The AWS spectrum auction has now hit over $7 billion in total bids, which is just the minimum bidding total that analysts had predicted the entire auction would deliver. The more traditional carriers are starting to move past the much-talked-about media consortiums, and Verizon Wireless led the bidding for the 14th round with $3.53 billion.
Further down Cingular had $135.67 million and T-Mobile had $102.95 million. The cable group SpectrumCo still had the fourth highest in net bids in the round of $619.48 million, and the cable group the Dolan Family placed $78.87 million. The satellite consortium Wireless DBS dropped out of the top 10 (temporarily?). The bidding could go as high as $15 billion analysts predict.
3 comments so far
12:36 PM PT
Wireless DBS has used all three of their waivers and, due to inactivity, their eligibility has decreased to 300k bidding units. They’re basically out of it.
Surprising, given their large upfront payment.
5:05 PM PT
Wireless DBS may have seen the writting on the wall and decided prices were going to end up far beyond what they were willing to pay. I think they were hoping that this auction would fizzle like the WCS and they could get some good stuff for cheap and now it’s clear that they can’t. Aggressive moves by Cingular and Verizon, which were not as expected by most as those of T-Mobile, has done a good job of propping up the prices.
6:18 PM PT
The Dolan Family is a surprise but not really given their Cablevision footprint being in the Northeast.
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