The FCC has released a nearly 500-page decision that lays out the rules for the broadcast spectrum incentive auction. Broadcasters willing to sell their spectrum back to the government will tell the FCC their selling price, and mobile radio operators that want to use that spectrum for LTE cellular phone service will bid for it. The hope is that they will bid enough money to pay off those broadcasters, pay for a nationwide public safety radio network, and cover the channel relocation costs for other broadcasters that chose not sell their spectrum. If so, the FCC will declare victory. But if the auction succeeds, not everyone will be happy. The big losers will be users of wireless microphones (WMs), and folks hoping to use unlicensed white spaces devices (WSDs) for data networks.
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