FCC legal team steps in for NextWave

NEWS The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is bringing in its legal department to try to appease irate telecoms operators over the NextWave 3G licence fiasco. Bankrupt NextWave currently holds licenses to prime GPRS and 3G locations across the US. The US government inked a deal last January to resell the licenses onto other telecoms operators before the end of the year and before it removed them from NextWave's grasp. However, Congress failed to agree to the repossession of the licenses by the end of year deadline on the contract and those who bought the NextWave licenses buyers are no longer bound by their agreement. The 13 telecoms operators - including Vodafone subsidiary, Verizon Wireless and VoiceStream Wireless - claimed they are losing around $3m in interest each week after paying $3.2bn in deposits. But the government deal is still expected to go through - if the FCC ever gets hold of the licenses - as operators have no other choice if they are to get 3G networks underway.