The Federal Communications Commission’s attempt to auction off 176 spectrum licenses in the upper 1.9 GHz band has hit the painful level as new bids continue to drip in. A day after Auction 96 hit a new low of 22 new bids spread out across 12 rounds, Tuesday witnessed just 20 new bids across its dozen rounds of action.
Perhaps noticing the stagnation, the FCC announced that it would increase the number of rounds per day to 16 beginning on Wednesday, in a presumed interest in getting this auction wrapped up. The auction is set to continue as long as a round receives at least one new bid, with half of the rounds on Tuesday receiving one new offer.
Bidding activity remains focused on just a handful of markets, with new bids only being placed for licenses covering Minot and Bismarck, N.D.; Lincoln, Scottsbluff and North Platte, Neb.; Lubbock, Corpus Christi and Amarillo, Texas; Aberdeen and Sioux Falls, S.D.; Fort Wayne, Ind.; and Eugene, Ore. In total, the new bids contributed just $4 million to the auction’s total, which hit $1.543 billion by the end of the day.
One sticking point remains the fact that total potential winning bids remain below the $1.565 billion mark set as the reserve price for all the 10-megahertz licenses up for bid. That amount was pledged by Dish Network prior to the auction beginning on Jan. 22, and represents an average price of 50 cents per-megahertz/per-potential customer. According to Stephen Wilkus, CTO of Spectrum Financial Partners, 28 of the licenses had surpassed that mark.
Dish Network is one of 23 participating in the auction under the American H Block Wireless entity.
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