The FCC today officially granted some winning bidders in the AWS-3 spectrum auction the licenses allowing them to take ownership of the airwaves. The AWS-3 spectrum auction concluded earlier this year, with AT&T, Dish Networks, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless the top four bidders. Bids totaled more than $41 billion for slices of airwaves in the 1695-1710MHz, 1755-1780MHz, and 2155-2180MHz bands. AT&T, Verizon, and FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai complained about the tactics used by Dish to win its bids (Dish bid through smaller companies in order to obtain a significant discount). As a result, the FCC has for the time being withheld Dish's licenses, while granting the licenses to AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. The three carriers plan to use the spectrum to bolster their LTE 4G networks. Dish owns a great deal of spectrum, but has yet to deploy any sort of wireless service.


More...