Day two of the Federal Communications Commission’s latest spectrum auction was pretty much a low-gear affair, with the second round, which was shortened to two hours, drawing bids of $108,464,260 on August 1. That figure was a little less than $5 million more than the $103,467,300 generated after the first, six-hour round on Friday (July 29). The third round, and last on August 1, only bumped that up another $6.8 million to $115,266,210.
The rounds moved to two-hour sessions, twice a day, on Monday (August 1), and those rounds will likely increase in frequency and ultimately be shortened again at some point to goose the bidding.
After the first round Friday (July 29), of the approximately 8,000 available flexible-use, county-based geographic overlay licenses for spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band, there were 3,454 licenses with more than one bidder, 4,395 with one bidder, and 168 with no bidders.
After round two, there were fewer licenses with more than one bidder (3,392), a few more with only one bidder (4,459) and several fewer with no bids (166).
After round three, the numbers were 3,339 licenses with more than one bidder, 4,513 with only one bidder and 165 with no bidders.
There are 82 qualified bidders in the auction, including AT&T, Verizon Communications, T-Mobile, and U.S. Cellular.
The 2.5-GHz spectrum band has been used for educational broadband services (EBS), but in 2017, with the explosion of 5G and the search for more sweet-spot midband spectrum, particularly for rural service, the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai, concluding the band was being underused, agreed to free up some of that spectrum.
EBS, formerly Instructional Television Fixed Service, or ITFS, was used in the 1960s for closed-circuit broadcasts to educational institutions, but was rebooted in the early 2000s and pointed toward broadband. ■
