Big winners in airwaves action include wireless incumbents

By JOHN DUNBAR
Associated Press Writer
Published: March 20, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation’s cell phone companies won big in a
record-setting government airways auction, the Federal
Communications Commission announced Thursday.
AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless, the nation’s two biggest cell
phone carriers, bid a combined $16 billion of the record $19.6
billion pledged in the auction, according to an AP analysis of the
results. Verizon Wireless bid $9.4 billion while AT&T Inc. bid $6.6
billion.
The results raised concern that the auction had failed to
attract any new competitors to the cellular telephone market to
challenge the dominant carriers.
Google Inc. was not among the winners, meaning the search engine
giant will not be entering the wireless business.
One new entrant, however, Frontier Wireless LLC, which is owned
by EchoStar Communications Inc., won nearly enough licenses to
create a nationwide footprint.
The auction, overseen by the FCC, attracted a record $19.6
billion in bids. Bidders were anonymous, but the agency released
the names Thursday.
Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications
Inc. and British telecom giant Vodaphone Group, won nearly every
license in the consumer-friendly “C block.”
The spectrum, which encompasses about a third of the spectrum at
auction, is subject to “open access” provisions pushed by FCC
Chairman Kevin Martin, meaning users of the network will be able to
use whatever phones or software they wish.
Verizon won the regional licenses in the block cover every state
with the exception of Alaska.
Google posted a package bid for the C block licenses early in
the auction, assuring that the open-access provision would be put
in place, but it was not enough to win.
Also Thursday, Martin said he had ordered an investigation into
the circumstances surrounding the failure of a block of airwaves to
be used for a nationwide emergency communications network to
attract a winning bidder.