The second round of the FCC‘s reverse auction ended suddenly in just a few hours due to lack of demand.
Earlier this month the FCC lowered the targeted clearing cost of the spectrum licenses to $54.6 billion. The bids reached about $20.5 billion, falling far short and leaving the round nowhere else to go.
The FCC will now have to go back to television broadcasters and renegotiate prices for their licenses before kicking off round three. The FCC said bidding may stretch into 2017 before the auction ends.
The original clearing price was an astronomical $86 billion. Television stations have agreed to give up their valuable 600 MHz spectrum licenses and sell them to wireless carriers. So far, carriers haven’t been biting very hard.
