As Larry Downes notes, the FCC is bristling at a congressional effort to curb its ability to micromanage spectrum auctions.

[A]s long as the FCC continues to view the mobile ecosystem through the crabbed and static lens of the companies over which it has regulatory power, the agency’s efforts to fix a market that isn’t actually broken will continue to damage the health of the communications industry.  To save a failing competitor, for example, the agency bent over backwards to block AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile USA’s spectrum licenses, even manipulating a key measure of market strength to make the case against the deal look worse.  How does that help the mobile ecosystem, or consumers? 

My first priority, however, is to guarantee access to new entrants in the mobile ecosystem, which is why I strongly support increasing the availability of unlicensed spectrum available.