FCC Says TV Airwaves Being Sold For Wireless Use Are Worth $86.4 Billion (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday the price of 126 MHz of television airwaves taken from broadcasters to be sold for wireless use in an ongoing auction is $86.4 billion. The FCC disclosed the price in a statement after completing the first part of an auction to repurpose low-frequency wireless spectrum relinquished by television broadcasters. The so-called "broadcast incentive" spectrum auction is one of the commission's most complex and ambitious to date. In this round, called a reverse auction, broadcasters competed to give up spectrum to the FCC for the lowest price. In the next stage, the forward auction, wireless and other companies will bid to buy the airwaves for the highest price. If wireless companies are unwilling to pay $86.4 billion, the FCC may have to hold another round of bidding by broadcasters and sell less spectrum than had been expected, analysts said. The Wall Street Journal points out that $86.4 billion is more than the market cap of T-Mobile and Spring combined. It's roughly double the amount raised in the last FCC auction, where ATT spent $18.2 billion and Verizon spent $10.4 billion. It's highly likely we'll see multiple rounds stretching into 2017 that will eventually match the supply with the demand.

Comments

Re:LOL

[Karl Cocknozzle]

It's something of a flim-flam, though--they're not "buying" anything, merely purchasing the right to apply for a license that can be revoked. Granted, license revocation is a rare thing, but it's out there does to some degree constrain the operators of licensed broadcast/wireless systems on every band.

Think of it like this: Any way you issue the licenses, they're valuable. By charging for them, you at least raise some money in exchange for this valuable license, rather than just giving it away for the $295 application fee.

That said, I'd be thrilled to see a significant portion of this allotment reserved for municipal wireless broadband in "unprofitable" areas. We have to close the internet gap to give our rural neighbors the chance to enjoy the development and growth that connectivity enables.