It turns out the hold in the auction was a technical delay. The FCC canceled the final round of the day, round 31, but will resume its regular 5-round bidding schedule in the morning.

The auction mysteriously went on hold this afternoon, an we’re still waiting on the FCC for an explanation. Could it be that the auction is winding down? In round 30, the auction generated only 158 new bids as the bidding slows down on many of the licenses. Those bids result in only a 0.26% increase in the total bids so far, which reached $18.8 billion today. more

I spoke with Jeanette Symons just once, back in 2000, for a story in Telephony’s sister publication, Upstart.

I remember how friendly and personable she was. (In any picture you can find of Jeanette Symons, she shows a lot more teeth than most telecom executives do.) I remember how impressed I was with her brilliance and the fact that she flew her own plane whenever she traveled on business. more