Could the obstacle-plagued auction that took forever to start be near its end?
It seems so, although a part of me believes the C-block auction for personal communications services will never end.
For the record, the C-block auction was originally scheduled to begin in the spring of ’95, but affirmative action rulings, loads of various legal filings and a blizzard delayed the auction time and time again.
Other than a court battle that needs to be resolved and seven petitions before the Federal Communications Commission asking that the agency not grant licenses to four companies, the auction is almost finished.
(In the battle before the court, C-block bidder Mountain Solutions Ltd. believes it should be awarded defaulted licenses because it was the second highest bidder in certain markets. The FCC has instead chosen to re-auction those licenses to a new highest bidder.)
But since there appears to be light at the end of the C-block auction tunnel, it may be time to look at what has happened to the losers in this auction.
In at least a few instances, it does not appear they have lost at all, just changed strategies a bit.
Sandra Goeken Martis, former chairwoman of In-Flight Phone International, who was an unsuccessful C-block bidder as part of Omni-Link Inc., is heading Wireless Works Inc.
Wireless Works is trying to form joint ventures with technology companies that own products with a potential wireless use targeting PCS carriers that she says will have to differentiate themselves from entrenched cellular operators by offering uncommon enhanced services.
Meanwhile, Steven Zecola, most recently the leader of C-block bidder GO Communications Corp., and a former MCI Communications Corp. executive who spearheaded that company’s PCS efforts, has moved onto a new position with a competitive local exchange carrier. Zecola has been named president of retail services at US One Communications Corp.
And U.S. AirWave Holdings Inc. head John DeFeo, who left an executive position at U S West NewVector Group Inc. to bid for PCS licenses, is doing telecommunications consulting work.
At a PCS panel during CTIA’s 1994 convention in San Diego, Professor Preston McAfee from the University of Texas in Austin said that some naive bidders would lose money from winning PCS licenses because they will have paid more than the licenses were worth.
I know three unsuccessful C-block bidders who would agree with him.
