$300M Mobility Fund Auction Set for Sept. 27, FCC Seeks Comment on Procedures

Source: FCC Public Notice

The Wireless Telecommunications and Wireline Competition Bureaus announced a reverse auction to award $300 million in one-time Mobility Fund Phase I support and seek comment on auction procedures and certain related programmatic issues. This auction is scheduled to begin on September 27, 2012, and is designated as Auction 901.

Auction 901 will be the first auction to award high-cost universal service support through reverse competitive bidding, as envisioned by the Commission in the USF/ICC Transformation Order.

Auction 901 will award one-time support to carriers that commit to provide 3G or better mobile voice and broadband services in areas where such services are unavailable, based on the bids that will maximize the road miles covered by new mobile services without exceeding the budget of $300 million.

The Bureaus will announce final procedures and other important information such as application deadlines and other dates related to Auction 901 after considering comments provided in response to this Public Notice.

In the Public Notice, the FCC proposed and seeks comment on detailed procedures for:

• Identifying geographic areas eligible for support;
• Determining the basic auction design, including the round format, how eligible areas may be aggregated for bidding, and how awardees will be selected;
• Establishing certain other bidding procedures, including information disclosure and methodologies for calculating auction and performance default payments.

Click here for the entire Auction 901 Public Notice.