AWS-3 Winning Bids Reach More Than $14 Billion

The auction for AWS-3 spectrum reached more than $14.1 billion in provisionally winning bids for the 1695-1710 MHz and 1755-1780/2155-2180 MHz bands by the end of round 14 Tuesday. The reserve prices are $580 million and about $10 billion, respectively, the FCC said on its website. That means that the reserve price now has been exceeded, a fact that also came up in congressional testimony Tuesday (see 1411180041). More than $1.91 billion was bid between rounds 13 and 14, the FCC said. There were 723 new bids for 1,303 licenses, it said. There was a provisionally winning bid of more than $991 million for the J block portion of spectrum in the New York City area, it said. The auction began Thursday.