AUCTION NEWS: Bidding remains robust in smaller licenses

WASHINGTON—Bidding remained active on the ninth day of the Federal Communication Commission’s advanced wireless services spectrum auction, as bidders continued to focus their attention on smaller licenses now that bidding on big regional licenses appears to have ended.

The pursuit of smaller, less valuable licenses is reflected by slower growth in the gross bids made so far; the value of gross bids reached about $11.8 billion, growing only 1.14 percent over the previous round. But with 281 new bids, interest by the various parties remains high.

The active bidders in round 30 included Leap Wireless International Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and its cable television partners, Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and T-Mobile USA Inc.

Notable bids in round 30 included:

• Leap posted provisionally winning bids on a C-block license in Chicago for $107 million, a B-block license in Philadelphia for $52 million, and an A-block license in Washington, D.C., for $50 million;

• Sprint Nextel and its cable partners posted new high bids on a B-block license covering Washington, D.C./Baltimore for $111 million and a C-block licenses in Los Angeles for $109 million;

• T-Mobile USA posted a new high bid of $130 million on an A-block license in Chicago.

Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA remain the highest spenders in the auction with high bids on the six valuable F-block licenses, which cover vast swaths of land and include 20 megahertz of spectrum.