Bidding slows to trickle: Handful of A-, B and E-Block licenses continue to garner limited interest

The number of new bids per round has dropped to around 30 in the Federal Communications Commission’s ongoing 700 MHz spectrum auction, showing declining interest from a handful of the event’s remaining bidders. The 34 new bids in round 108 this morning were scattered across the A, B and E Blocks.
Today’s new bids pushed the auction’s total provisional winning bids to $19.527 billion, far above the $10 to $15 billion forecasters expected. But activity on many of the auction’s big prizes, including the nationwide commercial-public safety D Block and the open-access C Block, appear to have ended.
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Indeed, the license that received the largest new bid in round 108 was the E-Block license covering Orlando, Fla., and surrounding areas, which was up to $27.6 million. Comparatively, the auction’s most valuable license so far is the C Block covering the Mississippi Valley region, which carries a provisionally winning bid of $1.6 billion.
In the B Block, most of today’s action has centered on a dozen licenses covering locations in the East and Southeast. The B Block had an average price per megahertz/potential customer of $2.67 at the end of round 108, according to Optimal Markets Inc.
Meanwhile, there were only three new bids on the A Block in round 108, and there were 15 new bids on the E Block.
The FCC will reveal the identities of winning bidders at some point after the close of the auction.