Verizon outspent every other carrier combined in latest FCC 5G spectrum auction

[Shawn Knight]

What just happened? The Federal Communications Commission this week announced the winning bidders as well as the final bid totals in its latest wireless spectrum auction. The results of the auction are more or less in line with that analysts were expecting. Verizon needed a big haul to help bolster its mmWave installations. T-Mobile wasn’t going to go hog wild since it has plenty of spectrum due to its recent merger with Sprint.

Cellco Partnership, otherwise known as Verizon Wireless, spent a total of $45.5 billion in exchange for 3,511 licenses. AT&T placed second with a total expenditure of $23.4 billion, which garnered 1,621 licenses, while T-Mobile shelled out $9.3 billion to snag 142 licenses. US Cellular also spent $1.3 billion to grab 254 licenses.

A total of 21 bidders won all of the available 5,684 licenses, spending a collective $81,168,677,645 to do so.

Now that #CBand auction results are public, time for carriers to start explaining what they are going to do with their billions of dollars of new spectrum.

Verizon is up first with an investor day on 3/10. T-Mobile goes next with its own analyst event on 3/11.

— Eli Blumenthal (@eliblumenthal) February 24, 2021

FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said it is essential to America’s economic recovery that they deliver on the promise of next-generation wireless services for everyone, everywhere. “This auction reflects a shift in our nation’s approach to 5G toward mid-band spectrum that can support fast, reliable, and ubiquitous service that is competitive with our global peers,” she added.

With the easy part in the rearview, carriers now must focus on actually building the infrastructure to support the spectrum licenses they have acquired.

Masthead credit: Number17

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https://www.techspot.com/news/88744-verizon-outspent-every-other-carrier-combined-latest-fcc.html

 

[BadThad]

5G is worthless to 99% of America. With a 1500 ft range, it's only useful in cities.

 

[yRaz]

5G is worthless to 99% of America. With a 1500 ft range, it's only useful in cities.

5g is a great idea in theory but in practice it sucks. If you have anything blocking you and the tower you get zero service. And I'm not talking a building, I'm talking a phonebooth or telephone poll. Heck, if you have someone standing in front of you you won't get service.

4g is really all that phones need, I don't understand why people need to watch 4k video on their phones

 

[DZillaXx]

5g is a great idea in theory but in practice it sucks. If you have anything blocking you and the tower you get zero service. And I'm not talking a building, I'm talking a phonebooth or telephone poll. Heck, if you have someone standing in front of you you won't get service.

4g is really all that phones need, I don't understand why people need to watch 4k video on their phones

This is not because of 5G, its because they are using high frequencies. And as you know the higher the frequency the harder it is to penetrate obstacles. Same reason why 5ghz wifi bandwidth has less range than 2.4ghz.

Bringing 5G into lower bands will only make things better. Don't expect them to upgrade existing low band 4G quite yet. Not until Modem's in Phones catch up.