FCC Auctions

[dkyeager]

Round 55, 1.1% of licenses in demand remain to be settled compared to total licenses. Details: 92 licenses with demand > supply, 145 licenses with demand = 0,  7872 currently demand=supply, $402 Million worth of bids. The highest demand is in Guam with 3 bidders for one license -- historically no US Nationwide networks have sites in Guam.  Remember that new higher bids are still accepted for any license, given the bidder meets other rule requirements.

Here is the demand > supply license count by state / territory:

State / Territory	Licenses
AK	2
AL	1
CA	4
CO	1
GA	7
GU	2
IA	5
IL	4
KS	7
LA	6
MI	3
MO	4
MP	2
MS	7
NC	2
ND	6
NH	2
NM	3
NV	2
NY	2
OR	2
PA	2
PR	1
TN	2
TX	2
UT	6
WA	2
WI	2
WY	1

 

source: https://www.sashajavid.com/FCC_Auction108.php#county_details_table_overlay

[dkyeager]

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/25-ghz-auction-tops-400-million-gross-proceeds

 

Makes a prediction of 2 to 3 more weeks.  My view is it will be over in due course or when the FCC wants to speed up the action.   They may want to keep it going until their spectrum auction authority is extended, which expires Sept 23 iirc.

[dkyeager]

37 licenses with demand greater than supply (0.46%).  All currently had 2 bidders.   Almost $417 Million.

99.54% of licenses are "settled", at least for now.

State / Territory	Licenses
AK	3
GA	2
GU	2
IA	2
IL	1
KS	2
LA	5
MS	3
NC	1
ND	1
NM	1
PA	1
TN	1
TX	1
UT	7
WA	1
WI	3

When looking at the 145 licenses without bidders, these places make the most sense to me:

Fayetteville, AR Ardmore, OK Reno, NV Kodiak Island, AK

They have some white space and some people.

 

 

 

 

[dkyeager]

Round 69.  Went to 6 rounds today.  Now all but done with only 2 licenses/counties remaining.  $426 Million.

The remaining counties are Guam and Morton, ND.  Of course qualified bidders could decide to go after more licenses over the weekend, else should be done very soon.  My guess is then a month until licenses are turned over to the winners.  We could be enjoying more n41 bandwidth before Halloween, especially in rural areas.

[dkyeager]

https://www.rcrwireless.com/20220826/spectrum/fcc-bumps-2-5-ghz-auction-to-six-rounds-a-day

[Paynefanbro]

 

[dkyeager]

https://auctiondata.fcc.gov/public/projects/auction108

FCC: "Bidding has concluded in Auction 108.  In the next few business days, the FCC will release a public notice that provides official notification to winning bidders, specifies the deadlines for payments and long-form applications, and gives details for other post-auction procedures.  See Auction 108 website for additional information."

There is always the possibly some bidders may not have full financing, especially given the small size of some of the bidders.  Since bidders bidded directly for their exact frequencies, no secondary auction is needed.  We should know in a few days when T-Mobile starts programming their winning sites.

[iansltx]

I have family in the Gillespie County, TX area, which historically topped out at 40 MHz for n41 and didn't have enough spectrum for Magic Box on Sprint. Guessing this will allow a bump all the way to 100 MHz, providing plenty of capacity for T-Mobile Home Internet in an area where n41 sites cover a lot of territory that fiber or cable isn't (plus of course some where it is). So, this is significant.

[BucketHead25]

https://www.lightreading.com/5g/25ghz-spectrum-auction-ends-with-just-$428m-in-bids/d/d-id/780000?

[Paynefanbro]

Looks like T-Mobile got the vast majority of licenses. AT&T and Dish didn't get anything and surprisingly Verizon picked up about a dozen licenses, the largest being one for Maricopa County, AZ.  

Quote

More accurately, Verizon won A1-3 (16.5 MHz) in some far northern exurbs of Phoenix (New River and parts of Cave Creek and Carefree) and 49.5 MHz in the (mostly) desert west of the Phoenix metropolitan area

I wonder if they're gonna deploy it or if those were just ones they got by accident while trying to raise the cost of spectrum for T-Mobile.

— — — — —

T-Mobile also picked up some licenses in Alaska, namely Juneau and Matanuska-Susitna. Native buildout coming soon?

 

[dkyeager]

I have started to look over the data.  The following states are only T-Mobile (excluding prior licenses): CT, DE, HI, MA, ME, MN, NJ, RI.

Ohio went 88% to T-Mobile. 

North American Catholic Educational FD won many licenses.  Wonder if they will be looking for the same type of deal with T-Mobile: use of licenses in exchange for discount use by non-profit virtual wisps.

Cellco Partnership (Verizon) picked up a dozen, often C1 and C2.  US Cellular picked up 31 in its service area, all C1.  Many smaller entities and regional carriers.  States that appear to be chopped up are KS and CO.  I did not see Dish (Carbonate Wireless) or AT&T.

