Bidding is set to begin today in the FCC’s auction of 2.5 GHz band licenses. A total of 82 applicants qualified to bid for about 8,000 flexible use overlay licenses in the band (2496–2690 MHz).
Bidders include big names like AT&T Auction Holdings, LLC, T-Mobile License LLC, and UScellular Corporation. Smaller telecoms qualify as well, like Granite Wireless LLC, Michigan Wireless, LLC and SkyPacket Networks.
The FCC will auction Educational Broadband Service (EBS) licenses in any county not already completely covered by legacy EBS licenses, meaning where there is either a “white space” between two legacy EBS licensees or, in rural counties, where a legacy EBS license was never assigned. Rather than auction just the “white space” in those counties as new EBS licenses, the Commission will offer “overlay licenses” that technically cover the entire county, including the area already occupied by a legacy EBS licensee, according to New Street Research.
These overlay licenses will offer the right to conduct wireless operations in the 2.5 GHz band throughout the county covered by the license, except in those geographic areas of the license already occupied by a legacy EBS licensee.
EBS overlay licenses will be offered in 2,804 counties. In each county, up to three EBS licenses will be sold, depending on where incumbent EBS licensees are already operating in the band: Block 1, spanning 49.5 MHz; Block 2, spanning 50.5 MHz; and Block 3, spanning the remaining 17.5 MHz, for up to 117.5 MHz altogether. In total, the licenses average 2.9 Blocks across each of the 2,804 counties, according to New Street Research.
Incumbent EBS licensees already operate in roughly 58 MHz out of the 81 MHz, leaving just 23.5 MHz to be auctioned nationally, according to New Street Research. “In other words, while the EBS auction is often discussed as offering over 100 MHz of spectrum, the bandwidth actually available in the auction is 80 percent smaller in 2,804 counties,” write NSR analysts Jonathan Chaplin and Philip Burnett in a client note.
They say the auction format is unique, sharing features of the SMR auction (used last in the AWS-3 auction) and the generic clock auction used in C-band and 3.45 GHz.
“Bidders will bid for ‘generic’ blocks in the 2.5GHz auction, except each generic block will actually be a single unique 2.5GHz license. This means there will be no assignment round, in contrast to the 3.45GHz and C-Band auctions,” according to Chaplin and Burnett. The format is intended to shorten the bidding time relative to the SMR auction. They note bidding in AWS-3 lasted nearly 75 days.
They believe the results of Auction 108 could be announced any time from early-to-mid September.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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