The Federal Communications Commission’s auction of the H-Block spectrum kicked off the week at a more heated clip that resulted in an additional $100 million in potential winning bids.
The auction of 10 megahertz of spectrum in the upper 1.9 GHz band surpassed $1.1 billion in total bids through 37 rounds on Monday. Bidding remained active all day, with between 40 and 45 new bids through the day’s first four rounds before hitting 51 new bids in the final session. The government last week increased the number of rounds per day from the opening three rounds to five rounds.
One-half of the top 20 markets in terms of bidding prices received new bids through the latest five rounds, including new bids for:
–Dallas ($55.5 million)
–Boston ($51.9 million)
–Philadelphia ($45.5 million)
–Miami ($29.3 million)
–Houston ($22.1 million)
–Detroit ($20.4 million)
–Phoenix ($19.8 million)
–Orlando, Fla. ($18.6 million)
–Denver ($13 million)
–Portland, Ore. ($10.5 million)
Dallas was the only market from the top five with the highest bids to receive any new action on Monday. The other four top markets are centered on:
–New York ($217 million)
–Los Angeles ($131.9 million)
–Chicago ($87.2 million)
–Washington, D.C./Baltimore ($56.3 million)
Only one licenses of the 176 total “economic area” licenses up for bid remained in FCC hands at the end of the day as the “Western Oklahoma” EA license had yet to receive an opening bid of $33,000. The EA license covering Anchorage, Alaska, which drew no interest before the last round on Monday, ended up with a pair of bids to end the day.
None of the nation’s largest wireless carriers are participating, but 23 entities have qualified to participate; the FCC is not naming high bidders until the auction process ends.
Dish Network, which is participating in the auction under the American H Block Wireless entity, had said before the auction that it would bid a minimum of $1.5 billion for the H-Block if the FCC would allow Dish to use that band in combination with its adjacent 30 megahertz of spectrum in the 2 GHz band for downlink transmission instead of having to split the spectrum channels for two-way traffic. H-Block license winners will be required to meet build out requirements of 40% population coverage within four years and 70% coverage within 10 years.
Bored? Why not follow me on Twitter?
