Remnants Auction Likely to Draw Industry Interest, Especially in Dish AWS-3 Licenses

The wireless industry would likely welcome a sale of returned and unsold spectrum licenses, especially Dish Network’s surrendered AWS-3 licenses if the agency holds a remnants auction, as proposed by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel last week, industry experts told us.

After Congress restores FCC auction authority, which expired in March, the FCC needs to consider “what kind of inventory auction we can hold, because we’ve got a lot of licenses in a lot of different bands, that are at the FCC,” Rosenworcel said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (see 2307250069). The sale “would allow a lot of carriers to round out their holdings,” she said. The FCC didn't comment Friday.

“There will definitely be interest” in the 197 AWS-3 licenses that Dish and its affiliated designated entities returned to the FCC after being denied $3.3 billion in bidding credits, said Sasha Javid, BitPath chief operating officer and the former chief data officer on the FCC’s Incentive Auction Task Force. The Dish licenses cover major markets including New York, Boston and Chicago, Javid told us.

“There may even be some interest from T-Mobile to pick up a few additional 600 MHz licenses given the importance of the band for its rural coverage goals,” Javid said. He sees less interest in the unsold inventory in the 3.45 GHz band, which he noted was often encumbered, the citizens broadband radio service band, the “fragmented” 2.5 GHz band and or the millimeter wave bands that provided the first 5G spectrum. “It is obviously better having at least some of these licenses utilized than remaining idle,” he said.

If the Dish AWS-3 licenses are auctioned, “it should draw a lot of attention from major carriers,” predicted Summit Ridge President Armand Musey. “It could be a very interesting valuation data point and would likely be the highlight of the auction,” he said: “I’d expect carriers to scour their coverage maps to see if there are individual licenses from other bands that might be helpful.”

The auction would also likely attract “an eclectic crowd of bidders, many of whom will be interested in niche licenses,” Musey said. He cited remnants from the 2005 Multiple Address System, the 1999 222 MHz and the 1998 VHF Public Coast auction. “Given the number of FCC auctions and the small licenses still held by the FCC generating no value, it makes sense to have a clean-up auction like this,” he said.

“Spectrum is always interesting, especially if a company already has adjacent licenses in the same band,” said Recon Analytic’s Roger Entner. The AWS-3 licenses “should see a lot of interest,” he said: “The 600 MHz spectrum is probably going to be gobbled up by T-Mobile” unless the carrier faces bidding restrictions based on the size of its spectrum portfolio.

“Cobbling together previously unwanted spectrum from different bands into an auction might not succeed, but it's an idea that is worth pursuing,” said Free State Foundation Director-Communications Policy Studies Seth Cooper. With the “spectrum pipeline” empty and providers looking for more spectrum “some of the leftovers from prior auctions potentially could generate more interest if offered up again,” Cooper said.

“More capacity is always helpful, and getting licenses into the market is the best way to drive them to productive uses,” emailed Joe Kane, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation director-broadband and spectrum policy. Depending on the position of the licenses, “interest will probably be driven more by who owns the adjacent licenses than it would be in a greenfield auction,” he predicted: “An extra sliver that creates a wider contiguous channel for an existing licensee is probably more valuable than a newcomer's trying to bootstrap entry in a band that has now been developed for a while.”

“CCA commends the Chairwoman for considering actions to help ensure all available spectrum is efficiently put to use,” a Competitive Carriers Association spokesperson emailed: “Spectrum already allocated for commercial wireless services and with existing equipment ecosystems are low-hanging fruit that could be prioritized as soon as Congress restores the FCC's auction authority. This critical regulatory function requires Congress to act to restore the FCC’s authority as soon as possible to ensure valuable and limited spectrum resources are not left to waste."

"If it had its auction authority restored today, the FCC could hit the ground running with these 'garage sale' type auctions,” emailed Cooley’s Robert McDowell: “What's collecting dust today in the FCC's garage is worth billions of dollars. That money could be flowing into the Treasury while these bands, currently lying fallow, could be put into the hands of American consumers and sparking investment, innovation and economic growth.”