FCC generates more than $4.5 billion in latest wireless spectrum auction

[Shawn Knight]

The big picture: The Federal Communications Commission this week announced the winners of its recent 3.5GHz band auction, which offered the largest number of spectrum licenses ever in a single FCC auction. Verizon and Dish shelled out big time while AT&T and T-Mobile were mostly inactive, likely building their war chest for the C-band auction later this year.

The auction, which began on July 23 and wrapped up on August 25, offered 70 megahertz of Priority Access Licenses (PALs) in the 3550-3650 MHz band. In total, the auction generated $4,585,663,345 from 228 bidders who won a total of 20,625 licenses.

Verizon Wireless was the biggest spender in the auction, agreeing to license $1,893,791,991 worth of spectrum. Dish Network, bidding as Wetterhorn Wireless LLC, committed to $912,939,410 in exchange for 5,492 PALs.

Charter, bidding as Spectrum Wireless Holdings, XF Wireless Investment / Comcast and Cox Communications rounded out the top five with total bids of $464,251,209, $458,725,900 and $212,805,412, respectively.

Curiously enough, AT&T didn’t participate in the auction and T-Mobile only picked up a handful of licenses. Mark Lowenstein, managing director of Mobile Ecosystem, believes AT&T and T-Mobile might be saving their ammunition for the C-band auction scheduled for December.

The FCC said winning bidders have until September 17 to submit a down payment totaling 20 percent of their winning bid(s). Full payment is due by October 1, 2020.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/86623-fcc-generates-more-than-45-billion-latest-wireless.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I’ve been using Verizon FiOS for over 10 years and I don’t think I’ve had to call them more than once about any service issues. I’m the happiest of Verizon Internet customers you could have. I’ve stuck with AT&T for my cellular service simply because along time ago Verizon’s iPhone couldn’t surf the Internet and simultaneously talk on the phone but with the new technology it’s possible so there’s a very good possibility I could leave AT&T and consolidate with Verizon. As long as the price is right.

 

[Gabriel Pike]

The company I work for spent a little over 100K on 4 licenses in 3 counties for fixed wireless deployments. This should lead to higher speeds available to our internet customers. My whole world is bits per hertz.

 

[VitalyT]

What good can we expect from a government that sells air?

 

[mbrowne5061]

What good can we expect from a government that sells air?

You mean "leases spectrum", and the answer is "plenty". I challenge you to come up how public management of RF spectrum is a bad thing, rather than begging the question.

 

[ColdSoup]

What good can we expect from a government that sells air?

This is extremely short sighted. Spectrum management is difficult and literally can get people killed if done wrong.

 

[VitalyT]

This is extremely short sighted. Spectrum management is difficult and literally can get people killed if done wrong.

You mean "leases spectrum", and the answer is "plenty". I challenge you to come up how public management of RF spectrum is a bad thing, rather than begging the question.

What I implied in my question - spectrum licenses should be available for free, or a nominal fee, not auctioned off for billions. The government is too greedy in this, that's what I meant that we can not expect much good from such government.

 

[ColdSoup]

What I implied in my question - spectrum licenses should be available for free, or a nominal fee, not auctioned off for billions. The government is too greedy in this, that's what I meant that we can not expect much good from such government.

Fair enough. We aren't as good of mind readers as you give us credit for.

 

[defaultluser]

What I implied in my question - spectrum licenses should be available for free, or a nominal fee, not auctioned off for billions. The government is too greedy in this, that's what I meant that we can not expect much good from such government.

If they're cheap, then anybody with a thousand bucks can sit on spectrum, for however many years they paid for. that will make it disappear overnight, never to be seen again for X years.

If you don't give away spectrum for a number of years, then buyers have no incentive to build a network. If you don't build a network, then what was three point of the sale?

Doing this any other way would tie-up spectrum among people who just want to see the world burn/those saving it for a rainy day. Unfortunately, there's not enouh spectrum available for everyone to act in their own best interests, AND it takes piles of money to build a network, so you'd better have the cash for the auction.


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[mbrowne5061]

What I implied in my question - spectrum licenses should be available for free, or a nominal fee, not auctioned off for billions. The government is too greedy in this, that's what I meant that we can not expect much good from such government.

Doing the math, this sale had an average price of a little less than a quarter of a million dollars per license. That is pretty cheap considering the license is nation-wide. That is around $0.06/square mile of coverage in the United States. They'll make that back the cost of the license for any particular square mile pretty much the second a costumer utilizes it in that location.

If anything, the government is selling public property - property that belongs to each and every American citizen - for too little. They should be charging more so that you don't end up with just one or two companies snapping up pretty much the whole band. Also, the fact that only half the companies bought in on this sale, and they spent so much that they won't be able to afford the next, just reeks of a 'golf course deal' between the CEOs. Seems pretty obvious to me that they divided up the spectrum in advance, and agreed not to compete against each other during the auctions, so they could keep their individual costs low.