal at its September 2012 meeting. 

T-Mobile USA, for example, has argued that the current method, which is quantitative, does not account for qualitative differences, such as ability of lower-frequency signals to penetrate walls, for example. 

"The present screen is inadequate as applied to the current wireless  market, particularly because it fails to recognize the vast difference in value between low (below 1GHz) and high (above 1 GHz) frequency bands, T-Mobile USA has argued.