FCC 700 MHz Auction Update - Feb. 2

The 26th round finished yesterday (Friday - Feb. 1, 2008) afternoon - here's a quick update from the FCC auction site:

• Bidding Rounds to Date: 26
  
• Bid totals to Date: $18,554,080,600
  
• The A and B-Blocks have been getting most of the attention lately:
• The Los Angeles A-Block leads the A's with a current bid of $580,268,000.
• The Chicago B-Block leads the B's with a current bid of $892,400,000.
• There has not been a C-Block 50 state package bid since it passed the FCC reserve price on Thursday. The current C-Block 50 state package bid is $4,713,823,000.
• The public safety D-Block has not had a bid in 25 consecutive rounds and is stuck at $472,042,000, well below the $1.3 Billion reserve price set by the FCC.
• E-Block bidding has been slow with the New York City E-Block leading at $178,897,000.
• 23 licenses had not registered a bid at the end of round 26, 19 of these 23 are in the E-Block.
  

Some personal observations and opinions:

• It looks (to me anyways) like the C-Block bidding may be done. Since the FCC reserve price of $4.6 Billion has been passed, the open-access that Google wanted is assured. We won't know who the winning bidders are until after the auctions have closed but I'd say Google is the current leading C-Block bidder.
  
• Right now it does not look like the D-Block will meet the $1.3 Billion reserve price and will end up being re-auctioned by the FCC.
• A number of E-Block licenses will not meet minimum bids and will also be re-auctioned.
  
• The FCC had set an original goal of $10 Billion for the auction. With current bids totaling over $18 Billion, it appears the auction (from the FCC's perspective) will be a success.
  

Bidding is closed for the weekend with round 27 starting Monday (Feb. 4, 2008) morning.

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Read Show Notes and listen to Mike Q and my latest Podcast titled The FCC 700 MHz Spectrum Auction linked here.
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