Top bids $2.4 bln as U.S. wireless auction opens
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Top bidders put up a total of more than $2.4 billion on Thursday in the opening round of the Federal Communications Commission's auction of coveted U.S. government-owned airwaves.
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A venture led by the Microsoft co-founder has applied to bid in an upcoming U.S. auction of wireless airwaves, along with Google, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Qualcomm.
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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.There were 1,122 new bids filed in the second of two rounds that was held in the afternoon. The total value of all provisional bid winners jumped 15 percent from the morning bidding round, when $2.4 billion was offered.A total of 1,099 licenses can be bid upon, although only 902 had received bids by the end of the day.All the bids are filed anonymously and bidders are prohibited from publicly discussing their bids in an effort to reduce anticompetitive behavior, the FCC said.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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The U.S. Federal Communications  Commission on Thursday received the first bids in an auction of  valuable 700-megahertz wireless airwaves.
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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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Wireless carriers planning to offer next-generation wireless services have bid $13.9 billion in a spectrum license auction that ended Monday, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said.
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Alltel, the nation's sixth-largest wireless carrier, is in advanced negotiations to buy Western Wireless for roughly $4 billion.
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An undisclosed bidder yesterday met the government's minimum asking price at an auction for one of technology's most coveted assets: airwaves that will be used to build a new wireless network.
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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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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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Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt signaled in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission that the company intends to bid  $4.6 billion for a portion of the 700 MHz spectrum band in an upcoming auction, assuming the FCC adopts rules that require open devices, applications, wholesale services and network access.
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Investor's Business Daily - It's close but no cigar for Google in the Federal Communications Commission's much-anticipated auction of public airwaves, a process that could enable a new wave of wireless devices and services.
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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 bidder on Thursday offered $4.71  billion for a key piece of wireless airwaves being auctioned by  the U.S. government, surpassing a minimum bid requirement and  triggering a condition that the spectrum be accessible to any  device or software application.
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A venture led by the Microsoft co-founder has applied to bid in a U.S. auction of wireless airwaves, along with Google, AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm.
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Within weeks, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is expected to set conditions for the auction of the most valuable wireless spectrum still available in the United States.
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The upcoming 700MHz spectrum auctions by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)&#160;have drawn bid applications from giant companies including Google and AT&amp;T. But a number of small companies and individuals have submitted bid applications as well.