FCC's wireless airwaves sales raises $19.6 billion

One of the U.S. government's most significant sales of wireless airwaves concluded on Tuesday, racking up nearly $19.6 billion in bids over 261 rounds.

The 700MHz spectrum, which is currently being used to air analog TV broadcasts, was put on the auction block by the Federal Communications Commission in January. It's scheduled to be freed up by February 2009 to make way for all-digital broadcasts.

The slice of airwaves has proven attractive to potential bidders--including Google, Verizon, and others--not only because it's one of the last remaining chunks of beachfront spectrum, but because of its inherent properties, which mean the waves can travel long distances and propagate through walls. Some say those characteristics make it ideal for offering more robust, affordable wireless broadband services.

The FCC, in a nod to requests from Google and consumer advocacy groups, dictated that about one-third of the spectrum must abide by "open access" principles, requiring whoever wins control of it to allow consumers to operate whatever mobile devices and applications they like.

Another slice of the spectrum was intended to be used to build a nationwide network for public safety operators. But that segment reportedly did not attract the reserve price that the FCC had set, which is potentially a serious setback for proponents of that plan.

It wasn't immediately clear when the FCC would reveal the identities of the winning bidders.

The FCC, which operated the auction, was expected to unveil more details about its close during a 2:45 p.m. PDT conference call with reporters. Stay tuned to CNET News.com for more.

[deftdrummer]

One more reference..

If I read one more reference to the "beach front" slice of spectrum I'm going to puke. Seriously.

[carterwillis]

D Block

Failure to meet minimum for D Block (for shared public safety/commercial use) may cause a problem or not. FCC was very clear in its auction rules - para 306-307 - that it would decide what to do if minimum was not met based on "public interest." Due to anti-collusion rules set for auction, several FCC commissioners do not know who bid on licenses, including D Block. Once this information is available to all commissioners (Chairman Martin already knows) the FCC will decide what to do next. Wall Street, for example, would like to see it re-auctioned with less stringent rules,including no minimum bid amount. It might be in interest of public safety to keep the single bidder that has effectively committed to meeting their requests. A re-auction could cost public safety the quality of network it wants and due to credit market situation, the license might still not garner a significantly higher bid than the $472 million that is the provisional winning bid. (The minimum for the D Block was established at $1.3 billion). Commissioner Copps is already on record as saying it was a mistake to assign minimum values to license blocks, the minimum should have applied to the auction in toto. That minimum would have been set at around $11 billion to cover amounts already committed by Congress to Deficit Reduction and spending programs.