WASHINGTON�The FCC’s Auction 97 has finally come to an end. The gross proceeds totaled $44.9B.
The licenses that were up for bid are spread across the 1.7/2.1 GHz bands known as AWS-3. These include three 5�5 MHz licenses (G-, H- and I-Blocks) and a single 10�10 MHz license (J-Block). The G-Block licenses are broken down into �commercial” market area-sized licenses, for a total of 734 licenses covering the country, according to RCRwireless.com. The remaining blocks are �economic” area-sized for a total of 176 licenses that cover the country. The 15 MHz of unpaired spectrum is split into two licenses, one with 5 MHz of total spectrum parsed out on an EA basis, and the other with 10 MHz of spectrum also in an EA configuration.
AT&T and Verizon Wireless were the big winners, not unexpectedly. Both combined account for about two thirds of the winning bids. AT&T”s total comes out to $18.2B, while VZW”s is $10.4B.
Dish Network”s total adds up to about $10B. They”ve participated in past auctions as well, but have yet to make use of their newly gained assets. T-Mobile won about $1.8B in new licenses. 31 of the auction”s initial 70 qualified bidders won at least one license.
