Verizon Wireless and AT&T walked away from the 700 MHz auction with the largest slices of spectrum, the FCC announced yesterday. Verizon won the nationwide C-block of spectrum, as well as 25 licenses in the regional A Block of spectrum. AT&T won 227 licenses from the B Block of regional licenses. Analysts estimate that the two spent more than $16 billion combined of the total $19.1 billion garnered from the auction.
The FCC has split the D Block, or swath of spectrum, reserved for a national public safety network from the rest of the auction in order to publish the results. The commission still has not decided how it will proceed with the D Block, which failed to meet its minimum bid requirements.
Other winners in the auction include EchoStar partner Frontier Wireless, which won licenses in the E Block, giving the satellite TV provider nearly a national footprint; and Qualcomm, which along with the licenses it won put up the bid of $472 million for the D Block. The minimum bid set by the FCC for the D Block was $1.3 billion.
Google, which promised that it would put up at least the minimum bid required to trigger the open access provisions it lobbied for on the C-block, did not win any licenses in the auction. In a posting on the company’s public policy blog, Google said: “While the commission’s anti-collusion rules prevent us from saying much at this point, one thing is clear: although Google didn’t pick up any spectrum licenses, the auction produced a major victory for American consumers. We congratulate the winners and look forward to a more open wireless world. As a result of the auction, consumers whose devices use the C Block of spectrum soon will be able to use any wireless device they wish, and download to their devices any applications and content they wish.”
