WASHINGTON—NextWave Telecom Inc. and Dobson Communications Co. are the two most active bidders remaining in the advanced wireless services spectrum auction.
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The bidding continued to wind down on Friday, with an average of 63 new bids per round for the last three rounds of the week. Only 110 of the 168 eligible bidders remain.
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Top 10 Highest Bidders by the end of Round 73
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| Bidders | Net total of high bids |
| 1. T-Mobile | $4.2 billion |
| 2. Verizon Wireless | $2.8 billion |
| 3. SpectrumCo | $2.3 billion |
| 4. MetroPCS | $1.4 billion |
| 5. Cingular | $1.3 billion |
| 6. Cricket | $690 million |
| 7. Denali Spectrum | $274.1 million |
| 8. Barat Wireless | $125.9 million |
| 9. AWS Wireless | $119.4 million |
| 10. Atlantic Wireless | $78.1 million |
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In round 73, NextWave’s bidding entity placed 13 new high bids on spectrum in parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Illinois. NextWave currently holds high bids on a total of 162 licenses, for which it has bid $119 million. Dobson, meanwhile, placed nine high bids on licenses in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Ohio, Texas and Virginia. The regional carrier has so far garnered 82 licenses worth $54.4 million.
Leap Wireless International Inc. picked up another six high bids on spectrum in the latest round of bidding, and to date has bid $690 million for 94 licenses; additionally, Leap-backed Denali Spectrum has an unchallenged high bid of $365 million on a Great Lakes regional 10 megahertz license.
The joint venture between Sprint Nextel Corp. and several cable companies added another two high bids in round 73, for total bids of $2.3 billion on 133 licenses.
Among the new bids received in round 73, a sampling of prices per-MHz-per-pop show:
• Leap offered 31 cents per-MHz-per-pop for Trenton, N.J.
• The Sprint Nextel-cable JV bid 11 cents per-MHz-per-pop for spectrum in Savannah, GA.
• Dobson captured a C-block license for Syracuse, N.Y. with an offer of 22 cents per-MHz-per-pop.
• U.S. Cellular Corp.’s bidding entity bid 23 cents per-MHz-per-pop for spectrum in Portland, Maine.
• NextWave put up a bid of 12 cents per-MHz-per-pop for the 537,000 customers in Lake Charles, La.
Bidding had ended until Tuesday for the Labor Day holiday. The auction so far has raised about $13.7 billion, and 1,055 of the 1,122 licenses offered have received bids.
