After just four rounds of bidding, the Federal Communications Commission’s Auction 97 has surpassed $2.8 billion, or just over one quarter of the auction’s total reserve price.
At the end of the latest round this morning, 1,141 of the 1,614 licenses up for bid had received a potential winning offer, with 473 licenses still to have yet received any attention. The latest round witnessed 901 new bids totaling $414.5 million, with the Chicago G-Block license getting the most attention with eight new bids in round four.
The J-Block license covering the New York City area remained the priciest with a high bid of $152.5 million at the end of round four, having received five new bids. The J-Block license covering the Los Angeles area received three new bids in round four, pushing its price to $113.2 million. The H- and I-Block licenses covering the New York City area were No. 3 and No. 4 on the pricing chart with high bids of $83.9 million and $76.2 million, respectively, followed by the H-Block covering Los Angeles with a high bid of $62.3 million.
A number of H-Block licenses are vying for the most expensive based on their coverage at just over 31 cents per megahertz/potential customers covered, including San Diego; Washington, D.C./Baltimore; Philadelphia; Los Angeles; New York City; and Chicago.
The FCC is keeping bidder identities confidential until the auction concludes.
The licenses up for bid split up a total of 65 megahertz of spectrum in the 1.7/2.1 GHz bands – also known as the advanced wireless services-3 band – with 50 megahertz set aside in paired bands typically used by mobile operators. The paired licenses will include three 5×5 megahertz licenses (G-, H- and I-Blocks) and a single 10×10 megahertz license (J-Block). The G-Block licenses are carved into commercial market area-sized licenses, which total 734 licenses covering the country. The remaining blocks are economic area-sized that will total 176 licenses covering the country. The 15 megahertz of unpaired spectrum is split into two licenses, one with 5 megahertz of total spectrum parsed out on an EA basis, and the other with 10 megahertz of spectrum, also in an EA configuration.
The FCC set a reserve price of more than $10 billion for the licenses being put up for bid. The paired spectrum has an aggregate reserve price of $10.07 billion, while the unpaired licenses will require at least $580 million in total bids. The FCC managed to generate nearly $13.9 billion in winning bids during the AWS-1 auction conducted in 2006, which included 90 megahertz of spectrum in the 1.7/2.1 GHz bands. The current auction was at around 14 cents per megahertz/pop and 19 cents per megahertz/pop for the licensed licenses, while Auction 66 finished with bids 35 cents per megahertz/pop and 65 cents per megahertz/pop.
The FCC has three more rounds of bidding scheduled for today to go along with current plans to hold four rounds of bidding per day.
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