Alltel and Covad Mon. announced acquisitions aimed at cutting their dependence on Bells and major wireless carriers. Alltel will buy southern Ill. provider First Cellular. Covad closed on a purchase of West Coast provider NextWeb. The moves expand the firms’ footprints and network capabilities.

CE and IT industry efforts to disparage cable’s proposed downloadable conditional access system (DCAS) as infeasible because of its alleged PC-incompatibility or that cable lacks the will to implement it are “inaccurate on both counts,” the NCTA told the FCC Mon. in reply comments.

The 90 MHz of 700 MHz spectrum set to be auctioned by the FCC by 2008 probably will be the last big block of spectrum below 2.5 GHz to reach market for many years. A June auction of advanced wireless services (AWS) spectrum (CD Feb 2 p5) will draw big firms. But the auction of 700 MHz spectrum to be cleared by the end of analog broadcasting (CD Feb 2 p1) may see the long-rumored entry into that spectrum by nontraditional players. Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile, which lobbied hard for the law authorizing the auction, are considered likely participants. The AWS auction is carriers’ first priority now, because it’s “first in the queue,” an industry source said.

Clearwire has won more new broadband customers than cable and telco competitors in all but one of its 25 U.S. markets the past year, a senior executive said Wed. “We are getting more than our share with the new subscribers,” CTO Nicolas Kauser told the Wireless Communications Assn. conference in San Jose. Predicting the trend would continue, Kauser said he foresees a “3-way race… maybe 4-way… with the mobile operators… We think we will have our God-given right to a 35% market share.” Kauser didn’t say which market will be the exception. Other bright signs are markets showing month-over-month sales growth and strong word of mouth, he said: “60% of sales seem to come from referrals.” Clearwire, founded by wireless pioneer Craig McCaw, offers wireless broadband access using 2.5 GHz spectrum. It’s mostly in small cities in Fla. and the western U.S.; among its larger markets are Anchorage, Boise and Jacksonville. The company sees its niche as between those of fixed broadband and of 3G, which will have ubiquitous coverage Clearwire will lack, but not as much bandwidth, said Kauser. He spoke generally of company efforts to evolve past proprietary technology “to make it more open… to join the WiMAX trend.” The firm has been talking with WiMAX proponents about convergence, he said. Rollout will gain speed this year in the U.S. and abroad, where Clearwire has 16 markets in northern Europe, and via a partnership in Mexico, said Kauser, also pres. of Clearwire International. “We're looking forward to an aggressive growth this year, which will be many times as large” as in 2005, the company’s first full year offering service, he said. Clearwire is rolling out VoIP in the U.S. this quarter, he said. And the company soon will pursue allowing roaming throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico, Kauser said. -- LT

The FCC hopes to set air-to-ground (ATG) auction rules before Comr. Abernathy leaves tomorrow (Fri.), sources said. A BRS/EBS order, also circulating on the 8th floor, probably will not see action by then. The ATG item got controversial last month, when AirCell sent a revised request to the FCC (CD Nov 10 p4). AirCell wants the Commission to make Airfone quit the 3 MHz part of the band within a year of the ATG auction’s close, not 6 months as AirCell previously urged. Airfone’s renewed license to expire on “the sooner of December 31, 2007, or when 85% of its existing customer base… have discontinued use of the incumbent technology,” AirCell said. That would be 6 months more than the 2 years AirCell sought for the Airfone renewal. A separate draft BRS/EBS order would set performance rules for BRS and EBS licensees in the 2.5 GHz band. It also addresses related issues raised on reconsideration (CD Dec 1 p1). Resolution was expected before Dec. 9, but due to the document’s complexity, that’s unlikely, sources said. “People want to make sure it’s done right rather than rushed,” an FCC source said. Another agency source said the BRS/EBS item “is being done on a normal course” and no “certain day” is planned for action. “We didn’t do anything different in terms of speeding it up,” the source said.

A confidential Request for Information (RFI) issued in June by DirecTV and EchoStar and obtained by Communications Daily posits 2006 creation of a national wireless broadband network. DirecTV, when queried, called the document “indicative of one of the many areas we've been exploring in the broadband arena.” But the firm has made no commitments “to EchoStar or to anyone else, regarding the contents of the RFI or other broadband plans,” DirecTV said. EchoStar didn’t comment by our deadline. No information was immediately available on who responded to the RFI, or what information was provided.

A roadmap to identify uses for spectrum recovered from analog TV cut-off has begun in the U.K., and will proceed aggressively to publish final proposals by this time next year so new services can prepare for the DTV switchover that begins in 2008, telecom regulator Ofcom said. Although new wireless and mobile services are the expected beneficiaries of the spectrum auction, at least some of the frequencies surrendered will be considered for terrestrial HDTV channels, as requested by the BBC and other broadcasters, Ofcom said.

By the end of the year, the FCC is expected to resolve several wireless proceedings, agency and industry sources said. The Commission is close to acting on a Remington Arms Co. petition and an air-to-ground (ATG) proceeding, plus 2GHz MSS spectrum reallocation, E-911 waiver petitions, designated entities, broadband radio service (BRS) and educational broadband service (EBS) rules. “Remington will be the first, and then ATG, then it’s up in the air,” an FCC source said.

Hurricane season may be waning, but the 2 GHz proceeding, now with a post-Katrina spin, is growing stormier. The race for Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) spectrum in the S-band has brought several issues to the fore. They include TerreStar charges that Inmarsat is trying to hamstring MSS competitors in the proceeding, anxiety about L-band congestion and curiosity about the future of MSS.

Sprint Nextel is now about 6 months into the Bcst. Auxiliary Service (BAS) relocation process, and officials gave a progress report at the MSTV conference Wed. The firm is charged with relocating electronic newsgathering (ENG) services in order to clear out the 2 GHz swath of the S-band for awaiting Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) operators as part of the FCC’s omnibus 800 MHz order -- which adds up to 1,051 BAS, LTSS and CARS licensees for Sprint Nextel to reequip in 31.5 months. Panelists called it “the other digital transition.” It doesn’t get the coverage the DTV transition gets, said moderator Matthew DelNero, an attorney working on the project: “But it could be similarly mammoth.”