Reserve Unit Miffed by Soldier's Auction
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An unusual flap has erupted between an Army reserve unit and an Iraq-bound reservist who hopes to raise money for military equipment he wants to bring to the war zone.
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The US military said Monday no decision had been taken whether to discipline Army reservists who refused a supply mission last week, despite statements from their relatives that the soldiers would be discharged.
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Peddles "His 'n' hers" uniform sets A cash-strapped UK Ministry of Defence is resorting to increasingly desperate measures in the struggle to get its finances back on track. The latest of these is the setting up of an eBay-style online auction site to flog the military's surplus gear, already reported in these pages.â¦
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WASHINGTON - Relatives of soldiers who refused to deliver supplies in Iraq say the troops considered the mission too dangerous, in part because their vehicles were in poor shape.    The Army is investigating up to 19 reservist members of a platoon that is part of the 343rd Quartermaster Company, based in Rock Hill, S.C...
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. Army Reserve soldiers who refused orders to drive a dangerous route were members of one of a few supply units whose trucks are still unarmored, their commanding general said Sunday...
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Halliburton&#39;s row with the US Army intensified yesterday when the military said it would withhold 15pc of future invoices due to an ongoing dispute over billing practices.
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At a time when some U.S. troops in Iraq are complaining they have to scrounge for equipment, six Ohio-based reservists were court-martialed for taking Army vehicles abandoned in Kuwait by other units so they could carry out their own unit's mission to Iraq.
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The U.S. Army Reserve, tapped heavily to provide soldiers for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is "degenerating into a 'broken' force" due to dysfunctional military policies, the Army Reserve's chief said in a memo made public on Wednesday.
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Many Israelis, including a large number of disgruntled reserve soldiers, have been demanding an inquiry since the fighting ended on Aug. 14.
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CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait  - An American soldier  complained to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Wednesday  troops were being forced to dig up scrap metal to protect their  vehicles in Iraq because of a shortage of armored transport.
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The US military said Thursday the company commander of the Army Reserveâs 343rd Quartermaster Company asked to be relieved of command in the wake of the refusal of 18 soldiers assigned to the unit to deliver fuel along a dangerous route.
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A handful of people who bid in the disastrous C-Block PCS auction in 1996 plan to participate in the upcoming 700MHz contest despite warning signs indicating the potential for similar troubles.Like the earlier auction, the 700MHz auction is set to occur in a faltering economy, presenting challenges to license hopefuls needing cash. Yet, just like that ill-fated auction more than 10 years ago, an oddball collection of participants plan to bid, this time including the Missouri Farmers&#39; Union, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, and Disney.The C-Block PCS auction was infamous because it was designed not just for companies with access to billions of dollars but for entrepreneurs interested in getting into the wireless industry. Postal carriers, lawyers, and doctors quit their day jobs and invested their savings, confident that U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) incentives would help them make it big.But the auction turned into a debacle. Of the original 255 bidders, 89 emerged with licenses, and only a handful of them actually started businesses. The rest went bankrupt, sold their licenses for pennies on the dollar, or returned them to the FCC in an amnesty program.Take Vince McBride, an approved bidder for the upcoming 700MHz auction who lives in San Diego and has won and lost in several auctions. &quot;There are ups and downs, but I keep trying,&quot; he said.McBride was a postal carrier who sunk his life savings into the PCS auction in 1996. A series of lawsuits delayed the auction and then the award of licenses. During that time, Wall Street soured on the wireless market and license winners, who bid prices sky high based on attractive payment terms set by the FCC, struggled to finance their wins. McBride got lucky and returned his licenses to the FCC for little loss.Then the FCC reauctioned licenses and McBride won a new one, which he managed to sell for a nice profit. But in a subsequent reauction, he won another license that was later repossessed by the FCC, which was forced to give it back to the original winner after a series of lawsuits.McBride&#39;s sometime partner Scott Reiter, an emergency room physician who splits his time between Santa Monica and the Philippines, has had a similar series of wins and losses in FCC auctions. He too plans to bid in the upcoming auction. Reiter won a few licenses back in 1996 and shortly after got a few good offers from operators interested in buying them.&quot;I got greedy, basically,&quot; he said. He held out for better offers, which didn&#39;t come, and eventually had to sell his licenses at a loss.Reiter was undeterred, though. He entered the 2002 auctions for 700MHz licenses --&#160;back before there was a solid deadline for when TV broadcasters had to vacate the spectrum. He bought licenses in three markets, later selling the spectrum for a nice profit to AT&amp;T.&quot;When I bought that spectrum, it went up in value like crazy,&quot; Reiter said. McBride also won 700MHz licenses then, later selling them to AT&amp;T. They both agreed with AT&amp;T not to disclose the purchase price.Bidders are currently in a quiet period during which the FCC forbids them to discuss their plans for the upcoming auction. But some of them say that because this time around there is a fixed date for when the spectrum will be available to buyers -- 2009, after the TV broadcasters must vacate it -- the value is easier to gauge than in the previous 700MHz auction. However, it may be difficult for some bidders to get credit these days, which could help keep prices down, they say.While many of the individual bidders insist they intend to build networks if they win the spectrum, many likely have other plans. &quot;I think many of them want to buy and resell it,&quot; said Nadine Manjaro, a senior analyst with ABI Research. A look at the result of the earlier 700MHz auctions, which distributed what&#39;s thought to be less valuable portions of the band, could be spurring big dreams for bidders.Aloha Partners, one of the biggest winners in those auctions, sold its licenses to AT&amp;T for $2.5 billion late last year. Aloha spent over $40 million at the auctions but also later bought licenses from other companies for undisclosed amounts. It is thought to have made a handsome profit.While much attention has been focused on the billions that big companies like Google had to put up to enter the 700MHz auction, some of the licenses could go for quite cheap, which could be attracting some of the individuals hoping to turn around and sell the licenses for a profit. Some licenses in small markets require as little as $10,000 in an up-front payment, Manjaro said.Still, for bidders with bigger aspirations, the sinking economy will likely harm their efforts, unless they already have secured funding.