AWS Auction Nears $11 Billion Mark after Seven Days
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) spectrum auction for advanced wireless services (AWS) finished 24 rounds of bidding in its seventh day with total bids standing at $10.9 billion USD. Bidding will commence in the 25th round Friday. The leading bidder to this point, and through most rounds, is T-Mobile USA. T-Mobile has 130 PWBs (potentially winning bids) for a total of $3.7 billion, ahead of Sprint Nextel's SpectrumCo partnership with the four leading cable providers. SpectrumCo has 93 PWBs totaling $1.5 billion. Verizon Wireless's bidding entity Cellco Partnership has just four PWBs but the total for the four is $2.8 billion. Verizon's four licenses cover territories in the Northeast, Southeast, and Great Lakes areas where Verizon needs additional bandwidth. There are 138 eligible bidders remaining of the 168 that started the auction. One of the latest drop outs was James Dolan's Dolan Family Holdings that was bidding on behalf of Cablevision Systems.
from Telecom Daily
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