Round 51 of bidding in the US FCC’s auction of 700MHz spectrum showed relatively little activity with the aggregate value of bids rising just 0.11 percent to $US19.2 billion.
Multiple bids were received for just 12 licences, most of which were in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. The exceptions were the E block licence for San Antonio, Texas, where bidding has exceeded $US2.7 million, and the A block licence for Asheville, North Carolina, which has just passed $US1 million.
The highest-priced licence to receive a bid during round 51 was the E block allocation covering New York city and neighbouring areas. The current bid is $US220 million. Similarly, a $US117 million round 51 bid was received for the E block licence for the Los Angeles area.
The A and E blocks are divided unto 176 ‘economic area’ licences and the spectrum being offered consists of two 6MHz bands. The B block will provide the winning bidder with similar bandwidth, but is being offered in 734 licences corresponding to cellular market areas.
5 Comments
Thanks for the info, A.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/700_Mhz_wireless_spectrum_auction
My guess would be the city is actively competing with local sattelite, television and radio stations for more bandwidth.
In fact, I wouldn’t be shocked if the main opposing bidder is some clearchannel flacky looking to finally open an asheville based popular music station.
Or maybe WLOS (or whoever owns them)is hoping to gobble up more bandwidth so they can broadcast with better digital quality.
But those are just educated guesses.
A, any idea why the Asheville license is bidding above $1 million?
It’s the broadcast spectrum.
They’re selling a new range of broadcast signals that can be used for anything from television to (and far more likely)transmission bands for emergency services.