And simply to quote one of the folks who’ve reported it, Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOm;
“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???

It appears that way…
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 …read more

From Saul Hansell at The New York Times;
“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 …read more

A number of folks don’t think Google will be bidding or will be bidding to win in the FCC’s 700 Mhz auction. I think this article from Reuters out of Davos offers us some insight…
Google CEO Predicts Mobile Ad ‘Revolution’
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – The arrival of a truly mobile Web, offering a new generation of location-based advertising, is set to unleash a “huge revolution,” Google Inc Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said on Friday.
“It’s the recreation of the Internet, it’s the recreation of the PC (personal computer) story and it is before us — and it is very likely it will …read more

Wireless auction bids hit $3.7 billion
“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.
The $3.7 billion, up from $2.78 billion on Thursday, represented the highest bids received for five separate blocks of spectrum in the auction, which is eventually expected to net the federal government at least $10 billion.”

If you’re following the 700Mhz auction…
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 …read more

That’s what Stephen Labaton writes at The NYT about today’s 700 MHz auction of prized licenses to now available radio spectrum airwaves.
“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. …read more

You don’t think AT&T will just sit back and light another cigar, now, do you?
If we see it, so can they!
Google appears ready and willing (I’m all in favor of) to take on the “Big Boys.” Personally, I have another way of perceiving this than Om does. I do not see Google “desperate to extend its reach to the wireless domain.” (Om put together a very nice hypothetical about Google buying Sprint, certainly worth a read.)

Google did their due diligence when they announced they’d be a player in the spectrum auction. And that is what I expect they’ll do. But …read more

Just one or two reminders if you please…
*****From The San Francisco Chronicle June 2006*****
“AT&T Rewrites Rules: Your data isn’t yours”
“AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday [June 23, 2006]. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers’ personal data with government officials. The new policy says that AT&T — not customers — owns customers’ confidential info and can use it “to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.”
“AT&T is …read more