WASHINGTON—Just as at any yard sale after a long weekend, the big, expensive items are long gone and the persistent shoppers have continued to rummage about for the unappreciated gems that add significant value to their own current holdings.
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This is the case in the Federal Communications Commission’s ongoing advanced wireless services spectrum auction, entering its 10th day, where bids on the large, regional licenses remained unchanged by the 34th round.
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Auction Summary at the end of Round 34
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| Net Bids: |
$12,240,704,300
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| New Bids in round: |
303
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| Withdrawn Bids: | 0 |
| Proactive Waivers: | 1 |
| Bidders that Reduced Eligibility: | 11 |
| Licenses with Provisionally Winning Bids: | 949 |
| FCC Held Licenses: |
173
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| Eligible Bidders: | 136 (of 168) |
The hot action—more than 300 bids—continued to focus on the smaller metropolitan and regional licenses. Despite the large number of bids, the total value of the auction’s provisionally winning bids rose less than 1 percent between round 33 and 34 to a gross figure of $12.4 billion.
The top five bidders in the auction so far include T-Mobile USA Inc., Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp. and its cable partners, MetroPCS Communications Inc. and Cingular Wireless L.L.C.
After round 34, bids on some C- and A-block licenses were substantial. T-Mobile USA posted a new high bid of $115 million for a C-block license covering Los Angeles. In the smaller A-block licenses, Cingular made a $77 million high bid on Washington, D.C., MetroPCS posted a $47 million high bid for a license in Dallas-Fort Worth, and Leap jumped with a $72 million high bid covering Philadelphia.
