WASHINGTON-Most of the 24 bidders who made the cut to participate in tomorrow’s start of the Wireless Communications Services auction remain mum regarding how they plan to use their frequencies if any are gained. Those who aren’t holding their cards close to the vest say that any or all of the 128 licenses in the 2.3 GHz band will be used for services adjunct to already going concerns.
Tom Sullivan of Arlington, Va.-based Telecorp Management Corp. Inc., which recently won F-block personal communications services licenses in the last Federal Communications Commission auction, said his group is looking at backhaul, wireless Internet access and wireless local loop applications that can hook on to PCS. John Grotland, spokesman for Omnipoint Data Company Inc., an offshoot of the C-block winner, would say only that his company would use channels “for a variety of fixed services,” adding that “we’re looking at many options.” And Metricom Inc.’s Larry Sullivan pointed out that the frequencies were a perfect match for his company’s successful data-transport product.
The WCS auction, the first of its kind to let the buyer decide how frequencies will be used, will hold two rounds per day April 15 and 16, and four rounds per day on April 17 and 18. After that, the commission will decide how to ramp up the bidding based on prior performance. Conventional wisdom has it that this auction will last about a month, given the number of licenses available and the relatively few bidders that will participate.
Digital Satellite Broadcasting Corp., Epcom Ltd., Primosphere L.P., A&B Co., CS Wireless Systems Inc., Howlin’ Wolf WCS Inc., Jeremy Lansman, Tel/Logic Inc., Telesolutions Ltd. and Wisconsin Electric Power Co., BTA Ventures II Inc., DigiVox Telecom Inc., Hamilton Telephone Co., Northcoast Holdings Co. Inc., Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems Inc., Southwestern Bell Wireless Inc., SprintCom Inc. and Western PCS BTA 1 Corp. failed to either submit acceptable paperwork to the commission or the required upfront payment by April 4.
According to the WCS bidders’ package, there will be no minimum opening bid; however, once a bid is made, a new methodology called “exponential smoothing” will be used to determine subsequent minimum bid increments. Exponential smoothing “bases the bid increment for each license on a weighted average of the activity on that license in the most recently completed round and all previous rounds. This methodology will allow the bid increment to be tailored more closely to the level of bidding activity.”
