Analysts: Dish likely to waltz away with H Block soon, with bids only topping $698M so far

The auction of the 1900 MHz PCS H Block is one week old but it's already becoming apparent to analysts that Dish Network is set to capture the spectrum in short order, an outcome that many saw as inevitable.

The question now is, if and when Dish wins control of the airwaves, what it might do with another 10 MHz chunk of spectrum. According to the Federal Communications Commission, there have been 19 rounds of bidding so far in the auction. Only $698.1 million in posted winning bids for licenses have been submitted so far, far below the $1.56 billion reserve price for the auction, an indication that there is not much, if any, competition for most licenses, according to analysts. Dish has pledged to bid, at minimum, the reserve price, or $0.50/MHz-POP, for the entire auction (though it does not have to bid that for each license). Of the 176 licenses up for auction, 144 have posted winning bids so far and 32 have not, as of the end of Round 19 of bidding. That means that there needs to be around $862 million worth of winning bids for the remaining 32 licenses for the auction to meet the reserve price. TMF Associates analyst Tim Farrar said that he expects the auction to be finished by Jan 31 or Feb 3.