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red_dog007

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Auction 107:

Hit $80.9B.:wacko:   Now going to enter the assignment phase where bidders can bid on specific spectrum blocks.

Wonder how fast this will get online this year.  TMobile's head start with 2.5GHz is gonna get challenged.  I could see them taking the lead in wireless tests in 2021 but then the gap close in 2022.

 

Auction 108:

Three blocks.  49.5, 50.5 and 16.5MHz. I wonder how heavy TMobile will buy here. It'll sorta clean up their holdings and I could see down the road if they don't bid they have to invest more time keeping interference out of the current existing white-space. Likely at least secure entire counties they already own a partial license in. Everything about 2.5 is such a mess.  

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The real question will be the effect on the upcoming 2.5 EBS auction.  T-Mobile might be able to get very good prices with almost no implementation costs for much better service in small cities and rural areas.

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They may get it cheap, but I'd doubt that means they would deploy a lot of it. Maybe more a protection thing so they don't have huge headaches with possible interference. 

In rural and smaller towns I go to, TMobile now is far from deploying their entire pre-Sprint spectrum portfolio.  I go to places and all they do is deploy just a single band.  If they go back with 5G they just add one more band (600).  Or they have all but one band deployed. 

Unless they are going to do B41/n41 on every tower like Sprint was wanting to do, I wouldn't keep my hopes up for a ton of rural 2.5.  You'd think though with fixed wireless services that doing full builds would make sense. 

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 1/26/2021 at 11:43 AM, red_dog007 said:

They may get it cheap, but I'd doubt that means they would deploy a lot of it. Maybe more a protection thing so they don't have huge headaches with possible interference. 

In rural and smaller towns I go to, TMobile now is far from deploying their entire pre-Sprint spectrum portfolio.  I go to places and all they do is deploy just a single band.  If they go back with 5G they just add one more band (600).  Or they have all but one band deployed. 

Unless they are going to do B41/n41 on every tower like Sprint was wanting to do, I wouldn't keep my hopes up for a ton of rural 2.5.  You'd think though with fixed wireless services that doing full builds would make sense. 

I've seen n41 in rural-ish areas already, plus some B41 on sites that were 25/26 only a year ago. They seem to be getting better about not just deploying a single band in places, though from what I've seen the more rural setup appears to be whatever B/n71 they have, plus a 5x5 B2 carrier to use as an NR anchor. Narrower bandwidths go further, hence running 5x5 when they definitely have the spectrum for more.

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21 hours ago, iansltx said:

Narrower bandwidths go further, hence running 5x5 when they definitely have the spectrum for more.

This is contrary to common wisdom of several years ago. Wider bandwidths were thought to be more resistant to interference. Wider bandwidths also use a lower percentage for buffers.

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1 hour ago, dkyeager said:

This is contrary to common wisdom of several years ago. Wider bandwidths were thought to be more resistant to interference. Wider bandwidths also use a lower percentage for buffers.

Not an interference issue, not a spectrum efficiency issue. Just a matter of throwing the signal as far as possible.

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Now that auction 107 is behind us, we come to auction 108, 2.5GHz.  Already a number of licenses have been awarded to federally recognized tribes as part of this process. Since we are still in the comment period for the rules, and the administration has changed, so could the rules.

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-seeks-comment-procedures-25-ghz-auction

The 2.5GHz auction technical guide for bidding process  https://www.fcc.gov/auction/108/education

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Last night I was looking through the ED (EBS) licenses issued since 01/01/2020.  This is clouded by T-Mobile shifting ownership from one Sprint firm to another.  There are a lot of tribes that got licenses but this is by no means universal among tribes.  Most tribes have not leased their spectrum at this time. 

There were a few new ED licenses issued to Clearwire.  T-Mobile has also signed a lot of new ED leases scattered throughout the country.

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  • 3 months later...

Auction 110, 3.45GHz to 3.55GHz, starts October 5th.

Gonna be interesting to see how big carriers go after all the coin that was dropped on C-Band.

Does this spectrum have a referred to name?  Or will this just be referred to as C-Band once the auction is over instead of 3.45GHz?

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6 hours ago, red_dog007 said:

Auction 110, 3.45GHz to 3.55GHz, starts October 5th.

Gonna be interesting to see how big carriers go after all the coin that was dropped on C-Band.

Does this spectrum have a referred to name?  Or will this just be referred to as C-Band once the auction is over instead of 3.45GHz?

I think it's thought of as more of an extension of CBRS and has similar power limits, auction process, etc... single bidders are limited to 40 MHz again as well.

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On 6/19/2021 at 4:52 PM, jakeuten said:

I think it's thought of as more of an extension of CBRS and has similar power limits, auction process, etc... single bidders are limited to 40 MHz again as well.

Source on power limits? Believe there may be exclusion zones due to the Navy, but power limits are news to me. 40 MHz limit is rather similar, but that's as much spectrum as AT&T got on the early-clearing side, so that's pretty significant.

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  • 7 months later...

The FCC came out with a revised auction plan for EBS yesterday, which will favor T-Mobile and WISPs over speculators by design. 

As noted a year ago, it will divide the spectrum into three parts as follows: C1: 49.5Mhz contiguous from 2502 to 2551.5, C2 50.5 Mhz contiguous from 2551.5 to 2602, and C3 16.5Mhz contiguous from 2673.5 to 2690 and 1Mhz from 2615 to 2616.

This will all be overlay, meaning it will cover radius and J and K  channel gaps in many urban areas but will be mostly rural and small cities.

