The 700 MHz auction is all but over, with the Federal Communications Commission increasing the number of bidding rounds to eight per day last Friday in an attempt to speed to a close bidding whose spectacular revenue and open access achievements will likely be diminished by the equally spectacular failure to produce an operator with whom first responders can partner to build a national commercial-first responder broadband network.
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Bids were down to a trickle Friday, and it appeared total potential winning bids would fall short of the $20 billion mark. Nevertheless, the $19.5 billion generated so far from the auction of more than 1,000 licenses is double the revenue that the government anticipated.
Bidding on the C and D Blocks looks to have ceased, and bids on the remaining E, A and B Blocks are waning. Industry watchers are anxious for the auction to close since the FCC will only release the identities of winning bidders at the end of the event. Big names, including Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and Google Inc. are among the 214 entities approved to bid in the auction.
Still in play
As for the action during the past few rounds last Friday, a handful of A-Block bids have been scattered across the upper half of the country, while B-Block action remains sprinkled over parts of the Southeast and in Fargo, N.D., which received a pair of new bids during round 137 that pushed the potential winning price to $653,000. E-Block bids, too, were scattered across the West and Southeast. The number of bids per round had dropped into the teens as of last Friday.
A handful of licenses remained untouched after bidding last week and thus still in possession of the FCC. Those so-far unwanted licenses included an A-Block license covering Lubbock, Texas, and 10 B-Block licenses covering Steubenville, Ohio; Fargo, Bismarck and Grand Forks, N.D.; Sherman, Texas; Yancey, N.C.; Clarendon, S.C.; Lee, Va.; and the Northern Mariana Islands.
If the auction ends – by virtue of no new bids in a given round – this week, it could be 10 days or so before the FCC releases the names of winning bidders. With no bidder likely to come up with the minimum $1.3 billion for the national commercial-public safety D block, the FCC will have to grabble internally – and with Congress – on what to do next.
D-Block drama
In addition to reexaming D-Block policy issues once auction results are publicly announced and the anti-collusion gag rule is lifted, some in Congress may decide to investigate circumstances surrounding the abrupt implosion of startup Frontline Wireless L.L.C. Frontline, which was backed top Silicon Valley investors and headed by high-profile political insiders, lobbied vigorously in past months for rule changes it said were needed to bid on the D Block. The FCC granted Frontline some regulatory relief, but not everything it wanted. About two weeks before the auction’s Jan. 24 start, Frontline said it was closed for business.
