FCC Dislikes Beards  

The FCC has plans to fix the legal loophole that allowed Dish Network to get billions of dollars in government subsidies during the AWS-3 auction. Dish used two companies in which it has 85% ownership in to do their bidding. Northstar and SNR were eligible for a 25% discount under the designated small business entity, which came to a $3 billion break for Dish. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler on Wednesday announced that his agency was eyeing new rules to prevent big companies from taking advantage of “designated entity” programs for small firms in airwave auctions. “We are going to fix this,” he said during a hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee. “We are going to issue a new public notice on this to make sure that this specific issue is teed up. We are going to make sure that designated entities have the opportunity to participate and not have designated entities be beards for people that shouldn’t.” (The Hill) Many people were upset about Dish Network’s abuse of the system. Commissioner Ajit Pai said in a release, “DISH, however, has annual revenues of almost $14 billion, a market capitalization of over $32 billion, and over 14 million customers. Its participation makes a mockery of the DE program.” While Dish said they “respectfully disagree” with Pai’s statement and they complied fully with the DE rules, the FCC will still make changes so this doesn’t happen in the 2016 incentive auction.