FCC Stage Three Round Ends in Two Hours With Sharp Drop in Bidding

SHARE THIS ARTICLE

Stage Three of the forward portion of the spectrum auction ended abruptly yesterday after only one round and two hours of bidding netting $19,676,240,520; a sharp decline from previous rounds.  The consensus by auction observers is major players such as Comcast, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon are showing little interest in the auction and a waning desire for TV broadcasters’ spectrum.

Because no bidders increased their stakes during Stage 3, the amount of the auction will decrease. Who bid what and for what spectrum are all details that will remain undisclosed until the auction is finally over.

“The results of the latest round of the TV auction leave us scratching our heads, given the decade-long refrain of a spectrum crunch. We look forward to the next round,” said NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith.

The news means “this auction is NOT going as well as the FCC had planned,” according to Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker. “We do NOT think it is because spectrum in general has lost its value — we think it’s because the timing of this particular auction was ill-planned,” she wrote in a client report.

One industry analyst said this is not an auction. “It is a joke,” stated Preston Padden a former director of Expanding Opportunities For Broadcasters Coalition, “and an abuse of the broadcasters, the FCC and the public, who will be put through a disruptive repacking process that increasingly looks unjustified. The question is why the carriers lobbied so hard for a statute to authorize an auction of spectrum they don’t want,” Padden said. “The carriers now have twice walked away from blocks of spectrum they told Congress was ‘vital’ and for which they predicted bidding as high as $48 billion,” he said.

December 6, 2016

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.