The FCC upped the intensity of the auction today, hosting four rounds of bidding today instead of the two daily rounds of last week. Despite the doubling of activity of Day 3, nothing too startling occurred. Except for a slight hiccup in C-block bidding in round 6, the auction is essentially in the same state as we left it at the end of week one: bidding ramped up leisurely on the C-block open-access license, the D-block public-safety license was untouched and the really nasty fighting occurred over regional and market licenses in New York, Southern California and Chicago. In total, the auction has no generated $6.1 billion in high bids. more

For the first time in six rounds, no one bid on the open-access C block in Auction 73. After attracting a single bid in every round bringing the price up to $2.15 billion, the unnamed bidders competing for the large block of commercial spectrum stepped back in round 6, drawing into question the demand for the nationwide block that would support the country’s first government-mandated open-access network.  more