Auction 97 tops $43.7B as bidding continues to slow
The Federal Communications Commission’s Auction 97 posted a slow start to the new week, as bidding activity in the FCC spectrum auction continues to dawdle.
This morning’s round 92 added just under $20.5 million in revenue from 49 new bids, pushing the auction’s total record haul to $43.76 billion. Auction activity has continued to remain sluggish following a brief jolt last week following round 68 when the FCC moved the auction process to “stage two.” That move requires that in order to meet the activity requirement and avoid using an activity rule waiver or having its eligibility reduced, “a bidder must be active on at least 95% of its current bidding eligibility in each round.”
The latest round did see one unclaimed license receive a potential winning bid as the H-Block license centered on Lafayette, La., picked up a $2.249 million offer. That leaves just two licenses of the 1,614 up for auction unclaimed: the G-Block centered on San Miguel, Colo.; and the I-Block centered on Monroe, La.
Round 92 did see three licenses receive a pair of bids, showing that there is still some fight among bidders. Those licenses included the G-Block centered on San Antonio, which has received a total bid of $76.3 million, J-Block centered on Flagstaff, Ariz. ($5.9 million) and J-Block centered on Salisbury, Md. ($1.1 million).
Bidding over the past 10 rounds has fluctuated between 42 and 91 new bids, with an average of 67 new bids per round.
The auction’s biggest sticker remains affixed to the J-Block license centered on New York City, with one lucky bidder having committed more than $2.7 billion for that license. The J-Block license centered on Los Angeles is No. 2 with a nearly $2.1 billion bid, followed by the I-Block license centered on New York City at $1.3 billion. License winners won’t be known until after the auction concludes. Participants include Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile US and Dish Network.
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.
According to stats from Auctionologies, the J-Block licenses account for nearly $18 billion in total bids, with the H- and I-Block licenses each contributing about $8.25 billion to the overall haul. On a megahertz/per-pop basis, the J-Block licenses stood at $2.87 at the end of round 88, just ahead of the $2.64 posted by the H- and I-Blocks.
Despite the slowdown, the FCC is at this point sticking with its six, 30-minute rounds per day. The auction is set to continue until there are no new bids in a round.
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