“The 700 MHz auction ended yesterday, and the $19.59 billion going to the Treasury looks like a lot until you realize the government’s total budget is $2.9 trillion. But now the waiting (and speculating) can begin.”

Who paid the $4.75 billion for the C block???

Post from: EveryJoe

The Wireless Spectrum Auction Has Ended

Michal Lev-Ram tells us, on a topic that seemingly most have forgotten about;

Wireless spectrum auction winding down

“The federal government’s high-profile wireless spectrum auction will likely end in the next few days. That means we could soon find out who won the last major chunks of spectrum available in the United States, which have attracted nearly $20 billion in bids.”

Unfortunately it appears that the “D” block – the portion saved for a public safety network, did not raise a bid sufficient to meet the FCC’s minimum. It is possible that that fact could affect the announcement of the auction winners for the other blocks but common sense says that the FCC will set it aside to collect the money for the balance of the auction.

These are the most current, cumulative, results;

Click through the graphic and you can scan the entire results page. (Search Auction #73)

Post from: EveryJoe

Spectrum Auction Coming To A Close?

“After four more rounds of bidding today (Wednesday), the total bids reached $11.6 billion. That’s good news but for one little detail. Included in that total is $4.3 billion for a block of frequencies called the C block. This represents the single most attractive license in the auction because it would allow for nationwide service. The government has set a reserve price of $4.6 billion for those frequencies. If the bidding doesn’t hit that level, they won’t be sold and the auction will likely be seen as a failure.”

Saul offers us a couple of additional auction facts and then begins to speculate;

“Since the auction began last week, the price of the C block has been increasing steadily. But after it hit $4.3 billion this morning, there were no more bids in the other three auctions of the day. That raises the possibility that no one really wants to pay the $4.6 billion price tag. Google has said that it would bid $4.6 billion for the spectrum, so if it decided to stop at $4.3 billion, it would have a fair bit of political heat to take.”

I think we all know that we don’t know who is bidding and how much. Saul does mention that, “in general” whoever is bidding is, more or less, required to continue bidding except that high bidders don’t have to increase their bid and a bidder has three waivers with which to not bid in a specific round.

I’ll imagine that by following the auction you can determine that there have been no more than one bid on the “C” block each day. After further speculation, Saul finally proposes;

“If the bid for the C block doesn’t rise Thursday morning, that will mean that there is only one company left in that part of the auction. Under the rules, then, that company could wait until just before the auction ends — which well could be weeks from now —before bidding the $4.6 billion to win. There is a modest incentive to do this. The increment of the next bid declines as the auction progresses. Now, the next bid in the C block must be at least $4.7 billion, so a frugal company might save $100 million by waiting to cross the finish line.

If the $4.6 billion level isn’t reached, the F.C.C. will likely remove the open-access rules Google requested and hold a second auction for the C-block frequencies.”

My take is, that Google said they’d meet the reserve and they will. If by meeting it, they win, all the better!

Update: This will end a bit of Saul’s speculation – Spectrum bid triggers open access rule – “A bid on the largest portion of public wireless airwaves, now being auctioned by the federal government, reached $4.7 billion on Thursday, triggering a provision to allow any device or software to work on that spectrum.”

Post from: EveryJoe

Some Spectrum Auction Speculation

700MHz Auction Pulls In $2.8B Worth of Initial Bids

“The FCC kicked off its highly anticipated spectrum auction Thursday with two rounds that brought in $2.8 billion worth of bids by day’s end. Stakeholders are bidding on a valuable swath of spectrum that will become available once television broadcasters shift from analog to digital signals in early 2009.

One of the largest bids was close to $1 billion, and that came from a set of eight bidders who wanted a group of licenses in all 50 states. Anyone looking to trump that bid during the remaining three bidding rounds on Friday must put down at least $1.4 billion.”

Post from: EveryJoe

If You’re Following The Auction

“And the licenses are on the auction block just as it is becoming obvious to industry players and investors that wireless broadband is rapidly becoming the next big thing, the mobile Internet.

The latest government report indicates that in 2006, mobile wireless high-speed subscribers grew nationwide by more than 600 percent, and that during the last half of the year, those subscribers made up nearly two-thirds of the total growth in all high-speed lines.”

You can follow the auctions’ results here. [link edited but you can still use the old link I had here - the auction is #73]

I share this opinion – “Google is run by idealists who want to change the world and have the money to undertake grand projects” which I’ll leave right there…

Make note: “The 700 MHz band could beam high-speed Internet signals to every park bench, schoolroom, workplace and home in America.”

Post from: EveryJoe

As Coveted As Oil Reserves