FCC Announces Winning Bidders in C-band Auction

The Federal Communications Commission announced the winning bidders and the final bid totals in Auction 107—commonly referred to as the C-band auction. Auction 107 net winning bids totaled $81,114,481,921 and gross winning bids totaled $81,168,677,645. Twenty-one bidders won all of the available 5,684 licenses. Verizon was the big winner -- nearly $45.5 billion spent to gain 3,511 licenses. AT&T was a distant second: nearly $23.5 billion spent on 1,621 licenses. T-Mobile spent $9.3 billion on 142 licenses. Down payments on the spectrum licenses are due March 10. The winning bidders will also spend an estimated $14 billion more to cover the costs of the satellite operators shifting their operations to a narrower band of the spectrum. Other expected bidders remained largely on the sidelines. An affiliate of Dish Network bid $2.5 million, suggesting the satellite-TV operator will rely on its existing cache of spectrum to build a new 5G network from scratch. C&C Wireless Holding Co., a joint venture of cable operators Comcast and Charter Communications, won no licenses.