FCC Sets $10 Billion-Plus Reserve on AWS-3

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a reserve price of a combined $10,066,326,600 for the paired spectrum bands (1755-1780/2155-2180 MHz licenses) in the AWS-3 auction.

The auction (dubbed Auction 97) must raise at least that much for it to conclude. It has also set Nov. 13, 2014 as the scheduled start date of the auction. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler had signaled to Congress in written testimony that the auction outline notice would be released soon.

The 65 megahertz of AWS-3 spectrum available (1,614 licenses) will be licensed on a geographic area basis. Of those, 880 will be by Economic Area (EA) and 734 will be Cellular Market Area (CMA). The frequencies will be licensed in five and 10 MHz blocks, with licenses available for five, 10 and 20 MHZ. That 65 will be the largest amount of spectrum auctioned since the FCC's 2008 700 MHz auction.