The Federal Communications Commission’s Auction 97 continued at a slowed pace, with the past six rounds, including the first round this morning, adding $250 million to the FCC spectrum auction total, which stood at $41.5 billion through round 62.
The latest round included 68 new bids that totaled nearly $27.3 million. Four markets received two new bids apiece this morning, including the B1-Block license centered on Philadelphia ($83.3 million); G-Block centered on Knoxville, Tenn. ($12.3 million); G-Block centered on Madison, Wisc. ($7 million); and G-Block centered on Ashtabula, Ohio ($50,000).
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. License winners will not be known until the auction concludes.
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.
The auction is set to continue until there are no bids in a round. 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.
The FCC also announced this morning that it would be moving the auction to “stage two” beginning with round 68, which begins Dec. 9. The transition requires that in order for bidders 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.”
“If a bidder’s provisionally winning bids do not satisfy the required activity level and the bidder does not place any additional bids, the FCC will apply an automatic waiver on the bidder’s behalf,” the FCC explained. “If no waivers remain, the bidder’s current bidding eligibility will be permanently reduced, possibly curtailing or eliminating its ability to place additional bids in the auction.”
Stephen Wilkus, CTO at Spectrum Financial Partners, put together a video presentation on bidding activity through round 61.
The folks at Auctionologies have also put together a video showing bids through round 63. You can get more insight from Auctonologies at Auction97.com.
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