Court to Hear Wireless Spectrum Case
library.northernlight.com
Story Filed: Monday, March 04, 2002 10:11 AM EST
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court agreed Monday to settle a messy cellular service dispute, months after a proposed government settlement with NextWave stalled at the Capitol.
At stake is improved cell phone service in dozens of cities.
The Bush administration had pressed the court to intervene in its fight with the bankrupt NextWave over unpaid debts for cell service licenses. The top phone companies want those licenses.
A federal appeals court said the government was wrong to sell to the other phone companies valuable spectrum rights that had been won by NextWave in an 1996 auction. NextWave paid only part of the bid before going to bankruptcy court.
Justices must decide what options the government has when a telecommunications company obtains licenses but then fails to pay for them.
NextWave, the Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department reached a $16 billion deal last fall that would have ended a five-year-fight. The proposal expired Jan. 1 after Congress failed to endorse it.
Under that deal, companies such as Verizon Wireless and affiliates of Cingular Wireless, VoiceStream Wireless and AT&T Wireless Services Inc. would pay the government for NextWave's licenses.
They could then expand services in lucrative but overcrowded markets such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington and Philadelphia.
Copyright 2002 Associated Press Information Services, all rights reserved. |
