WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., ranking member of the Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee, today urged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin to drop the proposed conditions from the Advanced Wireless Services-3 rules and wait until after the 700 MHz D-Block re-auction before adopting final AWS-3 service and auction rules.

The FCC put conditions on the recent 700 MHz spectrum auction that were largely tailored to business models proposed by Frontline and Google. The conditions discouraged private-sector partners from helping to create a nationwide public safety network and reduced money raised from the spectrum auction. Now the commission is proposing similar conditions for the Advanced Wireless Services spectrum.

“We think your proposed rules could repeat this mistake by tailoring the AWS-3 spectrum largely to the business model of a single party,” Barton and Stearns said. “Placing these conditions would result in the commission choosing winners and losers, as well as denying taxpayers the added revenue the spectrum would likely fetch if auctioned without the conditions.”

They are also concerned that the proposed spectrum allocation will result in interference between the AWS-3 spectrum and users of the previously allocated AWS-1 spectrum.

A copy of the letter can be found here.