CTIA filed an ex parte letter with the FCC today, reiterating the association’s concerns regarding the commission's proposed usage rules for the AWS-2 and AWS-3 bands. CTIA said that it has technical concerns, based on information regarding handset testing and filter technologies, that mobile transmissions in the H block and the AWS-3 block “will cause harmful interference to adjacent broadband PCS and AWS-1 operations.”

The letter is in response to the FCC’s proposed plan to auction off a swath of spectrum on the AWS-2 and AWS-3 bands as part of a plan to provide free wireless broadband to a majority of the country. The FCC’s plan would require the winning bidder to build a wireless network that within 10 years offered 95% of the nation’s population free wireless broadband.

CTIA said if the FCC goes ahead with the plan, the auction would “severely harm the integrity and undermine the success of the commission’s spectrum auction process; violate section 309(j) of the act, which requires the commission to place interested bidders on notice of the characteristics of licenses and bidding rules in advance of auctions; violate the administrative procedure act’s prohibition on retroactive rulemaking; represent a breach of the Commission’s contractual obligation of good faith and fair dealing in the auction process.”

CTIA also said the commission’s plan to auction off the spectrum and require the winner to provide free wireless Internet access would “undermine the commission’s broader goals for deployment of competitive, affordable, and reliable mobile wireless broadband services.”

The commission had originally planned to vote on the plan in its meeting on June 12, but due to concerns voiced by carriers and CTIA, the commission had delayed a discussion of the plan.