The FCC’s AWS auction has ended and the U.S. Treasury has netted nearly $14 billion from the sale of…nothing really. Just the right for telecommunications providers to use the air to offer advanced wireless broadband services.
The big winners: T-Mobile, which has spotty U.S. coverage to begin with, Verizon Wireless and a consortium of cable operators which have teamed with Sprint-Nextel. T-Mobile bid $4.2 billion for 120 licenses that cover big chunks of the country as well as top urban markets. SpectrumCo LLC, composed of Comcast, Cox, Time Warner and Advanced Newhouse, along with Sprint-Nextel, bid $2.4 billion for 137 licenses that cover primarily the Northeast U.S. and Washington, DC.
Expect to hear some very interesting things from the cable guys over the next few days as company CEOs speak at big-ticket investor conferences. Since the announcement of the Sprint-Nextel venture last November, the joint venture partners have been pretty quiet. Part of the silence has to do with rules surrounding the auction. Now that the auction has ended, fasten your seat belts for some interesting broadband wireless developments from the cable industry.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:11 PM|Comments(0)
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