The FCC’s auction of AWS broadband spectrum kicked off yesterday, and the jockeying is already fascinating to watch. As Business Week’s Olga Kharif points out, it’s almost akin to watching a fist-fight among Chuck Dolan, Rupert Murdoch and Warren Buffett.
That’s because some major communications industry heavyweights are vying to grab the valuable but invisible real estate. Murdoch-backed Wireless DBS (a consortium that includes News Corp.’s DirecTV and DBS player EchoStar) led the second round, followed by T-Mobile, Spectrum Co, a consortium of cable operators, Dolan Family Holdings, which is affiliated with Cablevision Systems and Cellco Partnership, which represent Verizon Wireless.
The second round bids exceeded the first round bids by $165 million and it’s still early in the process before the bidding gets intense. But estimates that the auction could net the government between $8 billion to $15 billion could be conservative, as Khalif points out.
Below is a table of the top five second round bidders, courtesy of Pali Research.
| Top Five Bidders - AWS Auction, Round 2 | |
| 1. Wireless DBS | 2. T-Mobile |
| (DirecTV, EchoStar) | (Deutsche Telekom) |
| 10mhz (301,551,422) | 10mhz (71,670,933) |
| Bid/Pop: $0.55 | Bid/Pop: $0.52 |
| Per Mhz Pop: $0.05 | Per Mhz Pop: $0.05 |
| 20mhz (99,149,196) | 20mhz (84,582,116) |
| Bid/Pop: $1.19 | Bid/Pop: $1.00 |
| Per Mhz Pop: $0.06 | Per Mhz Pop: $0.05 |
| 3. Spectrum | 4. Dolan Family Holdings |
| (Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Advanced Newhouse) | (Cablevision) |
| 10mhz (89,505,277) | 10mhz (75,770,667) |
| Bid/Pop: $0.53 | Bid/Pop: $0.58 |
| Per Mhz Pop: $0.05 | Per Mhz Pop: $0.06 |
| 20mhz (50,888,483) | 20mhz (42,729,310) |
| Bid/Pop: $1.17 | Bid/Pop: $1.06 |
| Per Mhz Pop: $0.06 | Per Mhz Pop: $0.05 |
| 5. Cellco Partnership | |
| (Verizon Wireless) | |
| 20mhz (49,999,164) | |
| Bid/Pop: $1.25 | |
| Per Mhz Pop: $0.06 | |
| Source: Pali Research. | |
Cynthia Brumfield at 10:29 AM|Comments(0)
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