Who’s Winning The FCC Auction? Nobody!
The FCC’s wireless spectrum auction continues with some heated bidding, and an unusual and somewhat unexpected turn of events appears to have left absolutely no one with the provisional winning bid for the coveted C-block of spectrum.
Both Google and Verizon, and possibly AT&T, have been cautiously bidding for the national package of C-block. Under the rules, companies who are not the high bidder must bid in every round (or use one of their only three waivers) or they exit the auction, so bidders will often bid on the cheaper regional divisions of the spectrum in order to avoid having to commit to the expensive national package.
Whichever is bidded higher, the national or divided regions of the spectrum, goes to the winner, with the lower segment being ignored. It was assumed the bidding on the national package would almost certainly be higher than the regional bids, so they were a non-issue, to be used only in bidding strategy.
That all changed today, when regional bidding topped national bidding in aggregate dollar value, leaving the auction in some very unpredictable hands. If the spectrum goes to each region’s winner seperately, it could be split up in some strange ways, rendering it either useless or a great, open network. That is, unless a single bidder actually won in every region, or someone panics at the idea and ups their national bid.
Currently, the national bid (Package 50 states, 1-8) is at $5.21 billion. The regional bids are:
WU-REA001-C Northeast 52,530,000 $565,624,000
WU-REA002-C Southeast 48,639,000 $498,476,000
WU-REA003-C Great Lakes 57,568,000 $1,209,715,000
WU-REA004-C Mississippi Valley 28,742,000 $1,725,930,000
WU-REA005-C Central 39,958,000 $800,358,000
WU-REA006-C West 51,966,000 $367,770,000
WU-REA007-C Alaska 528,000 30 $1,918,000
WU-REA008-C Hawaii 1,185,000 $43,253,000
That makes for a total of: $7.125 billion. Google only wanted to spend just under $5 billion, so in theory, Google is way out of this auction. If they win with over $7 billion, I’d be shocked.
