July 29, 2008: AT&T petitions FCC to stop Clearwire

Late last week AT&T and the Rural Carrier Association each lobbed petitions at the FCC that urge the regulatory commission to take a closer look at the Sprint-Clearwire deal, especially at the allegedly anti-competitive spectrum holdings of the New Clearwire and the possibility of unsuccessful inter-carrier hand-offs. The petitions were met with a few tut-tuts from the consumer and trade press. The San Francisco Chronicle noted that AT&T's "letter may do more to highlight some growing uneasiness by AT&T over the potential threat of WiMax;" FierceBroadbandWireless chronicled the rurals recent policy moves and warned that the rural operator community could become irrelevant if it "continues to rely solely on the FCC to ensure [its] survival." 

For its part, AT&T admits to no illusions that its petition could stop the Sprint-Clearwire merger. In fact, the carrier told The Register that it "does not fundamentally oppose the transaction" at all. AT&T said it just wants Sprint and Clearwire to "be required to demonstrate that its merger serves the public interest just like any other providers would have to do."

The Register takes issue with AT&T's stated intention by reminding the carrier that when the FCC reviewed AT&T's merger with Dobson last year, it didn't scrutinize AT&T's BRS/EBS spectrum holdings. The band was still making the slow transition to commercial spectrum back then. Of course, BRS/EBS is part of the 2.5GHz band where Sprint and Clearwire are deploying WiMAX.

Read on for Caroline Gabriel's extensive analysis of the petitions.