Round six of the FCC's AWS-3 auction saw a flurry of activity, with 841 new bids tallying an additional $566,767,300.
So far, the bids are at $3,918,996,000 for 1,269 of 1,614 licenses up for bid.
The bidding could go on for days, weeks or even months. Bidding continues until nobody bids in a round or exercises a waiver, which means it is passing but wants the chance to bid again.
In the AWS-3 auction, 65 MHz of spectrum is up for bid, part of a congressional—and White House—mandate to free up wireless spectrum for mobile broadband.
It will be the largest amount of spectrum auctioned since the FCC's 2008 700 MHz auction.
AWS-3 is the second of three spectrum auctions mandated by Congress to fund the FirstNet interoperable broadband network, as well as local first responders, advanced 911, R&D and deficit reduction.
The first auction, of H block spectrum, collected $1.564 billion toward that goal (FirstNet alone is $7 billion), but the FCC is already predicting that the AWS-3 auction will raise most if not all of that $7 billion, putting less pressure on the third auction, the broadcast incentive auction, scheduled for 2016.
If the FCC meets its reserves in the AWS-3 auction, it will more than cover that. The aggregate reserve for the 65 MHz is $10.587 billion--actually it is two separate reserves of $580 million and $10.007 billion.
