Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Justices Rule Government Wrongly Seized Wireless Licenses

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 11:51:39 -0500

January 27, 2003

Justices Rule Government Wrongly Seized Wireless Licenses

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

       ASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled today that the government wrongly seized more
than 200 lucrative wireless
       licenses from a bankrupt telecommunications company.

The ruling was a victory for NextWave Telecom Inc., a young company that won the licenses
at a 1996 auction but filed for
bankruptcy protection before paying for them.

The airwaves slices have been unused during the protracted fight between NextWave and the
Federal Communications
Commission, which confiscated the licenses and resold them at a huge profit to larger
telecommunications companies.

Now NextWave can finish building a network or sell the licenses to other companies. It
will free up wireless spectrum in dozens
of crowded markets, including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco,
Seattle and Washington.

The court, on an 8-1 vote, rejected arguments that the FCC had a regulatory interest in
taking licenses from a company that is
reorganizing its finances.

The Hawthorne, N.Y.-based NextWave's $4.7 billion bid for the frequencies was the highest
in 1996. After taking them back,
the FCC sold the licenses in 2001 to Verizon Wireless, VoiceStream Wireless and other
companies at a second auction for
nearly $16 billion.

An appeals court nullified the second sale, and the Supreme Court affirmed that decision.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/27/business/27wire-scotus.html?tntemail0=&pagewanted=print&position=top

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