WASHINGTON- Bidders are slowly dropping out of the bidding in the auction for 700 MHz C- and D-block licenses, but not much has changed in the results of the bidding for the major markets between round 16 and round 26.
Aloha Partners L.P. is still the highest bidder at the end of 26 rounds of bidding with its two highest bids staying the same from the end of round 16.
Aloha Partners’ bid of more than $5 million for the Los Angeles-Anaheim consolidated (statistical) market area license still stands as the highest bid. Aloha still has the only economic area group license bid of more than $4.6 million for the Pacific EAG license.
At the end of round 26 gross bids totaled nearly $101 million with one bidder dropping out, leaving 104 active bidders.
Aloha Partners has made the most high bids, 57, totaling nearly $20 million.
All of the top 10 CMA licenses have bids on them with Aloha bidding in round 25 more than $2 million for the San Francisco-Oakland, Calif., CMA license.
Congress earlier this year passed a bill telling the Federal Communications Commission it could not auction off the majority of the 700 MHz band licenses but allowed licenses designed for rural carriers to go forward. The Auction Reform Act specified that only those deemed eligible to participate in the 700 MHz band auction could participate in the C- and D-blocks auction. Most of the well-known wireless players had stayed away from applying to participate in the scheduled June 700 MHz auction because they said there was too much uncertainty as to when the licenses would be available.
The FCC cannot schedule the auction of the A-,B- and E-blocks until it tells Congress how the transition to digital TV is going.
The 700 MHz spectrum is being made available with the DTV transition. Broadcasters are scheduled to give back one channel, or six megahertz, of spectrum on Jan. 1, 2007, but Congress has said that broadcasters could stay on the spectrum past the DTV deadline if less than 85 percent of the homes in their viewing area were not capable of receiving a digital signal.
The change in the auction dates meant changes were necessary to the congressional budget estimates. The Congressional Budget Office late last month revised its economic outlook lowering estimates for fiscal years 2003-2005 but raising estimates for FY 2006-2007.
