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NEWS
Federal Communications Commission

News Media Information 202 / 418-0500

445 12th Street, S.W.

Internet: http://www.fcc.gov

Washington, D. C. 20554

TTY: 1-888-835-5322

This is an unofficial announcement of Commission action. Release of the full text of a Commission order constitutes official action.
See MCI v. FCC. 515 F 2d 385 (D.C. Circ 1974).

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

NEWS MEDIA CONTACT:

March 27, 2012
Neil Grace, 202-418-0506
Email: neil.grace@fcc.gov

FCC ANNOUNCES PAUL MILGROM AND OTHER LEADING AUCTION EXPERTS TO
ADVISE COMMISSION ON INCENTIVE AUCTION DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

Incentive Auction Process Will Seek to Maximize Opportunity of New Legislation to Unleash

Investment and Innovation, Benefit Consumers, Drive Economic Growth, and Enhance Global

Competitiveness

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Federal Communications Commission announced the retention of leading
experts in auction theory and implementation, one of its first significant steps to implement new incentive
auction authority passed by Congress in late February. The advice of prize-winning auction and IT
experts from Auctionomics, Power Auctions and MicroTech will serve as valuable input to the
Commission as it moves forward to design and implement incentive auctions.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said, “I am delighted to have this world-class team of experts
advising the Commission on this historic undertaking. Our plan is to ensure that incentive auctions serve
as an effective market mechanism to unleash more spectrum for mobile broadband and help address the
looming spectrum crunch. Our implementation of this new Congressional mandate will be guided by the
economics, and will seek to maximize the opportunity to unleash investment and innovation, benefit
consumers, drive economic growth, and enhance our global competitiveness. The knowledge and
experience of this team will complement the substantial expertise of agency staff to meet these goals.”
The experts have earned top prizes in their fields of economics. The team of auction experts is led by
Auctionomics Chairman Paul Milgrom, the Ely Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department
Economics at Stanford University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. Milgrom is the recipient of Nemmers Prize in Economics for
contributions dramatically expanding the understanding of the role of information and incentives in a
variety of settings, including auctions, the theory of the firm, and oligopolistic markets. He is widely
regarded as one of the foremost thinkers in auction theory and design, and he helped create the first FCC
spectrum auction design, which has served as a blueprint for similar auctions worldwide.
Also with Auctionomics are Professors Jonathan Levin and Ilya Segal of Stanford University. Professor
Levin is the Chair of the Department of Economics at Stanford, and a recipient of the John Bates Clark
Medal as the economist under the age of forty who has made the most significant contribution to
economic thought and knowledge. Ilya Segal is the Anderson Professor in the Humanities and Sciences
at Stanford, and is a recipient of the Compass-Lexecon prize for the most significant contribution to the
understanding and implementation of competition policy.
Power Auctions LLC is led by Lawrence Ausubel, a Professor of Economics at the University of
Maryland. Professor Ausubel is a widely published author on auctions, industrial organization, and

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financial markets, and is a leading expert on efficient auction design. Power Auctions, based in
Washington DC, has extensive experience in the design and implementation of high-profile auctions
around the globe and currently provides spectrum auction design and software services to the
Governments of Canada and Australia.
MicroTech, a leading technology and systems integrator for critical infrastructure and information
technology solutions, will provide state-of-the-art security, systems development and implementation
support directly tied to their cloud computing solutions.
-FCC-

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