FCC Grants Auction 108 Licenses

The Federal Communications Commission granted licenses to seven of the smaller winning bidders in the 2.5 GHz auction, which was completed in August 2023. But the biggest winner in the auction – T-Mobile—still has not had its licenses granted. This is the third announcement about licenses granted that the FCC has made in the auction, in which T-Mobile won more than 90% of the licenses. The FCC accepted T-Mobile’s long-form application for the auction in October 2022. The 2.5 GHz band is considered mid-band spectrum, which is widely viewed as supporting the optimum mixture of coverage and speeds for 5G. T-Mobile already has licenses in the band covering a large part of the US. The auction in August 2022, known as Auction 108, only included licenses not already held by T-Mobile and others. Many of the available licenses were in rural areas. Licenses in the 2.5 GHz band are for individual counties. Up to three blocks of spectrum – ranging in size from 17.5 MHz to 50 MHz — were available per county. T-Mobile won over 7,000 licenses in the auction.