And They’re Off!
The FCC's 700 MHz auction started this week, with BusinessWeek's Olga Kharif, among many others, suggesting that the troubles in the stock market may be having an impact on the enthusiasm of the bidders.
Still, as Unstrung's Dan Jones notes, the pot of "provisionally winning bids" grew by the end of the week to $3.7 billion. "To prevent potential bid-rigging and collusion between the players, the FCC isn't saying which companies are bidding on the spectrum," Jones explains. "Nonetheless, big wireless and IT names like AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and Google are among the players expected to put up the big bucks."
The D-Block public safety license, though, hasn't been particularly popular. "Bidding for the D-Block of spectrum was stuck at its first round offer of $472 million and has been dying on the vine without a nibble on the last three rounds of bidding," writes InformationWeek's W. David Gardner. "A bid of at least $1.3 billion will capture the D-Block, which has been provisioned for both nationwide public safety access as well as for commercial use."
There are likely to be many, many rounds of bidding to go. Expect it to continue for weeks – if not months.
More here from RCR Wireless News … more here from The New York Times … more here from InternetNews … more here from Wired … and more here from The Economist.