700 MHz Round 3 tops $3B

The third round of the Federal Communication Commission’s ongoing 700 MHz spectrum auction ended this morning with potential winning bids topping the $3 billion mark. The latest round included 1,030 new bids and pushed the total winning bids up more than 15% to $3.2 billion. At the end of the round 906 of the 1,099 licenses up for bid had garnered attention with 193 licenses still waiting for someone to notice them.

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The package of eight, 22 megahertz C-Block licenses covering the 50 states remained the top money draw during round three with one new potential winning bid pushing the license from $1.2 billion at the end of round two to nearly $1.5 billion in round three. The C-Block license carries an open-access provision if the winning bid tops $4.6 billion. The provision would require the operator of the network to allow access for any device as long as it does not interfere with other services. Google Inc., which petitioned the FCC for the open-access provision, has said it would bid at least the $4.6 billion minimum for the spectrum in the C Block.

For a second straight round the national commercial-public safety D-Block license did not receive a new bid, with the top bid remaining at the $472 million posted during the opening round of the auction. The D Block includes a $1.3 billion reserve price set by the FCC.

The New York City area continued to attract the highest bids during the third round with the A-Block license attracting a pair of new bids that pushed the potential winning price to $119.8 million; the B-Block license garnering seven new bids that pushed the potential winning price to $85.6 million; and the unpaired E-Block license receiving two new bids for a new potential winning price of $59.9 million.

B-Block licenses covering Los Angeles and Phoenix received the most attention during the round with eight new bids placed on each license.