The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has unveiled the identities of the winning bidders that participated in its recently concluded Auction 107 spectrum sale, which comprised frequencies in the 3.7GHz-3.98GHz band. Net winning bids totalled USD81.114 billion, with 21 bidders winning all of the available 5,684 licences.
Verizon Wireless – bidding as Cellco Partnership – dominated the proceedings, with total bid commitments of USD45.455 billion for 3,511 licences. Next in line was AT&T Spectrum Frontiers, which offered USD23.407 billion for 1,621 concessions, followed by T-Mobile US (USD9.336 billion, 142 licences) and US Cellular (USD1.283 billion, 254 licences). Another notable bidder was Mississippi-based C Spire (bidding as Cellular South), which paid USD49.850 million for eight licences. The remaining winners are a mixture of private equity-backed bidding vehicles and small-scale regional operators.
TeleGeography notes that the ‘clock phase’ of Auction 107 commenced on 8 December 2020 and concluded on 15 January 2021, after 97 rounds of bidding. The sale process ranks as the highest-grossing spectrum auction ever held in the US.