After last night’s Super Tuesday projections and primary results, we’re pretty much done with analyst projections. But, we can’t help but give in to our fascination with the FCC 700Mhz auction. The latest polls projections put Verizon Wireless as the winner of the C-Block, ousting Google as a potential new wireless carrier.
Google is believed to have recently put up a bid to meet the reserve price of the 700Mhz C-Block auction – to the tune of $4.7 billion. The bid was a show of good faith on Google’s part – who previously pledged to bid the reserve price if open-access rules were adopted for the C-Block – in order to trigger the open-access rules. However, it was widely believed that Google would simply put up the bid to ensure that the winner of the C-Block would be held to open-access standards, and then sit back and watch the other big dog steamroll the competition.
That other big dog seems to be Verizon Wireless. Analysts believe that the No. 2 national carrier will win the C-Block by bidding up regional licenses. According to auction rules, if the total bids on the smaller regional licenses surpasses the bid-price on the national C-Block license, the FCC will divvy up the C-Block and award those licenses to the highest bidder or bidders. In other words, Verizon may just win the C-Block by successfully bidding smaller regional licenses. And, they’ll need it, considering AT&T just got the FCC go-ahead to gobble up Aloha Wireless’ 12Mhz slice of 700Mhz spectrum.
The total of regional license-bids has hit $4.74 billion, which tops Google’s rumored $4.7 billion bid for the C-Block.
If Google (one of the only other auction participants with the cash to compete on a serious level) decides to sit back and let the likes of Verizon Wireless snatch the spectrum, we’re going to be in for much of the same wireless shenanigans in the US. At least we’ll be able to use Android handset on Verizon’s 700Mhz network.
[Via: Forbes]