WASHINGTON — Despite raising a record $19.6 billion, the government's recent auction of prime airwaves was branded a failure by several lawmakers Tuesday for failing to accomplish its major goal: producing a national wireless network that would allow police and firefighters to share information during disasters and terrorist attacks.
The Federal Communications Commission is heading back to the drawing board to determine the best way to create a nationwide public safety network after no private-sector partners emerged during the auction, Chairman Kevin J. Martin said.
"Our work in other areas may bring telecommunications benefits to consumers, but the ability of public safety agencies to communicate is a matter of life and death," Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) said during a hearing of the House telecommunications subcommittee.
Some Republicans had another major criticism, accusing Google Inc. of "gaming" the auction. They said the Internet search giant bid only to assure that new provisions would kick in on a large swath of the spectrum allowing people to use any device or application -- including ad-supported services Google wants to offer. Without Google, the spectrum might not have attracted the minimum $4.6-billion bid required to trigger the openness rules.
Those lawmakers also criticized Martin for pushing the open-access requirements, which they argued lowered the demand for those airwaves and probably cost the government billions of dollars. Verizon won the airwaves for $4.74 billion, while the rest of the auction produced three times as much per unit of spectrum.
Google had said that it was prepared to buy the spectrum, but that its main priority was to assure the rules kicked in. Spokesman Adam Kovacevich said the company was "proud" of its role in helping open part of the closed wireless world to new devices and applications.
"This auction generated not only a record amount for the U.S. Treasury, but also historic new rights for wireless consumers as a direct result of Google's bidding," he said.
Martin defended the auction against bipartisan criticism, noting that it raised about $500 million more than the agency's previous 68 spectrum sales combined.
"The auction stands as the most successful FCC auction ever conducted, but there's still more work that needs to be done," he said.
