Break down

As I’ve noted in previous columns, I go coco for spectrum auctions. Love ’em. Can’t get enough of ’em. Want more of ’em.
Or so I thought until the last week or so of the Federal Communications Commission’s 700 MHz spectrum auction, which – depending on the ongoing madness when I wrote this piece – could have finally come to its senses and concluded, or still be dragging on with bidders fighting over such burgs like Lewiston, Maine; Yuba City, Calif.; and American Samoa.
Looking back over the 200-plus rounds of bidding I guess there were signs that my interest in the auction was tenuous at best. Early on I was able to mask this brewing cauldron of disgust by focusing on the billions of dollars being thrown around for high-profile A- and B-Block licenses covering New York, Los Angeles and Greely, Colo.
But this cover proved thin and easily breached as I found myself focusing more on heated battles for E-Block licenses covering Aberdeen, S.D., and Scottsbluff, Wyo. Why would someone want to spend $200,000 for six megahertz of unpaired spectrum covering the 80,000-plus population around Aberdeen, or $150,000 for spectrum covering the 92,300 people lucky enough to live in the area surrounding Scottsbluff. There was a new bid placed on the Aberdeen license for what seemed like every other round of the auction before someone bid a “G” less than 200 large for the license in round 175, which managed to scare away other bidders.
I don’t mean any disrespect to any of the fine people living in the areas covered by these markets as they are just pawns in a power play to control our airwaves, but I have come to detest these places as they are holding up the end of what could go down as one of the most lucrative spectrum auctions of all time and the unmasking of those hearty souls that had the nerve and financial backing to plunk down billions of dollars for very valuable spectrum.
Of course, the FCC could have circumvented these last-minute games by increasing the number of bidding rounds per day once it became obvious that bidders were picking over what was left of the spectrum bird, or even better, given those bidders a deadline to get final offers out.
Or, anything really that would have allowed me to keep up the public fa