The company that, along with Google, helped champion the open access rules attached to certain portions of the 700-MHz spectrum has mysteriously shut down. Frontline Wireless provided no word on why this has happened, but some are speculating that the future of the company doesn't look good.
"Frontline is closed for business at this time," a company statement said. "We have no further comment."
A Frontline representative we reached said the company was not saying anything else at this point. She would also not comment on when or if that "no comment" status might change.
As we reported earlier, Frontline was peerless when it came to lobbying the FCC last year, tallying a total of 70 meetings between last January and August and beating out every other major 700 MHz bidder.
Indeed, Frontline's management is rife with former FCC bigwigs. Former Chairman Reed Hundt is now the company's vice chairman, and Janice Obuchowski, a former assistant secretary of commerce in charge of telecommunications policy, is currently Frontline's chairwoman.
Now, with Frontline going dark, it's uncertain what will happen both to the company and the D block of spectrum it planned to bid on.
The D Block network that Frontline hoped to build was supposed to offer national coverage and priority access to public safety departments. Unused portions of the spectrum were also supposed to be available for commercial use.
Frontline was on the FCC's list of 700 MHz bidders released in late December, but with today's news, it doesn't seem very likely that the company will be bidding on Jan. 24. Many wireless analysts believed that Frontline Wireless, Verizon Wireless and AT&T are the most likely candidates to bid on the D Block. Of course, given the anonymous rules attached to the bidding process, we won't know who bid until after the auction. Nevertheless, with Frontline out of the picture, this could be a significant blow to the FCC's shared-network plan.
UPDATE: More news on Frontline's 700 MHz auction vanishing act. GigaOm speculates the company couldn't raise enough money for the deposit required to participate in the upcoming auction. This seems plausible given that Frontline was none too happy with the hefty reserve prices attached to the auction. In a filing with the FCC back in September, Frontline said (.pdf) "…the Bureau has proposed reserve prices that are arbitrary, unsupported by the record, and irrational in that the methodology used to reach them do not reflect the goals stated in the 700 MHz Order."
Basically, the argument was that proposed reserve prices were "filled with potential for causing a failed auction."
See Also:
- Frontline Assembles Open Access Super Team
- Frontline Rallies FCC to Institute 'Competitive Screens' for 700 ...
- Frontline to FCC: 700 MHz Reserve Prices are 'Arbitrary ...
- Frontline Wireless: The 700 MHz Dark Horse?
- Frontline Asks FCC to Boot Verizon from 700 MHz Auction
- Frontline Wireless Defends FCC and Open Access
