FCC Halts Auction Mid-day to Drop Spectrum Clearing Target…Again

The FCC’s spectrum incentive auction will go into a third stage. That’s because the second stage closed after one round yesterday, more than $35 billion short of the $56.5 billion goal. The total bid was $21,519,907,210, according to the Commission.
 
The results play into what was expected to be “tepid carrier interest,” according to Bloomberg analysts John Butler and Matthew Kanterman. They predicted earlier the total bid for airwaves would only reach around $28.2 billion, reports Bloomberg BNA.

AT&T has committed to spending $9.4 billion, and the pair estimate Comcast and Verizon will spend half that, with T-Mobile likely bidding about $5.5 billion. Continue Reading