§1506 Rulemaking related to partitioning or disaggregating licenses

Summary

The FCC must start a rule review within one year after March 23, 2018 to decide if it should create or change a program that would let a company holding an exclusive spectrum license sell or long-term lease parts of that license. The goal is to let unused spectrum go to either an unrelated small carrier or an unrelated carrier that will serve a rural area. A "covered small carrier" is a carrier with no more than 1,500 employees that uses its own facilities. A "rural area" is any place that is not a city or town with more than 20,000 people and not an urban area next to a city or town with more than 50,000 people. In that review, the FCC must think about things like whether lower performance rules for the transferred spectrum would help bring services to the area, what rules are needed so small carriers can build out the spectrum on time, and what incentives (for example, longer license terms or relaxed performance rules) would encourage owners to sell or lease. The FCC must check whether those incentives are practical to run. If a buyer or lessee does not meet the build-out requirements, they lose the spectrum unless the FCC finds a good reason. The FCC may give incentives only if it finds they will likely increase advanced telecom services in rural areas.