FCC auction reaches $2.8B for 700MHz wireless licenses
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At the close of the first full day of&#160;bidding for 700MHz wireless spectrum&#160;Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission reported nearly $2.8 billion in provisional winning bids.
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The FCC's online spectrum auction opened this morning with more than 1,800 bids made in the first round at prices ranging from $500 to more than $1 billion for various airwave licenses.
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An anonymous bidder has met the reserve price for the so-called C-block of 700 MHz in the FCC's ongoing auction, virtually guaranteeing that the FCC's open-access conditions will be met. Open-access advocates greeted the news with mixed reactions.
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Bids in the government's airwaves auction hit $974 million as large carriers wheel and deal to win coveted licenses covering lucrative markets.
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The Federal Communications Commission took second-round bids totaling $2.78 billion in an auction of airwaves that would let carriers offer faster Internet access on cellphones.
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A nationwide block of&#160;spectrum in the 700MHz band being auctioned&#160;by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission received a high bid exceeding the &quot;reserve,&quot; or minimum, price of $4.6 billion on Thursday morning.A block of eight licenses covering the 22MHz C block of spectrum being sold by the FCC received a high bid of $4.7 billion in the 17th round of the 700MHz auctions, completed early Thursday. The C block is the portion of the 700MHz band on which the FCC will require open-access rules, meaning the winning bidder must allow outside devices such as mobile handsets from other carriers and must allow users to run outside applications on the network.Some critics have complained that the&#160;open-access rules&#160;would suppress bidding on the C block, but&#160;Google has pledged to bid&#160;at least $4.6 billion on the C block. Bidding is anonymous during the 700MHz auctions, so it&#39;s impossible to tell which company has the high bid.Through the 17th bidding round, high bids on the entire 62MHz of spectrum being auctioned totalled nearly $12.8 billion. The FCC and U.S. Congress had budgeted the auctions to raise at least $10 billion, but many observers had expected the auctions would raise much more than that.One block of spectrum unlikely to reach the FCC&#39;s reserve price is the D block, a 10MHz band of spectrum that would be paired with another 10MHz assigned to public safety agencies. The FCC required that the winning bidder build a nationwide voice and data network to be shared between commercial users and public safety agencies such as police and fire departments.After 17 auction rounds, the high bid for the D block stood at $472 million, far short of the $1.33 billion reserve price set by the FCC. That bid happened in the auction&#39;s first round on Jan. 24, and there&#39;s been no higher bids since then. If the reserve price is not met, the FCC would have to re-auction the D block.Many members of the U.S. Congress pushed for a public safety network, after emergency responders couldn&#39;t communicate with each other during the 9/11 terrorists attacks and more recent disasters. Police and fire departments in neighboring cities often use different devices on different blocks of spectrum.Critics have pointed to an FCC rule for the D block saying the winning bidder would have to give up millions of dollars in a deposit if it couldn&#39;t come to an agreement on network design with the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST), which controls the public safety spectrum. Scott Cleland, founder of telecom analyst firm The Precursor Group, called that provision &quot;onerous.&quot;&quot;That is not a negotiation,&quot; said Cleland, speaking at a 700MHz forum Wednesday. &quot;Auctions are free markets, and people don&#39;t have to show up.&quot;The FCC may have to re-auction the spectrum without the reserve price and perhaps without public safety obligations, said Michael Calabrese, director of the Spectrum Policy Program at think tank the New America Foundation. The PSST could use its block of spectrum to negotiate service with the auction winner if no build-out rules are in place, he said.A PSST spokesman wasn&#39;t immediately available for comment on the bidding.
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With 36 rounds of bidding concluded Wednesday morning, the Federal Communications Commission auction of the highly coveted 700-megahertz band of the wireless spectrum has shifted to a faster-paced stage 2. Under rules designed to promote more competition, the number of new bids rose from 87 in Round 35 to 203 in Round 36.
