Wireless auction raises a whopping $44.9 billion

Telecoms (and even a few private equity firms) aggressively bid for a host of newly released short-range wireless spectrum from the FCC. But the competition is just getting started.

|
Jose Luis Magana/AP/File
Wireless companies bid more than $44 billion in an FCC spectrum auction. Here, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler gestures during a speech in Washington, D.C.

Apparently, better connections for your smart phone is worth $44 billion.

That’s what telecoms seemed to indicate at a Federal Communication Commission (FCC) auction that ended Thursday. The auction raised $44.9 billion to sell off licenses to blocks of short-range wireless spectrum.

Previously unavailable and largely unwanted because this wireless spectrum can only transport signals across short distances, the smart phone game is getting too competitive for any spectrum to go unclaimed.

The idea is that in the future, as smart phones become even more ubiquitous, the short-range signals will be able to shoulder more of the high bandwidth data (like streaming videos and multimedia messages) over short distances. This will be especially important in big cities. Records from this auction show New York City and Los Angeles regions had some of the highest and most competitive bidding. But even mid-major, growing regions, such as Louisville, Ky., and Portland, Maine, showed higher-than-expected bids.

At the moment, we don’t know which companies ended up with the biggest wins – bidding is confidential and the FCC says it won’t release details just yet. But we do know that more than 70 companies participated, spanning from wireless heavy hitters such as AT&T and Verizon to satellite broadcaster Dish, and even some private equity firms and individuals. The auction began without much notice by the FCC last November and ended Thursday after 341 rounds of bidding. This wireless spectrum auction also vastly exceeded revenue expectations – the last auction of this kind in 2008 only brought in about half the amount.

This news comes after it became known that Google is planning to launch its own wireless service using T-Mobile and Sprint’s networks. The major tech company has also previously lobbied the FCC to open up even more wireless spectrum, likely to allow for better streaming and potentially to facilitate short-range wireless plans in big cities.

Don’t expect the change to come about immediately, however. Some of the frequencies are still in use by the US government. The earliest will be available in nine months, while others may not be available for up to 10 years. That being said, it shows telecoms (and increasingly interested financiers and broadcasters) are settling in for the smart phone long haul.

It's not just your smart phone that benefits from this bidding war. Engadget points out part of the record-breaking amount of money raised by the government will go to a better 911 call network, a nationwide broadband public safety network, and reducing the deficit.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Wireless auction raises a whopping $44.9 billion
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Horizons/2015/0130/Wireless-auction-raises-a-whopping-44.9-billion
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe