U.S. gov't gave away billions worth of spectrum
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The U.S. government has given away between $140 billion and $480 billion worth of radio spectrum to wireless providers and broadcasters since 1993, according to a study released Tuesday.
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Bidding remained stalled Tuesday on  a key piece of spectrum in the U.S. government's wireless  airwaves auction, prompting concern regulators will have to  modify rules requiring some of it be shared with public safety  agencies.
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Five separate blocks of spectrum up for auction by the FCC are eventually expected to net the federal government at least $10 billion.
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Bidding stalled at $4.71 billion on  Thursday for a key piece of wireless airwaves being auctioned  by the U.S. government.
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The high bids totalled $3.2 billion in the U.S. Federal Communications Commission&#39;s&#160;auction of wireless spectrum licenses in the 700MHz band&#160;after three rounds and a day and a half of bidding.
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Forces rely on air power to pay the bills The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) may sell off some of its reserved radio spectrum, potentially for large sums. Guidelines for sale of military frequencies are being drawn up by the communications regulator, Ofcom.â¦
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A bidder on Thursday offered $4.71  billion for a key slice of wireless airwaves being sold by the  government, triggering a condition that the spectrum be  accessible to any device or software application.
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Chairman Kevin Martin supports open spectrum access. The catch is that the spectrum auction rules being floated make it unlikely an open network could ever actually be built.
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We won a spectrum, now what do we do with it? Analysis What if you built a network, and nobody came?â¦
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The bidding topped $3.7 billion on the second day of the Federal Communications Commission's auction of government-owned airwaves, but there were no new suitors Friday for a closely watched block of spectrum to be shared with public safety agencies.
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The high bids totaled $3.2 billion in the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's auction of wireless spectrum licenses in the 700MHz band.
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Frontline Communications has gone out of business. A payment of $128 million to proceed with its bidding in government spectrum auctions was due last week.
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Bids in the F.C.C.âs auction for wireless spectrum reached the governmentâs $10 billion goal. One problem: bidding for the biggest block of frequencies stalled at $4.3 billion, below the $4.6 billion reserve price.
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The FCC uses fines to get its message across.
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(InfoWorld) - A $1.3 billion reserve price for a piece of wireless spectrum to be auctioned by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in January is too high, according to one company interested in the spectrum. The FCC has proposed the reserve, or minimum price, of about $1.3 billion for a 10MHz portion of spectrum to be paired with 12MHz set aside for emergency response communications. With that 22MHz of spectrum, the winning bidder will be required to build a wireless network to be used by public safety provider and for commercial wireless communications. But Frontline Wireless,Â the startup that pushed the public safety plan, said Tuesday the FCC's reserve price for the so-called D Block of spectrum is "unprecedentedly and irrationally high." The winning bidder will be required to build out a national network costing billions of dollars, Frontline argued in a brief it filed Friday. Many bidders "will hold back bids in the initial action to prevent the reserve from being met," Frontline said. "They will withhold higher bids until the re-auction when there will be weaker service rules ... and fewer competing bidders." Frontline was one of 13 groups that filed comments by Friday's deadline on theÂ FCC's auction plan, released earlier in August. The FCC is schedule to auction 62MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band beginning Jan. 16. The FCC set a reserve price of $10 billion for the entire 62MHz, but many observers believe the auctions will raise much more than that. The spectrum is currently controlled by U.S. television stations using channels 52 to 69. The U.S. Congress in late 2005 passed legislation that requires the stations to move to digital broadcasts and abandon spectrum in the 700MHz band by February 2009. Among other comments filed were ones from the Coalition for 4G in America, whose members including Google and Intel. The coalition called on the FCC to create definitive rules for extending an auction that would allow high bidders to meet the reserve price set for the auction. In a section of spectrum called the C Block, the FCC has set rules that would require that the winner of the 22MHz of spectrum allow any wireless devices to connect to the network, meaning wireless telephone customers could bring their handset devices from other carriers. The FCC, in so-called open-access rules, also prohibited the winning bidder on the 22MHz block of spectrum from blocking or slowing wireless and Web content from competitors. But if the reserve price isn't met, the FCC would re-auction the spectrum, presumably with the open-access rules removed. "If the 700MHz auction were cancelled for failing to reach the reserve price, it would not result in a re-auction, but effectively in a different auction altogether," the coalition said. Frontline, in its Friday brief, also called on the FCC to limit the amount of commercial mobile spectrum in each market to 70MHz. If the winning bidder has more than 70MHz, it should be disqualified from bidding on more spectrum, Frontline said. "Significant additional accumulation of spectrum by the largest wireless carriers in this auction, coupled with current market concentration, could cripple the ability of competitors to develop new services and cause serious competitive harm in the wireless market," Frontline said. Representatives of Verizon Wireless and AT&T didn't immediately respond to a request for comments on Frontline's filing.
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The U.S. government raised &#36;2.25 billion in an auction of wireless airwaves that ended on Tuesday, with Verizon Wireless and a partner collectively winning 63 licenses with almost &#36;697.4 million in bids.
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The television industry scores an amendment to a bill that would have forced them to give up lots of valuable spectrum to emergency workers. The change all but guts the bill. Michael Grebb reports from Washington.