The total bids on the eight regional slices of the C Block have once again topped the national package, which means anywhere from one to eight bidders could be sitting on a provisionally winning bid for a piece of the C Block. The total winning bids for the open access C Block now stands at just over $4.74 billion. As of the 32nd round, a bidder would have to bid just under $5 billion in order to top the latest bid.
While the 700 MHz auction has already been dubbed the most lucrative spectrum auction in the history of the FCC, bidding seems to have slowed down. During the 32nd round of bidding, provisionally winning bids only added about 0.1 percent more or $19.6 million to the total provisionally winning bids, which now stand at $18.9 billion. The auction ends when no new bids come in. In the immortal words of the late-nineties R&B group, C-Block, "time is ticking away" (for new bidders).
For more on the auction:
- see our dedicated auction coverage here