In the Incentive Auction Report and Order, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted Partial Economic Areas (PEAs) as the service area for 600 MHz Incentive Auction licenses. The Rural Wireless Association, NCTA – The Rural Broadband Association, the Competitive Carriers Association, and the Blooston Rural Carriers proposed the PEA boundaries as a compromise between Economic Areas (EAs) and Cellular Market Areas (CMAs). The Commission found that PEAs are small enough for smaller carriers to support, but the number of total service areas is low enough to reduce the time necessary to complete the incentive auction. Following the much-awaited Report & Order‘s release, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau released accompanying information about the PEAs. The Public Notice provides a list of the 416 PEAs with their corresponding EA, a list of counties showing the corresponding PEA, and a map of the PEAs. These documents are available on the FCC’s web site: http://www.fcc.gov/oet/info/maps/areas/.
