WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Federal Communications Commission has announced the winning bidders in the 2.5 GHz band auction with T-Mobile being by far the largest bidder, spending $304 million for 7,154 licenses.
T-Mobile was expected to be particularly active in the auction because it already owns or leases much of the 2.5 GHz spectrum across the United States, and it wanted to fill in the gaps in its coverage.
In all, 7,872 of the 8,017 county-based licenses, or 98% of the total inventory, were sold during the Auction 108. There are 63 winning bidders in Auction 108, which raised gross proceeds exceeding $427 million.
Most of the available spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band being auctioned was located in rural areas and the FCC hopes that the sales will help improve wireless services in rural communities.
The FCC said the five bidders with the largest total gross winning bid amounts were:
- T-Mobile License LLC: $304,325,290
- PTI Pacifica Inc.: $17,690,000
- TeleGuam Holdings, LLC: $16,565,000
- Evergy Kansas Central: $12,744,400
- Cellular South Licenses, LLC: $11,861,300
The five bidders winning the largest number of licenses were:
- Empty list
- T-Mobile License LLC: 7,156
- North American Catholic Educational Programming Foundation: 107
- Evergy Kansas Central: 54
- LICT Wireless Broadband Company, LLC: 46
- Broadband One of the Midwest, Inc.: 42
