With gross bids inching up only $20 million or $30 million per round after several-billion-dollars per round during the height of the C-band spectrum auction bidding, the FCC is taking steps get bidders to the finish line.
Also Read: FCC's Gangbuster C-Band Auction Levels Off
Starting Wednesday (Jan. 13), the FCC will increase the number of rounds from five per day to seven, and shorten the rounds from a half hour to 20 minutes, if the auction lasts that long.
As of the most recent round (72), the total in gross proceeds was $80,710,805,702, versus $80,683,309,702 in round 71. In the past dozen rounds, the total has only risen by about $600 million.
The auction has already almost doubled the record gross proceeds for an FCC spectrum auction (the 2014 AWS-13 auction's $44,899,451,600) and is at the upper limits of the loftiest pre-auction estimates of the vaule of the spectrum of something north of $75 billion.
The auction launched Dec. 8.
The FCC voted last February to free up 300 MHz of C-Band (3.7-3.98 GHz) satellite spectrum for terrestrial 5G broadband, 280 of that to be auctioned and 20 MHz to be used as a guard band between wireless users and the incumbent satellite operators that will use the remaining 200 MHz to continue to deliver network programming to broadcaster and cable operator (and other) clients.
Also Read: FCC C-Band Auction Pauses on High Note
Bidders in the auction include AT&T, Cellco Partnership, Cox, T-Mobile, and United States Cellular.
