700MHz: Verizon Wins C Block, FCC De-Links D Block

Verizon Wireless secured C Block licenses nationwide with a $4.74 billion bid, the FCC revealed Thursday.

The C Block comes with the open-access provisions fought for by Google. Verizon late last year said it would open its network to other devices and applications, responding to Google’s push.

Agency officials werent expected to unveil 700MHz winning bidder names or amounts until around the first week of April. The news came as the FCC also ordered the de-linking of the unsold D Block.

The two-month-long spectrum auction ended on March 18.

Verizon Wireless spent nearly $5 billion for the C Block, one of the biggest chunks of spectrum TV broadcasters will vacate next year.

AT&T Inc., meanwhile, won the entire B Block, paying $6.64 billion for 227 licenses. EchoStar beat competitors for the E Block. It landed all 168 licenses in that band, whose wireless airwaves cover most of the United States. EchoStar will pay $711 million.

Alltel apparently won nothing and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen through his investment company, Vulcan Spectrum LLC got just two A Block licenses. Both apply to the Pacific Northwest and telecom analysts for Stifel Nicolaus, a D.C.-based investment bank, expect those licenses will overlap with Vulcans cable holdings.

Leap Wireless didnt win licenses either, and MetroPCS only snared one, paying $360 million for the Boston market. Insiders are speculating the two wireless providers once again will resume merger talks now that the 700MHz auction has ended.

Perhaps most notably, though, is that Google Inc. walked away with nothing. And once Google helped convince the FCC to ensure open-access provisions, most telecom insiders predicted that would happen. It seems the Internet giant was out to make a statement, or start a movement. It promised to bid $4.6 billion in the spectrum auction if the FCC would impose open-access requirements. Experts have said Google knew it wouldnt win any wireless real estate, and that it never intended to it just wanted to open spectrum so consumers can attach any devices, powered by various software and content, in whose development Google surely will have a hand.

Also of note is that Qualcomm was the sole bidder on the D Block, which didnt sell. The D Block was set aside as a public-private partnership that would have let first responders use commercial spectrum during a national emergency. Qualcomm snagged licenses in the B and E blocks, paying a total of $558 million; its $472 million bid for the D Block fell below the reserve price.

Now the FCC will de-link the D Block. The agency made that announcement on Thursday. De-linking freed the FCC from rules that would have prevented the release of winning bidders names. The FCC wont re-auction the D Block right away its next auction is titled Auction 76; this was Auction 73 and Congress probably will have a say in the D Blocks future as well.

All told, the FCC netted more than it has on any other auction. Bidders will pay the U.S. Treasury $19.6 billion by the end of June.