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NextWave licenses revoked
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January 12, 2000: 4:35 p.m. ET
FCC to put valuable licenses for wireless airspace up for auction this summer
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The Federal Communication Commission revoked roughly 150 valuable wireless communications licenses held by the now-bankrupt NextWave Communications Thursday, and announced plans to auction those licenses off this summer.
The FCC's decision, which some analysts predicted after Nextel Communications Inc. dropped an $8.3 billion hostile takeover bid for NextWave last month, will place the licenses granting access to a significant portion of the nation's wireless spectrum up for open bid.
FCC officials said the decision to revoke the licenses was made because NextWave was more than 90 days delinquent on its payments for those permits.
"Allowing a company to keep its licenses despite its failure to pay on time would be unfair to others who played by the rules and would undermine the integrity of our auctions process," said FCC Chairman William Kennard, in a statement. "This spectrum has laid fallow for too long."
A NextWave spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
The FCC will make available NextWave's C and F Block broadband PCS licenses available in the auction to be held on July 26, 2000. Those licenses cover roughly 150 major metropolitan markets including New York, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth and Denver.
The Hawthorne, N.Y.-based NextWave won the licenses in a similar auction format 1996 with a $4.7 billion bid. But two years later, the company declared bankruptcy, claiming it couldn't afford to pay full prices to the FCC.
The licenses have been tied up in bankruptcy proceedings ever since. Meanwhile, NextWave has built one of the country's most expansive wireless networks, serving 92 of the country's top 100 metropolitan markets.
Eyeing the licenses, Reston, Va.-based Nextel (NXTL) swept in as a possible white knight buyer, offering first to pay $2.1 billion for the licenses and then floating an $8.3 billion bid to purchase the company. But NextWave rebuffed both offers.
Nextel dropped its acquisition plans last month after the Appeals Court for the Second Circuit reversed an earlier Bankruptcy court decision that the FCC's payment conditions were "subject to modifications."
That decision also cleared the way for the FCC to revoke the licenses and solicit new bids from Nextel and others.
NextWave also filed modified reorganization plan filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, last month which included a $1.6 billion investment by such companies as Global Crossing Ltd. (GBLX) and Liberty Media Group, an affiliate of AT&T Corp. (T).
Nextel shares closed up 6-13/16 at 102-1/16 Wednesday. 
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NextWave Telecom Inc.
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