C-Band Auctions End At $ 80.91 Billion

The clock phase of the FCC’s C-band auction for the coveted 5G mid-band spectrum ended Friday with gross proceeds of $ 80.91 billion, well over 44.89 billion dollars generated by the 2004 auction for AWS-3 spectrum.

The C-band auction, known as auction 107, centers on licenses for 280 MHz of spectrum in the 3.7 GHz-3.98 GHz band. The FCC billed it as the most profitable spectrum auction ever in the United States.

“The bidders won all of the 5,684 proposed spectrum blocks. And the gross proceeds topped $ 80.9 billion, breaking the previous FCC auction record of $ 44.9 billion,” said the chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, in a statement.

Fifty-seven bidders searched for licenses in the C-Band auction, but the identity of the winners will not be known immediately. Winning bidders will now have the option to bid for frequency specific licenses in the “award phase”. The FCC has only said it plans to issue a public notice “soon” that will reveal details of the award phase

LightShed Partners analyst Walter Piecyk tweeted some of the other numbers associated with the C-Band auction:

Verizon is set to become one of the big winners in Group C. Other big names that have signed up to bid in the C-Band auction, dubbed Auction 107, include AT&T, T-Mobile, Charter, Comcast, Cox Communications , Altice USA, Columbia Capital, Dish Network, Viasat, and US Cellular.

For those keeping an eye on the mobile ambitions of the cable industry and their continued exploration of using licensed spectrum to help offset the costs of their largely MVNO-based mobile services, Comcast and Charter would have partners for the C-band auction under an entity called “C&C Wireless Holding Company.” Comcast and Charter have already formed a joint operating platform partnership for mobile services.

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– Jeff Baumgartner, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading