Three days into the bidding in the FCC抯 advanced wireless services auction, action appears strong, with all the major players maintaining their eligibility to bid. After Round 7 late Fri., bidding stood at almost $2 billion and was poised to surpass that amount in the next round. The big spectrum blocks -- D, E, and F -- were attracting significant attention. Many smaller licenses have yet to attract a single bid. The auction could take a month or more, and winners and losers won抰 be known for several weeks. Analyst Walter Piecyk of Pali Research noted the large number of licenses which have attracted no bids, though he expects that to change as the auction goes on. 揃asically half the licenses have zero bids,?Piecyk said. 揂s you would guess the focus of the bidding is on the regional licenses, which are the D, E, F licenses. The satellite guys who want to put a national network together... are just going after the big national licenses.?nnPerhaps the biggest development so far is that SpectrumCo, the joint venture between cable operators and Sprint-Nextel, reduced its eligibility by about $150 million early in the auction. 揑t抯 hard to tell for sure but it would indicate that their ambitions in the auction were less than had been indicated by the amount of their upfront payment,?said a regulatory attorney who抯 tracking the auction: 揟heir upfront payment was enough for them to acquire 40 MHz of spectrum nationwide. Dropping their eligibility, they are no longer able to bid on that much spectrum nationwide, though they can still get a nationwide license.?/font>
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