700 MHz (still) crawls toward finish line

Activity slowed from a trickle to a drip as the Federal Communications Commission’s 700 MHz spectrum auction crawled toward the finish line.
Round 119 drew only 25 new bids – up from an auction-low 21 new bids in round 117 – across the A, B and E Blocks, with the latter two blocks seeing most of the action. The auction total provisional winnings bids reached $15.539 billion, up only $5 million from the same point in Tuesday’s bidding.
An E-Block license covering Denver and a broad surrounding area received the largest new bid, drawing an offer of $640,000 to reach the $23.1 million-mark. Activity in the B Block once again was scattered across the Eastern United States, while E-Block activity was centered on the Midwest and Southwest.
C and D Blocks, which have failed to draw bids for more than two dozen rounds, remained idle. The FCC will reveal the identities of winning bidders following the auction’s close.