700Mhz Auction Approaches $10 BillionCarterfone conditions should be applied...
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old news - 12:00PM Wednesday Jan 30 2008)
tags: competition · fcc · business · wireless · bandwidthRCR Wireless News reports that the FCC could hit their goal of $10 billion in 700Mhz auction bids by sometime today. Bidding for the highly desirable "C block" spectrum has hit $3.8 billion, or 83% of the FCC reserve price of $4.6 billion. That's important, given the fact that if the FCC didn't see the kind of money they were hoping for, they'd likely auction off the spectrum a second time without the open access conditions (
for what they're worth) attached. Rules require bidders remain anonymous, so it's still too early to tell if incumbents AT&T & Verizon, Google, or some other entity are leading the C Block push, though yesterday's
Spring/Clearwire/Google news could make things interesting.