spectrum auctions

The auction is over and mobile broadband carriers gained 70 MHz of spectrum in the 600 MHz band, at a cost just under $20 billion. After four cycles of downward bidding by television companies willing to sell their channel assignments followed by upward bidding by wireless companies wanting to buy them, the Federal Communications Commission’s incentive auction ended on Friday.

The downward, selling price auction ended last month, with TV stations willing to accept $10 billion in return for giving up 84 MHz of UHF spectrum.… More

Less equals less, when it comes to spectrum auctions. That seems to be the lesson the Federal Communications Commission is learning as it ends its third stage of reverse-and-forward auctions for frequencies currently used by television broadcasters and coveted by mobile carriers.

But not coveted as much as broadcasters think, apparently. The FCC opened the bidding from mobile carriers and closed it couple hours later when it became clear that the price they are willing to pay isn’t anywhere near what broadcasters want in exchange for giving it up.… More

Maybe it’s just a Rockford?

Well, that didn’t take long. Two hours after the Federal Communications Commission starting taking bids from mobile carriers (and, perhaps, would-be mobile carriers) for 90 MHz of television spectrum, it shut the auction down. Instead of stretching out for several bidding sessions over many days, or even weeks, the second stage of the incentive auction ended fast, and on a down note.

Mobile carriers were willing to pay $21.5 billion for the 90 MHz that was on offer.… More

Broadcasters have reduced their selling price by $32 billion in the second round of the Federal Communications Commission’s incentive auction, which ended yesterday. Even so, there’s still a big gap between that and what mobile broadband carriers were willing to pay in the first round.

The auction is aimed at moving legacy TV stations off of prime UHF real estate so mobile broadband companies can use the bandwidth instead.

The second, reverse round of the auction began last month, with 90 MHz of prime mobile broadband spectrum on the line (and another 24 MHz for unlicensed uses and guard band duty).… More

Golden.

It’ll cost $86 billion to free up 100 MHz of broadcast television spectrum for licensed mobile broadband use and another 26 MHz for guard bands and unlicensed users. That’s the result from the reverse auction run by the Federal Communications Commission for television station owners, who were supposed to progressively bid down the price they were willing to accept in exchange for giving up their assigned channels.

That figure is more than twice as much as originally expected.… More

Worth billions now.

The long delayed double auction aimed at transferring 100 MHz of UHF spectrum from television broadcasting to mobile Internet service is finally underway. The first step is a reverse auction where television station owners bid down the price they’re willing accept to give up their channel assignments. It started this week with one daily round of bids on Tuesday and Wednesday, and stepped up to two rounds a day yesterday.

All totalled, the FCC wants to set a price for 126 MHz of UHF spectrum in the 600 MHz band.… More