[iansltx]

T-Mobile won all three licenses for both Gillespie and Hays, TX, both of which were limited to 40 MHz before. Will be interesting to see how quickly they bumo bandwidths there, and what they end up with between LTE and NR short-term.

[Trip]

In Virginia, I noted that US Cellular won only three licenses, two of which are in Charlotte and Prince Edward Counties, which are directly relevant to me.  US Cellular is easily the most dominant carrier in Charlotte, but is limited to a single 850 MHz CLR block and a 5x5 AWS-3 block.  I think they've recently won some spectrum in C-band or 3.45 GHz, but I'm not sure how useful that will turn out to be given how rural it is.  Winning C1 here should help with their capacity issues a lot.

T-Mobile got C2 and C3, so hopefully that means they'll be coming back and deploying B41 sooner rather than later.

- Trip

 

[dkyeager]

5 hours ago, Trip said:

In Virginia, I noted that US Cellular won only three licenses, two of which are in Charlotte and Prince Edward Counties, which are directly relevant to me.  US Cellular is easily the most dominant carrier in Charlotte, but is limited to a single 850 MHz CLR block and a 5x5 AWS-3 block.  I think they've recently won some spectrum in C-band or 3.45 GHz, but I'm not sure how useful that will turn out to be given how rural it is.  Winning C1 here should help with their capacity issues a lot.

T-Mobile got C2 and C3, so hopefully that means they'll be coming back and deploying B41 sooner rather than later.

- Trip

 

It will be interesting as to how T-Mobile chooses to deploy this.  Do they go with expanding capacity the most by doing areas where they got it all first or do they upgrade the areas with the greatest need first?  I predict the first because it may yield the greatest cashflow with expanding the home internet areas.  They could leave the decision up to each market or activate as many as possible with an automated process going back for the ones that need special tuning later.

[dkyeager]

return to here for maps by bidder, etc.: https://www.sashajavid.com/FCC_Auction108.php#county_details_table_overlay

[iansltx]

3 hours ago, dkyeager said:

It will be interesting as to how T-Mobile chooses to deploy this.  Do they go with expanding capacity the most by doing areas where they got it all first or do they upgrade the areas with the greatest need first?  I predict the first because it may yield the greatest cashflow with expanding the home internet areas.  They could leave the decision up to each market or activate as many as possible with an automated process going back for the ones that need special tuning later.

I imagine the first order of business, similar to STAs and the temporary pandemic authorizations, would be to reconfigure radios that are already live, since most of those can take the additional spectrum with no changes. Tuning would happen after.

The real question is what happens after that, in terms of hanging new n41 equipment...did these winnings change how many n41 sites there are in a given area? If so, that's probably about capacity requirements...it's easier to justify throwing n41 up when you have 100 MHz to play with than with 40, though there are plenty of places where 40 was enough to put something live.

[dkyeager]

If your states are like Ohio and West Virginia, T-Mobile has bought or leased about everything possible in 2.5.  Only a few outliers remain. 

Go to https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/searchAdvanced.jsp to lookup your state.  Put in EDS/BRS as your service group, under license detail check active, set the results display to 100, and then do a geosearch and and put in your state.  Leases have two entries. Once for the frequency license, which will have and L next to if if leased, and starts with an L for the Leasee.  under the administrative tab check the license if in doubt.  Typically if it is Bellevue, WA it is T-Mobile.

[S4GRU]

@dkyeager has written up an article for The Wall on the Auction:  

Robert

[S4GRU]

@dkyeager has a new Band 41 article up in The Wall

 

[S4GRU]

@dkyeager has a new Band 41 article up in The Wall

 

[S4GRU]

@dkyeager's third installment of the series is posted to The Wall:

 

[dkyeager]

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/t-mobile-gets-little-closer-accessing-its-25-ghz-spectrum-auction-108

Senator Kennedy's bill to grant the FCC temporary auction authority to finish processing the Auction 108 licenses it has sold to their proper licensees. This would greatly benefit T-Mobile.  This delayed process took what would have been a strategic advantage for T-Mobile (1 one year plus head start)  and turned into catch-up, since AT&T and Verizon haven been busy installing their c-band n77 in rural areas.

[dkyeager]

Auction 108 starts to rumble back to life.  These licenses should appear in the ULS any day now:

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-46A1.pdf

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-46A2.pdf

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-46A3.pdf

[dkyeager]

FCC 2.5 licenses granted by market:

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-89A3.pdf

I have verified that these are in the ULS (universal licensing system.

Also observed that David Miller has leased many of his Auction 108 winnings to Digital Access Ohio LLC, likely a WISP.  Likely will go much further than what the website describes else they could have gotten much cheaper microwave licenses. https://digitalaccessohio.com/

[Trip]

The latest from the FCC on the T-Mobile 2.5 GHz licenses:  

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-101A1.pdf

Looks like the FCC is seeking to incorporate additional documents into the decision because of the objection from AT&T.

(Disclaimer:  I work at the FCC, but I don't work on wireless industry issues, so I know no more than anyone else here.)

- Trip