Fergie's Tech Blog

Groups Urge Senate to Ban AT&T From Wireless Spectrum Auction

Via Red Herring.

To ensure robust competition in the wireless industry, the U.S. Government should ban the major telecommunications carriers from obtaining additional wireless spectrum and instead provide that critical spectrum to startups and new market entrants, a consumers group said Tuesday at a hearing in the U.S. Senate.

Jeannine Kenney, a senior policy analyst at Consumers Union, told senators that allowing a company such as AT&T to bid on available wireless spectrum would deal a death blow to competition in the wireless market. Ms. Kenney spoke at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wireless Issues and Spectrum Reform.

She pointed out that if AT&T is successful in its proposed acquisition of BellSouth, the carrier— already the largest telephone service supplier in the country—will have sole control of Cingular, the largest wireless carrier in the U.S.

posted by Fergie @ 3/14/2006 01:17:00 PM