FCC Moves to Phase II of AWS-3

The FCC's AWS-3 spectrum auction continued to inch its way toward $42 billion in tentative bids on 65 MHz of spectrum for wireless broadband, with the FCC moving to "stage two" of this rocket of an auction to get folks to bid or get out.

The FCC announced that as of the first round Tuesday, which will be round 68, it is changing the rules a little bit, requiring bidders to offer new bids on 95% of the licenses for which they are eligible or risk not being able to place any additional bids.

At press time, with 66 rounds completed, the auction total stood at $41,686,334,100 on $17,816,800 in new bids (28 of them). The total is a new high, but the others are way down.

Read more at B&Chere.

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.