That 1Mhz in C3 will make it more valuable since it keeps BRS fragmented.  Those who are very observant will note it does not cover 7MHz at the start of band 41, a 1Mhz guard band and 6Mhz for BRS1.  There may be BRS licenses that should also be auctioned in the future, but auction 108 is just for EBS.

References for above: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-22-120A1.pdf

http:// https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/wireless/auctions/data/bandplans/BRS_band.pdf    

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  • 5 months later...
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More details, credit u/porkpineapple on reddit: https://www.sashajavid.com/FCC_Auction108.php

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Looking around this morning at the first round ED results.  Some surprising places did not get bids.  Most have encumbrances or Native American lands (possible requests in process).  This includes places like Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, Las Vegas, Sacramento plus unsurprising places like Alaska.  I will leave it to others to drill down in the counties maps links above in the FCC tool to see what is happening.  Some may likely be wrongly priced.

I would hope that T-Mobile has placed a bid for almost every county for all three frequency areas.  Likely other bidders are speculators, WISPs, Dish and AT&T.  Verizon is possible but unlikely IMO.  I am assuming that future bids can only be placed on counties where a bidder had a bid in the prior round.

C3 is the most important ED frequency range for T-Mobile in most places given how it surrounds BRS.  If you look at Ohio, There is competition for c3 on in the following counties:

Defiance
Henry
Lake
Lorain
Licking
Wood
Erie
Hancock
Fulton
Putnam
Williams
Paulding

This means 72 counties are uncontested for c3.  Lets look at a typical county in detail and see what this means.  Guernsey county is located at I-70 and I-71 and has the small city of Cambridge OH.  Without C3 it has the following 2.5GHz:

License Start frequency End frequency Bandwidth
B065, WQLW506 2496 2502 6
B065, WQLW506 2602 2614 12
B065, WQLW506 + WQYK862, WQYK973 2618 2673.5 55.5

 

(WQPV228 - Shenandoah Cable Television, LLC is listed by the FCC but is only in adjacent counties)

 

Assuming c3 plus internal BRS guard bands, it changes to this:

License Start frequency End frequency Bandwidth
B065, WQLW506 2496 2502 6
B065, WQLW506 + c3 + guard bands + B065, WQLW506 + WQYK862, WQYK973 + c3 2602 2690 88
     
       
       

If you add c2:

License Start frequency End frequency Bandwidth
B065, WQLW506 2496 2502 6
c2 + B065, WQLW506 +  c3 + guard bands + B065, WQLW506 + WQYK862, WQYK973 + c3 2551.5 2690 138.5

 

 

If you also add c1:

License Start frequency End frequency Bandwidth

B065, WQLW506 + c1 + c2 + B065, WQLW506 +  c3 + Guard Bands + B065, WQLW506 + WQYK862, WQYK973 + c3

2496 2690 194

Guard band use when frequencies are controlled by same firm on both sides have been approved for a while.

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Some counties without BR (BRS) licenses showing in the FCC database are Greenbrier, Logan, McDowell, Mercer, Raleigh, and Summers in West Virginia.  Some of these counties are partially covered by BR radius licenses. nothing showing on Cellmapper.net. 

West Virginia use to have a number of small WISPs.  T-Mobile 2.5 strategy here seems to be to acquire those BR and ED licenses or leases, several of which are pending.

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44 minutes ago, red_dog007 said:

Man, what a mess.  I don't care too much to go over all that data to see what is actually available white space spectrum for any given area I am interested in.

It would be nice in areas where one carrier has it all to straighten 2.5Ghz licenses out.  I would start by getting rid of the radius licenses, then duplicate BRS licenses.  Then consolidate the legacy licenses into 50, 50, 50, 44.

 

Failing that, I hope the c3 and c1 could work out a lease agreement for the 6Mhz at the start of the 2.5GHz spectrum.

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auction 108 round 3 now added.  Link to data files does not work yet: https://www.sashajavid.com/FCC_Auction108.php#county_details_table_overlay

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You can get your own data here (must filter first): https://auctiondata.fcc.gov/public/projects/auction108/reports/product_status

I looked at Ohio. 54% of the licenses only have 1 bidder at the end of round 3, The only counties that are not settled in any of the 3 licenses are: Defiance, Erie, Fulton, Hancock, Henry, Lake, Licking, Paulding, Putnam, Williams. Licking is Columbus. The rest are up north towards ichigan (Go Bucks!!) or Ontario (within 3 counties of the border). My hope is this means T-Mobile goes to at least 88Mhz contiguous band 41 in 88% of the Ohio counties.

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https://www.lightreading.com/5g/tepid-demand-taxation-fears-drag-at-25ghz-spectrum-auction-for-5g/d/d-id/779397?

 

If bids end up where expected, and licenses with only one bid are effectively done, there could be a huge disparity in license costs from high demand to low demand areas.  If the bidding ends as predicted, and it takes the FCC another month to complete additional paperwork and process payments, the T-Mobile could be adding any new spectrum to its existing sites in October/November.  Rural performance could drastically increase plus many more areas could be opened up for Home Internet as well

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Round 5 is posted to the above links.  Ohio is about the same (bids slowly increasing on contested licenses).

Let's look at WV.  In terms of the c3 license that would benefit T-Mobile most, it is only contested in Kanawha and Mineral counties.  78% of the 3 licenses are uncontested.

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At the end of round 6, we have a lot of bids dropping out.  72% of the licenses are now settled nationwide.

In Ohio Licking county is settled.  83% of Ohio 2.5 ED licenses are now settled for this auction.

In WV, for c3, only the Mineral county contest remains, 90% of the overall licenses are now uncontested.

In Minnesota, all is settled, except:

Kittson
Marshall
Polk
Wilkin
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