That is roughly equal to the $19.6 billion the FCC raised in the 700 MHz auctions back in 2008. During the last few years when the auction rules were being formulated, T-Mobile became a thorn in the FCC’s side.
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The FCC has published the raw results of the new spectrum auction here; you can search by market name, which will likely be your nearest big city, to see which wireless carrier bought spectrum where.
The additional spectrum enables T-Mobile’s wireless service to completely cover the US and Puerto Rico, something the company has not been able to do until now.
Spectrum for auction-70 MHz of licensed and 14 MHz of unlicensed frequencies-was made available through an unprecedented bidding procedure that allowed TV stations to assign a value to their 600 MHz spectrum. “The quiet period for reverse auction participants had already concluded”.
Those smaller carriers simply must continue to leverage new spectrum to compete with their bigger rivals, of course.
The new spectrum (which refers to the range of frequencies used to wirelessly transmit data) will be very helpful to those companies, as they will use them to build out their wireless networks. There’s continued speculation that if this arrangement doesn’t work, Comcast could ultimately jump into the wireless business more fully – perhaps via the acquisition of a company like T-Mobile.
In total, 50 wireless carriers won spectrum in the auction. T-Mobile US had already almost equaled Verizon, the market leader, in the number of people in the USA covered with LTE by the end of 2016. Unlicensed spectrum is a substantial driver of economic growth and innovation, and low-band unlicensed spectrum is particularly valuable for applications including rural broadband. T-Mobile has pulled solidly ahead of Sprint with 71.5 million subscribers, compared to Sprint’s 60.2 million.
Yes – eventually. Because the FCC has to move TV stations around, and the networks need time to test equipment, this process is going to take years. T-Mobile started getting ready for this previous year, and it’s using Ericsson and Nokia network equipment that supports 600MHz airwaves.
Wall Street analysts suggest the end of the auction will lead to more merger discussions between telecom companies. By then, though, T-Mobile will be deploying the first stage of its 5G strategy.
Comcast spent about half as much as analysts expected, while Dish surprised them by bidding $6.2 billion – almost double initial expectations, said Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst at New Street Research.
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“T-Mobile now has the largest swath of unused low-band spectrum in the country”. That’s why the real victor here was T-Mobile, and it’s time for the company to focus on the fundamentals.
