The FCC commenced its auction for Advanced Wireless Services licenses in the 1710-1755 MHz and 2110-2155 MHz bands (AWS-1). A total of 168 bidders were pre-qualified for the auction. During the first two rounds of auction, conducted on Wednesday, the top ten bidders were:
- Wireless DBS (backed by DirecTV, News Corp, Fox, EchoStar, Rupert Murdoch, and EchoStar)
- T-Mobile
- SpectrumCo (backed by Comcast, Time Warner, Cox and Sprint Nextel)
- Dolan Family Holdings (holder in Cablevision)
- Cellco Partnership, dba Verizon Wireless
- Denali Spectrum License
- Cingular AWS
- Triad AWS
- Antares Holdings
- American Cellular Corp.
Daily results from the bidding are posting online.http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_summary&id=66
- AWS-1 bands are currently being used for a variety of Government and non-Government services and require relocating incumbent operations. The lower half of these paired frequencies, i.e., 1710-1755 MHz, is currently a Government band and is covered by a Congressional mandate that requires that auction proceeds fund the estimated relocation costs of incumbent federal entities. The upper half of these paired frequencies, i.e., 2110-2150 MHz band, is used by private (including state and local governmental public safety services) and common carrier fixed microwave services (“FS�?). The 2150-2155 MHz band is currently used by the Broadband Radio Service (BRS).