AUCTION NEWS: Bidding nears $13B mark

WASHINGTON—The total amount raised by the advanced wireless services auction is creeping toward $13 billion, although each round is raising less money that the previous. However, bidding is still active on a number of licenses; the number of licenses with new high bids continues to hover near 300.

Since Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA Inc. have largely solidified their position as bidders on large regional licenses, the rest of the auction’s players are pushing for the 352 Economic Area licenses that offer blocks of 20- and 10-megahertz of spectrum. Still-smaller geographical licenses of 20-megahertz A-block licenses also are seeing more bids.

Only 144 licenses of the 1,122 licenses offered in the Federal Communications Commission’s auction had not received bids as of the 38th round.

As of round 38:

• Cingular Wireless L.L.C. posted high bids totaling $1.2 billion for 45 licenses. Cingular has held onto a number of high bids for several rounds, but added another 18 high bids in the 38th round. Of Cingular’s high bids in round 38, 11 were A-block licenses in cities such as Ocean, New Brunswick and Asbury Park, N.J.; Kansas City, Mo.; Cincinnati; and Greensboro, N.C.

• T-Mobile USA made nearly 30 high bids in round 38, dueling for A-, B- and C-block licenses covering cities in Michigan, Ohio, California and New York. The carrier has so far committed a total of $4.1 billion to 132 licenses.

• Leap Wireless International Inc. had high bids worth nearly $738 million on 54 licenses. Leap’s Denali Spectrum entity had a separate total of $274 million in high bids.

• MetroPCS Communications Inc. has bounced around in recent rounds, at times placing high bids on as many as 15 spectrum licenses and at other times holding the high bids on only a handful of licenses. MetroPCS had high bids on five licenses worth $960 million in round 38: two regional licenses that it has held onto for some time, plus B- and C-block licenses in San Angelo, Texas; Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.; and Detroit-Flint, Mich.

• American Cellular Corp., backed by Dobson Communications Corp., had high bids on 49 licenses worth $30 million in round 38 in portions of New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Alaska and Michigan.

• SpectrumCo, the bidding entity for Sprint Nextel Corp. and its cable partners, had high bids worth a total of $2 billion.