WASHINGTON-Sixty-six bidders are competing for the 356 personal communications services
licenses being re-auctioned by the Federal Communications Commission.
Bidders include Omnipoint Corp., Cook
Inlet/VoiceStream PCS L.L.C., Leap Wireless International Inc., a Qualcomm Inc. spinoff, and a host of other carriers
whose identities could not immediately be discerned by their bidding names.
Bidders put up $300 million total in
upfront payments to qualify for the sale of 30 megahertz and 15 megahertz chunks of spectrum from the C, D, E and F
PCS block auctions. The licenses are being re-auctioned because of financial problems companies encountered after
originally buying the licenses from the FCC in 1996 and 1997.
