Lumen Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: LUMN) is selling all of the 265 CBRS 3.5 GHz spectrum licenses Actel won for just over $9 million during FCC Auction 105 in 2020. Actel, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lumen, originally won the licenses for Centurylink which is now part of Lumen. The buyer is Citizens Band License Company, LLC, (CBLC), a limited liability company majority owned and controlled by Jonathan Foxman and Daniel Hopkins, they tell the FCC in a new filing. Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.
“The transaction involves only the assignment of spectrum and does not include the transfer of any other assets, facilities, or customers,” they say. “Also, there will be no loss of an existing service provider in any area, and there will be no discontinuance, reduction, loss, or impairment of service to end-user customers.”
The companies believe the deal is in the public interest. They state, “The Commission has determined that applications that demonstrate a transaction will yield affirmative competitive public interest benefits and will neither violate the [Communications] Act or Commission rules, nor frustrate or undermine policies and enforcement of the Act by reducing competition or otherwise, do not require extensive review or expenditure of considerable resources by the Commission.”
Foxman is President/CEO at MTPCS, LLC (doing business as Cellular One) and MT Networks, LLC in Wayne, PA, according to LinkedIn. Hopkins is Chief Financial Officer at the same company.
They believe the deal meets this standard and should be promptly granted. They say the licenses “will provide spectrum capacity to allow CBLC to offer mobile wireless broadband services to consumers in rural areas.”
CBLC is well-qualified “to acquire, control and make beneficial public use of the licenses,” they state. The companies also tell the agency the proposed transaction “will not adversely affect competition, and will serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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