The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made a record on Thursday when it impressively managed to raise USD 44.9 billion during its wireless spectrum auction, named AWS-3 airwaves auction.
The auction, which concluded on Thursday, had the mid-band spectrum range between the frequencies of 1700MHz and 2100MHz.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, “Today we closed bidding Auction 97 – by far the highest-earning spectrum auction the United States has ever seen. But it was much more than that. This auction also marked a new era in spectrum policy, where a collaborative and unprecedented effort resulted in new commercial access to federal spectrum bands.”
In a bid to fulfill their consumer requirements, wireless network operators such as Verizon Communications, T-Mobile, AT&T and satellite TV provider Dish Network Corp. and many more, competed from each other for winning licenses for the new airwaves.
The demand for video streaming and other related applications is growing at a very fast pace and the wireless network providers are struggling hard to cater the consumers’ demands in the cut-throat completive market.
The FCC has, however, not revealed the name of winners of the auctioned spectrum, but they are expected to public their details in the coming days.
Post 2008, the current auction served as the biggest opportunity for the companies seeking to buy new wireless spectrum.
The federal body has started Auction 97 on November 13, 2014 with an aim of raising a minimum USD 10.6 billion for the 1600 licenses. But, in the first week of the bidding process, the auction passed the USD 10 billion-mark, giving clear signals of bigger achievements on the cards.
The raised money will be used for paying for a public safety network worth USD 7 billion and also add on to the funds of the FCC treasury.
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