Below is Chairman Markey's opening statement:

"Good Morning.  The recently-completed auction for licenses in the 700 megahertz band had a certain "Dickensian quality" to it - it was the best of auctions and the worst of auctions, simultaneously.

"First, despite the so-called "D-block" license not selling, the auction raised over $19 billion.  This is no small feat in current economic conditions.

"Second, I am pleased that the C-block license did sell successfully. This license, for which the Commission had the wisdom to adopt openness requirements that I strongly advocated for, will unleash hundreds of millions of dollars in investment in wireless devices and applications and create new jobs in an economy that sorely needs them.  I congratulate Chairman Martin and the Commission for this initiative. 

"However, in spite of these success stories, this is essentially a tale of two auctions.  And so, with the good news there is also some bad news. 

"Obviously, the D-block is disappointing.  Yet I believe that pursuing ways for public safety entities and the private sector to partner toward achieving a network that possesses nationwide interoperability and broadband capability remains our best option going-forward on the D-block. 

"There are several routes toward realizing an interoperable, state-of-the-art network for public safety entities, however, and multiple ways of implementing public-private partnerships.  I encourage the Commission to be open to new ideas in this area.

"If the Commission takes the opportunity to weigh new proposals that correct deficiencies in the previous plan, puts in place barriers to unjust enrichment, clarifies important details prior to a re-auction, and re-calibrates the D-block license conditions to account for what has transpired in the recently-completed auction, the D-block's recent failure to sell may ultimately prove fortuitous.  And we may yet achieve a successful re-auction that can advance several policy objectives simultaneously.

"Finally, we must also remember that the sheer amount of money that an auction brings in to the Treasury is only one of the many objectives Congress instructed the FCC to try to achieve in this or any auction.

"Last Friday, I released a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO-08-383) on media ownership issues.  That report highlighted the abysmal track record in our country of having women-owned and minority-owned radio and television broadcasting licensees.  Those broadcast licenses were originally given out in the 1940s and 1950s.  We cannot go back in time to correct the unfairness of distributing those public assets in such unbalanced fashion.  And it is difficult in the broadcasting area to correct this injustice now unless an incumbent wishes to sell their license.

"Yet in wireless, we have a new opportunity with the "beachfront" property of the spectrum.  And what is the result so far?  At present, it looks like two mega-resorts are going up on the beachfront in the form of Verizon and AT&T, solidifying their wireless market and spectrum real estate positions.  Yes, Echostar has won almost a nationwide footprint -- not to compete with Verizon and AT&T in the mobile wireless market -- but rather to have spectrum as an adjunct to their satellite television service.

"Women-owned and minority-owned businesses did not break through.  There is no new national competitor to provoke new broadband competition, innovation, and consumer choice coming out of the auction.

"As a result, the wireless "3rd pipe" to compete with the telephone and cable industry is proving either elusive -- or simply allied with one of the two existing providers in much of the country.  This is too cozy and not nearly competitive enough.

"The decision to eliminate spectrum caps by the FCC under Chairman Powell is proving highly ill-considered.  Spectrum caps had ensured that incumbents couldn't gobble up all of the available spectrum and effectively box out would-be competitors from reaching the market.  And the so-called "spectrum screen" of 95 Megahertz that has substituted for the original cap has been blown away in this auction by AT&T and Verizon in 8 of the top 10 markets, and 17 of the top 25 markets, where that amount of spectrum has now been exceeded. 

"The FCC must revisit these policy decisions in light of the recently-completed auction and take corrective action going forward.  The Commission has the responsibility to learn from the licensing mistakes of the past and to widely disseminate licenses and promote greater broadband competition and should endeavor to do so.  I look forward to working with each of the Commissioners as they wrestle with all of these policy issues in the weeks ahead.

"We have two excellent panels today and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.  Thank you."