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Written by samc
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Tuesday, 29 August 2006 |
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The FCC on Tuesday accelerated the bidding in its Advanced Wireless Services auction, which has already raised almost $13.6 billion after 14 days.
The agency added two rounds of bidding per day to bring the daily total to six rounds and cut the time of each round in half to 30 minutes, an effort to complete the sale as companies vie for 1,122 licenses around the country. The auction continues until there are no new bids, withdrawals or other activity.
- After 54 rounds, T-Mobile USA, the No. 4 U.S. wireless carrier and a unit of Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG, provisionally had the highest bids for 121 licenses with offers of $4.2 billion.
- No. 2 wireless carrier Verizon Wireless is second in the bidding, with provisionally winning bids of $2.8 billion for four licenses.
- A group that includes the major cable television providers and No. 3 wireless carrier Sprint Nextel is in third place based on provisionally winning bids. That group, SpectrumCo, includes Comcast, Time Warner and Cox, and has the highest bids for 133 licenses with offers of almost $2.3 billion, according to FCC data.
As of round 55, the auction had raised nearly $13.6 billion. Only about 100 of the original 1,122 licenses up for auction have not yet received any bids. The number of eligible bidders has dropped to 118, and 151 new bids were placed in round 55.
The country’s biggest cellular providers appear poised to win many of the 1,122 licenses up for auction, allowing them to expand their reach and reducing the chance that a new entrant might bring down prices, reports the NY Times.
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