China-Singapore Jingwei Client, December 24th, according to the Wall Street Journal Chinese website on the 24th, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s ongoing wireless license auction after three weeks of bidding has achieved a record turnover of over 69.8 billion US dollars, this auction may change the prospects of mobile phone operators in the next decade.
It is reported that the proceeds from this auction have exceeded the FCC's 2015 mid-band mobile phone license auction proceeds of 44.9 billion US dollars.
At that time, US mobile phone operators hoped to use mid-band licenses to enhance their 4G services.
Today, these companies are now investing billions of dollars for next-generation 5G services.
The 5G standard is expected to accelerate the speed of data transmission to wireless devices such as mobile phones and personal computers, automobiles and industrial machinery.
The report pointed out that the $69.8 billion bid amount has exceeded Wall Street's highest forecast, which shows that many companies are competing for the most valuable wireless usage rights.
The 5G license auction will start on December 8, and will be suspended due to Christmas and New Year holidays. It will end on January 4, 2021, when the total amount of bids may be higher.
It is worth mentioning that the FCC will not announce the winning bidder until a few days after the auction ends, which means that the suspense may not be revealed until February next year.
Until the auction ends, every bid is confidential.
Analysts expect that incumbent companies such as AT&T and Verizon will take away a large portion of their licenses in order to compete with rival T-Mobile America.
T-Mobile is a multinational mobile phone operator and a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. T-Mobile America acquired the assets of Sprint, the fourth largest wireless operator in the United States, in February this year.
The report quoted research company LightShed Partners telecom analyst Walter Picek as saying that mid-band spectrum is the development direction of 5G.
The merger of T-Mobile America and Sprint "obviously put pressure on Verizon and AT&T," forcing it to invest a lot of money in bidding for 5G licenses.
According to reports, the FCC auctioned licenses for spectrum between 3.7 GHz and 4 GHz. This mid-band spectrum is very suitable for 5G services.
After the license is taken, the winning bidder will need to spend at least another 13 billion US dollars to help a group of satellite companies that are already using these frequency bands to modify their equipment.
Wall Street investment bank Raymond James analyst Frank Lawson pointed out that given the low borrowing costs and relatively stable service income of mobile phone operators, they are able to afford large expenses. (Zhongxin Jingwei APP)