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Technology Stocks : Advanced Radio Telecom (ARTT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DavesM who wrote (570)	4/2/1999 6:32:00 PM
From: Bernard Levy	Respond to of 1176

Hi DavesM: The FCC petition filed by Motorola does not concern the spectrum currently used by WCII and ARTT. It regards the upcoming auction of the frequency band extending from 38.6Ghz to 40.2GHz. The current FCC plan is to sell the spectrum disaggregated in the form of 16 licenses of 100MHz each. Steve Bowen posted in detail on this topic a few months ago (where did he disappear by the way?). The spectrum can be used for P-P and P-MP applications. I believe some PCS operators may want to use some licenses for backhaul of PCS traffic (cheaper than laying fiber). The WCII 10-K suggests that it will participate in the forthcoming auction. If the satellite companies insist on using this spectrum, transmission's suggestion that a long delay might occur would certainly come true. With respect to GV Tucker's comment that it would be very difficult to gain a license in each BTA at the upcoming FCC auctions, I believe actually that a national operator would have to be totally clueless not to be able to gain one or 2 licenses per BTA on a nationwide basis. After the first few licenses go, I would not be surprised if a lot of spectrum does not find any bidder. George Gilder made the point about 2 years ago that spectrum is actually not scarce, but plentiful. The perception of scarcity is based on low frequencies. However, at mm frequencies, there is really a wide tract of spectrum (up to the H2O absorption band at 61GHz) which is really lightly used (the example that comes to mind is the allocation of a band at 48GHz for Alexander Haig and his blimps). What counts when evaluating BBFW companies is not the spectrum, but the business model and stage of its execution. Best regards, Bernard Levy