&#160;The recent collapse of Frontline Wireless, a company created by luminaries in the wireless industry to win 700MHz licenses, has raised concern among other bidders. &quot;They had a really strong team of players, and for them to not be able to secure the money shows the impact of the economy,&quot; Manjaro said.One difference in the rules for this 700MHz auction compared to previous contests that could affect individuals who participate is that bidders will be anonymous. That could cut back on potential collusion, a problem that many have said plagued previous auctions.Another auction change, however, likely works against the smaller players. This time, license winners have just four years to build out a portion of their networks. That&#39;s a relatively short amount of time for smaller winners to raise money and build a network.A number of other license winners from the C-Block PCS auction are also approved to bid in the upcoming auction. Bill McKell, CEO for Horizon Chillicothe Telecom, an Ohio telecommunications provider, is on the list. His company was one of the first winners from the C-Block PCS auction to launch a network, but it later&#160;returned the licenses to the FCC.These previous bidders seem prepared to go ahead with this auction despite warning signs that the market might not work in their favor, just like in the PCS auction from 1996. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin recently acknowledged that poor economic conditions could impact the auction because bidders might struggle to raise capital.But these smaller bidders must be gamblers. &quot;Sometimes you get lucky,&quot; McBride said.
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Three U.S. Army Reserve officers and two U.S. civilians have been charged with taking or helping funnel more than $1 million in cash, sports cars, jewelry and other items as bribes to rig bids on Iraqi reconstruction contracts, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
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The Army is investigating reports that members of a reservist supply unit refused to go on a convoy mission.
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(InfoWorld) - Several companies have challengedÂ spectrum auction rulesÂ recently set by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, with Frontline Wireless protesting that the auction of the 700MHz band to be auctioned in January could shut out small bidders. In addition, AT&T has asked the FCC to reconsider requirements for the winning bidder of a block of spectrum to be used to build a nationwide broadband network for public safety agencies. The rules require bidders to reach a service agreement with public safety officials before the auction, and the FCC's decision to deny bidders the spectrum if an agreement is not reached is "an extreme penalty," AT&T said in its petition. AT&T and Frontline, a startup made up of government and wireless industry veterans, filed petitions for reconsideration of the auction rules with the FCC Monday. They were among 10 companies that filed petitions in the last week asking the FCC to reconsider the auction rules it set in July for the 700MHz band of spectrum being vacated by U.S. television stations. The FCC is scheduled to auction 62MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band beginning Jan. 16. The FCC set a reserve price of $10 billion for the entire 62MHz, but many observers believe the auctions will raise much more than that. The spectrum is currently controlled by U.S. television stations using channels 52 to 69. The U.S. Congress in late 2005 passed legislation that requires the stations to move to digital broadcasts and abandon this spectrum by February 2009. Frontline raised several objections about the auction rules. The company and someÂ consumer groupsÂ had called for the FCC to require that the winning bidder of a portion of the spectrum resell the spectrum at wholesale rates, but the FCC declined to do so. FCC members talked about including small businesses in the auction, Frontline noted. But the FCC denied bidding discounts, called credits, for small business wholesalers, Frontline said. Small businesses can't compete against large wireless carriers unless they adopt a wholesale model, the company said. "Wholesaling is also the only model a new nationwide wireless network operator could realistically afford to adopt, given the massive costs associated with providing retail service -- consider Verizon's 2,300 retail outlets and its $1.9 billion annual advertising budget," Frontline said in its petition. Frontline also suggested the reserve, or minimum prices, for two blocks of spectrum are too high. Frontline objected to a reserve price of about $1.3 billion for a 10MHz portion of spectrum to be paired with 12MHz set aside for emergency response communications. Frontline said the $4.6 billion reserve is also too high for another 22MHz of spectrum, for which the FCC adopted so-called open access rules. If the reserve price is met, the FCC will require the winning bidder to allow customers to bring wireless devices from other carriers and prohibit the winner from blocking or slowing competing Web content. Under the FCC rules, both blocks of spectrum would be re-auctioned under new rules if the reserve prices aren't met. "The unlawfully high reserve prices will nullify or disrupt and damage the Commission's carefully considered decisions as to the highest and best use of this spectrum, encourage bidding strategies that defeat these sound allocations decisions and seriously reduce auction revenues," Frontline's lawyers wrote. Earlier this month, Verizon Wireless asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the FCC's decision to require open-access rules supported by Frontline and some consumer groups. Those rules are "arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by substantial evidence and otherwise contrary to law," Verizon Wireless said in a brief filed with the court.
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In a rare public airing of grievances, disgruntled soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday about long deployments and a lack of armored vehicles and other equipment.
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BAGHDAD -- The US Army Reserve soldiers who refused orders to drive a dangerous route were members of one of a few supply units whose trucks are still unarmored, their commanding general said yesterday.