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January 8, 2008

Frontline Shuttered after Winning FCC Concessions

Very odd: The high-profile Frontline Wireless firm that convinced the FCC to tailor a public/private spectrum license auction to its needs is "closed for business": RCR News reports that the well-connected Frontline is shuttered. Frontline was expected to bid hard for a special band that would allow both commercial and public safety uses nationwide with priority given in emergencies to the public safety purpose. Frontline needed to make a $128m deposit for the D Block license with the FCC by Jan. 4, but the firm wouldn't tell the trade publication whether it had made such a deposit.

The New York Times notes involvement in Frontline from former FCC chair Reed Hundt, Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr, former Netscape head Jim Barksdale, and early Google backer K. Ram Shriram. The Times's John Markoff profiled the firm last April.

It's not clear what happened. The Times speculates capital was tight, although an AP report notes that one of Frontline's bidding partners is controlled by a private equity and hedge fund firm with $40b in assets. Update: Later on Tuesday the Times confirmed with an unnamed source within the company that the firm didn't make a deposit against the auction, and was unable to raise the funds necessary to make a successful bid.

The Associated Press also notes that without Frontline in the bidding, the D Block's minimum $1.33b bid may not be met, and it's unclear what happens at that point. The entire 700 MHz auction, including the C Block that Google, AT&T, and Verizon will likely contend over, must raise over $10b in aggregate, or the bidding will be declared null, and the rules changed. The C Block will likely exceed its nearly $5b opening bid, but the other regional licenses up for grabs may not total enough with the C Block to meet the minimum.

This could throw open access into disarray, as if the auction doesn't produce the desired revenue, the rules requiring the C Block winner to allow any legal device running any applications and accessing any service would be revised to be more restrictive.

1 Comment

First off, there is no way the C block just by itself doesn't fetch very close to $10B, if not more. After all, when the FCC valued the 1900 MHz spectrum they swapped Nextel at $4.86B Verizon cried out about how that was way too low. Given that was 10 MHz of 1900 spectrum vs. 22 MHz of 700 spectrum, how much would you expect Verizon to be willing to bid?

Second, don't count out the A, B, and E blocks. while many of these smaller areas are relatively worthless, CMA and EA containing major cities will go for a pretty penny. Really, there is no chance that the aggregate minimum is not met and I'd be surprised if the whole of Auction 73 raises less than $15B -- double that number may not be far-fetched.

Third, I just can't believe that no one will bite on the D block. Yes the buildout rules are onerous and the bureaucracy of dealing with public safety and probably Homeland Security will be a huge headache, but the value is just to good. For as little as $1.33B you get access to 20 MHz of prime spectrum (D block + 10 MHz of Public Safety band as a secondary use). That's 90% of the spectrum of the C block for 25% of the price! Also since this spectrum is undesirable to Verizon and AT&T (can't win and sit on it like they usually do, thanks to the accelerated buildout rules) it will likely go for very close to the minimum bid while the C block is going to get bid up to double or more. If someone were actually serious about building a network, this is the spectrum to buy (Google's lack of interest is a good indicator that they are not going to be a serious bidder).