AWS-3 Auction Results

  1. Dish-affiliated bidders, with their DE credits, managed to secure a lot of “G” blocks in major metro areas.
  2. AT&T is still at a deficit of spectrum in the top 10 markets. Things get better after that.
  3. Verizon is doing OK on spectrum, they have enough spectrum in the top 25 markets to do 20×20 LTE (if they can manage to either do intra-band aggregation or make some spectrum swap deals with the other carriers).
  4. T-Mobile spent very little in the auction, but I think that’s on purpose (they want more 600MHz spectrum). They picked up a little spectrum here and there at a great value.

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4 thoughts on “AWS-3 Auction Results”

  1. Thanks so much for assembling this. I refer to your website with some regularity. I’m not sure if there is a way for you to do it, but a notation about an interesting exception would be appreciated. While VZW does have the 2 blocks for A & B AWS in the San Francisco Bay area, there is an exception. In Santa Clara County, which is pretty much Silicon Valley, they only have 15 x 15. TMUS has the extra 5 x 5 slice, but just for that county. Over at HowardForums, Atomic50 can tell you more if you are interested.
    Thanks again

    1. That’s been brought up before; trying to add in all the other carve outs that the carriers have made below the base block levels would push the size of the shape files up beyond what Google Maps can handle with acceptable performance. If anything on that front’s ever done, the AWS REA blocks would be the place to start. Almost every one of them has been split into two or more parts; and it makes it nearly impossible to get a general feel for AWS holdings as a result.

  2. This is a great resource. I have used it extensively since I discovered it. There is a question I can’t seem to find an answer to. Why does the FCC use all of the different licensing area maps for spectrum allocation? There are currently five, correct?

    1. Different sized areas serve different purposes (smaller areas are more affordable for smaller carriers like T-Mo and Sprint), larger ones are easier to manage. The FCC is under the thumb of both the president (appoints FCC commissioners) and congress (controls the FCC budget and can write rules to require/prohibit them from doing things).

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