Jane Edwards
AT&T, Weminuche, T-Mobile License, Three Forty-Five Spectrum and U.S. Cellular emerged as the top five bidders in the Federal Communications Commission’s auction of spectrum licenses for 5G wireless services in the 3.45 gigahertz band.
FCC said Friday the 5G spectrum auction generated $22.5 billion in gross proceeds and that over 33 percent of the top 100 markets have at least four winning bidders.
Of the 23 companies with winning bids, 13 were small businesses or rural service providers.
AT&T won $9 billion in bids, followed by Weminuche at $7.3 billion and T-Mobile at $2.9 billion. Three Forty-Five Spectrum and U.S. Cellular recorded $1.4 billion and $580 million in winning bids, respectively.
AT&T also topped the list of bidders when it comes to the number of licenses won. The telecommunications company secured 1,624 licenses. The other four bidders with the largest number of licenses won were Weminuche, U.S. Cellular, Cherry Wireless and T-Mobile.
“Enabling commercial use of this spectrum is important to America’s continuing economic recovery and 5G leadership, and I look forward to the continued collaboration between the FCC, NTIA, and other federal agencies to find innovative ways to make spectrum available for next generation commercial and government services,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
