The Federal Communications Commission’s Auction 97 slowly crawled past the $41 billion mark over the past few rounds of activity, with total auction proceeds sitting at $41.25 billion following this morning’s round 56. The latest round included just 65 new bids, adding $74.6 million to the auction total.
The slowdown came across the board as only five licenses received two bids, with the remaining bids made up of just single new offers on licenses. The most expensive license to receive a new bid is the 20-megahertz J-Block license centered on Denver, which was at $203.7 million following the latest round.
A dozen licenses remained without a potential winning bid after round 56, made up of 10 G-Block, and a single I-Block and H-Block license.
Overall growth should remain muted as 42 of the most expensive licenses have not received new bids over the past five rounds. In fact, only one (Denver J-Block) license in the top 64 has received a new bid over the past five rounds.
The paired licenses up for bid in Auction 97 include three 5×5 megahertz licenses (G-, H- and I-Blocks) and a single 10×10 megahertz license (J-Block). The G-Block licenses are carved into commercial market area-sized licenses, which total 734 licenses covering the country. The remaining blocks are economic area-sized that will total 176 licenses covering the country. The 15 megahertz of unpaired spectrum is split into two licenses, one with 5 megahertz of total spectrum parsed out on an EA basis, and the other with 10 megahertz of spectrum also in an EA configuration.
Past proceedings have surpassed at least 160 rounds, with the 700 MHz auction (Auction 77) going to 261 rounds. The FCC has already boosted the bidding schedule to six, 30-minute rounds per day, but has in the past increased bidding to as much as 16, 10-minute rounds per day.
Despite the expected slowdown, Auction 97 can’t be seen as anything less than a roaring success for the FCC. The government agency had initially set a $10.6 billion reserve price for all the licenses up for bid, while analysts high-end expectations had the auction garnering $20 billion in total bids at most.
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