The FCC has released the names of the winners of the recent 3.5 GHz band auction. The biggest mobile operator, Verizon spent the most at USD 1.89 billion in total, followed by newcomer Dish Network spending USD 913 million on almost 5,500 of the local spectrum licences. They are expected to use the frequencies to boost capacity on 5G networks.
Dish's subsidiary Wetterhorn won around a quarter of the over 20,000 licences on offer. SAL Spectrum, a subsidiary of ATN, came second with 1,569 licences bought. AMG Technology Investment Group, owner of the fixed-wireless start-up NextLink, and Windstream were the only other operators to buy more than 1,000 licences.
In terms of spending, cable operator Charter Communications came third with a total of over USD 464 million, while Comcast's XF Wireless was fourth for spending with USD 459 million and fifth for the number of licences acquired, at 830. In fifth for spending was another cable operator, Cox Communications, with total expenditure of USD 212.8 million.
The auction provides Priority Access Licenses for shared access to the 3550-3650 MHz portion of the 3.5 GHz Band. The FCC has set a three-tier system for use of the 3.5 GHz band in the US. Incumbent users such as the federal government and fixed satellite services have the highest priority with reserved spectrum, followed by the new Priority Access Licences, and then the unlicensed users. The latter are required to use one of the authorised spectrum access systems in order to avoid interference.
The winning bidders must pay 20 percent of the licence fees by 17 September and the full amount by 01 October.
