The FCC AWS-3 spectrum auction, its first for four years, ended on June 23rd, having raised more than $3.5 billion (€3.08bn) from US cellular operators. The total came from 72 rounds of the auction and the licensing of transmission frequencies in 200 markets.

Up to $3.3 billion of the proceeds will be used to reimburse operators that had to rip out Huawei or ZTE equipment as part of the FCC’s “rip and replace” mandate in order to establish new technology.

A total of 17 businesses were qualified to bid in the auction including EchoStar and SpaceX as well as the major US cellular operators. Most of the licences are actually licences that EchoStar subsidiary Dish won in Auction 97, which occurred more than 10 years ago but which were subsequently ruled inadmissible.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the auction had beaten expectations with significant per-unit prices. “Today’s successful auction generated billions of dollars in competitive bids to put spectrum to effective commercial use, and it bolsters competition in the wireless marketplace,” Carr said in his statement. “We will carry this momentum forward as we prepare for the upper C-band auction in the year ahead.”

New Street Research analyst David Barden in his latest summary said the average price came out at $2.53/MHz-POP. Prices ranged from 15 cents/MHz POP for American Samoa to $5.67/MHz POP for Honolulu, Hawaii.

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Categories: Articles, Broadband, Satellite

Tags: aws, FCC