After 34 rounds, gross bidding in Auction 108 was slowly creeping up to $300,000. The FCC’s latest auction offers approximately 8,000 new county-based geographic overlay licenses for spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band (2496–2690 MHz) for flexible use, including 5G wireless.
According to the agency, 634 licenses have more than one bidder and 157 licenses have no bidders. But the majority of licenses, 7,226, have one bidder.
NewStreet Research Analyst Philip Burnett says in a client note it’s updating its range of outcomes, based on the path of other recent auctions from the same point of excess demand. The low end of the range is $266 million, based on the passage of Auction 110 (3.45 GHz). The high end of the range is $336 million, based on the passage of Auction 103 (millimeter wave). “We are going to set our sights on the high end of the range for now, to be conservative,” he writes.
NewStreet Research continues to expect T-Mobile to win close to all the licenses. It’s cutting its forecast for T-Mobile’s auction spend in half again from $750 million at the end of early August to $336 million.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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