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A $1.3 billion reserve price for a piece of wireless spectrum to be auctioned by the FCC in January is too high, according to one company.
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Blog: The FCC is writing rules to determine how to use extremely valuable wireless spectrum that will be auctioned in September to the highest bidder.
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Frontline Wireless, a startup that had planned to bid in the U.S. Federal Communications Commission&#39;s upcoming&#160;700MHz spectrum auction, has &quot;closed for business,&quot; a spokeswoman said Wednesday.Frontline, backed by veterans of the wireless industry and U.S. government, was one of the major advocates of a plan for the FCC to pair about 10MHz of spectrum set aside for emergency response agency communications to another 10MHz to be sold in the auction starting Jan. 24. The auction winner would then be required to build a wireless network that emergency responders such as police and fire departments could share with commercial interests.Frontline had also pushed the FCC to adopt so-called&#160;open-access rules&#160;on part of the 62MHz of spectrum to be auctioned.The FCC in July largely adopted the emergency communications auction plan advocated by Frontline and other groups, and it approved an amended open-access plan on 22MHz of the spectrum. The FCC required that the winner of the 22MHz allow any wireless devices to connect to the network, meaning wireless telephone customers could bring their handset devices from other carriers. The FCC also prohibited the winning bidder on the 22MHz block of spectrum from blocking or slowing wireless and Web content from competitors.Frontline spokeswoman Mary Greczyn said Wednesday the company would have no further comment beyond saying Frontline is &quot;closed for business at this time.&quot;Up-front payments for bidding in the 700MHz auction were due Jan. 4. The up-front payment for the D block, the spectrum for emergency communications, was $128.2 million, and the payment for the 22MHz C block was $282.1 million.Frontline, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, first made a splash in early 2007, when it&#160;proposed an open-access network&#160;that emergency responders would share with commercial providers. Frontline said then it planned to offer wholesale access to the network to other wireless providers.Frontline was backed by several heavy hitters in the wireless and tech industries, as well as former senior U.S. government officials. Haynes Griffin, founding CEO and president of Vanguard Cellular Systems, served as Frontline&#39;s CEO, and Janice Obuchowski, former head of the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration, served as the company&#39;s chairwoman. Reed Hundt, a former chairman of the FCC, served as Frontline&#39;s vice chairman.James Barksdale, former CEO at Netscape, and John Doerr, a partner in the Kleiner Perkins Caulfield &amp; Byers venture capital firm, were among the company&#39;s backers.
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The minimum bid of $4.6 billion was made on Thursday in the FCC's 700Mhz spectrum auction triggering an rule that will force the license winner to allow any device and any application on the network.
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Blog: Google announces a willingness to commit $4.6 billion to the Federal Communications Commission's upcoming wireless spectrum 700MHz band auction - with strings attached.
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The German auction for 28 broadband wireless access (BWA) or Wimax licences raised a total 56 million euros (74 million dollars), the regulatory authority Bundesnetzagentur has announced.
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If the FCC obeys its demands Google's riches are exceeded only by its cheek. When the Federal Communications Commission auctions off the coveted 700-MHz wireless spectrum, the search giant has said it will lay down a bid of $4.6bn - provided the auction is handled exactly the way Google wants it handled.â¦
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The U.S. sale of airwaves for   advanced wireless services grossed a record $13.9 billion when   it ended on Monday, and spectrum-hungry U.S. wireless carrier   T-Mobile USA topped the bidding by offering almost $4.2 billion   for 120 licenses.
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Top bidders put up a total of more than $2.4 billion in the opening round of the Federal Communications Commissionâs auction of coveted U.S. government-owned airwaves.
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The FCC releases names of 266 companies officially planning to bid in the government's upcoming 700-MHz-spectrum auction. More than half those botched their initial applications, including big names like Verizon, AT&T,  Qualcomm and Alltel. They have until Jan. 4 to qualify for the auction.