The number of new bids per round has dropped to around 30 in the Federal Communications Commission’s ongoing 700 MHz spectrum auction, showing declining interest from a handful of the event’s remaining bidders. The 34 new bids in round 108 this morning were scattered across the A, B and E Blocks.
Today’s new bids pushed the auction’s total provisional winning bids to $19.527 billion, far above the $10 to $15 billion forecasters expected. But activity on many of the auction’s big prizes, including the nationwide commercial-public safety D Block and the open-access C Block, appear to have ended.
Click here for complete 700 MHz auction coverage.
Indeed, the license that received the largest new bid in round 108 was the E-Block license covering Orlando, Fla., and surrounding areas, which was up to $27.6 million. Comparatively, the auction’s most valuable license so far is the C Block covering the Mississippi Valley region, which carries a provisionally winning bid of $1.6 billion.
In the B Block, most of today’s action has centered on a dozen licenses covering locations in the East and Southeast. The B Block had an average price per megahertz/potential customer of $2.67 at the end of round 108, according to Optimal Markets Inc.
Meanwhile, there were only three new bids on the A Block in round 108, and there were 15 new bids on the E Block.
The FCC will reveal the identities of winning bidders at some point after the close of the auction.
Bidding slows to trickle: Handful of A-, B and E-Block licenses continue to garner limited interest
ABOUT AUTHOR
