19.1 Billion and counting! 700MHz

700MHz: 19.1B and Counting

Posted by samc on February 7th, 2008

Total potential winning bids are just under $19.1 billion at the end of today’s 700 MHz auction.

According to RCR News, the big news of the afternoon was that the E-Block licenses surpassed their reserve price of $903.7 million during round 44. The E Block is now no longer subject to a possible re-auction that would have been required had it not met its reserve price.

This block is different then the rest in that it is unpaired spectrum, using a single 6 megahertz channel (on UHF Channel 56). It seems likely to be dedicated to mobile television, like Channel 55 next to it, which is owned by Qualcomm for their MediaFLO system.

E-Block licenses that received new bids in round 45 include; Atlanta ($27.5 million); Miami ($24.8 million); Dallas ($35.6 million); Philadelphia ($37.7 million); Boston ($25.1 million); San Francisco ($44.9 million); and Los Angeles ($92.9 million).

On Monday, new c-block bids were placed on the eight regional c-block licenses – not the 50-state package. Bidders can place a bid on the package of eight licenses as a whole or bid on the regional licenses separately. Under FCC rules, if bids on the regional licenses are higher than bids on the package, the spectrum will be sold separately. Bids on the regional licenses now stand at $4.74 billion, trumping the $4.71 billion high bid on the 50-state package.

Under FCC rules, if bids on the “C Block” regional licenses are higher than bids on the nation-wide package, the spectrum will be sold separately.

“It would make perfect sense for Verizon or AT&T to focus on the regional c-block licenses - and acquire the entire c-block if the price exceeded the reserve - and Google stopped bidding,” said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at the New America Foundation.

Only the national commercial-public safety D-Block license is not likely to reach its reserve price. The FCC may release the names of the A-, B-, C- and E-Block licenses shortly after Auction 73 concludes. Stifel Nicolaus expects the auction to end by the end of the month, or possibly sooner.

The FCC said today that it was increasing the number of bidding rounds from five to six beginning tomorrow. Under Phase 2 of the auction, new bids only have to be 2% higher than the current bid, rather than the 5% increase required in earlier rounds of bidding.

source : dailywireless.org