All of the Federal Communications Commission members agreed Tuesday that the No. 1 priority for the digital transition was not DTV converter boxes nor the education program, but creating an interoperable broadband public-safety network with spectrum being reclaimed from that transition.

That came in response to prompting from legislators in a House Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee hearing on the recently completed 700-megahertz spectrum auction -- recently completed, that is, except for a block of spectrum, the so-called D block, which is supposed to be used to help create that network via a public-private partnership.

The auction, which raised about $19 billion, got mixed reviews in the hearing. Some legislators, primarily Republicans, argued that the auction was not a success because the $19 billion it raised was far less than it would have raised had the commission not put open-access conditions on a large swath of spectrum, saying that some estimates ran as high as $30 billion.

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