Verizon Communications won 82 spectrum licenses for $3.16 billion in the Federal Communications Commission’s first auction of commercial wireless airwaves since 2022, the agency announced Friday. The sale generated more than $3.5 billion in total proceeds, according to the FCC.
T-Mobile won the largest number of licenses — 102 — for $277.8 million, the FCC said. AT&T won 10 licenses for $120.8 million, and SpaceX won two licenses for $8.49 million. Other smaller winners included EchoStar and Blue Ridge Communications.
The auction covered AWS-3 spectrum, a band of airwaves used for wireless broadband that sits near frequencies already owned by the three largest U.S. carriers. Analysts had expected the major operators to dominate bidding because of those adjacency advantages.
The FCC said up to $3.3 billion of the proceeds will be used to cover debts that fund FCC and Commerce Department programs.
“After years on the sidelines, FCC auctions are finally back,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a statement. “Today’s successful auction generated billions of dollars in competitive bids to put spectrum to effective commercial use, and it bolsters competition in the wireless marketplace.”
Carr added that the agency will “carry this momentum forward as we prepare for the Upper C-Band auction in the year ahead.”
The Upper C-Band auction, which the FCC has said could involve mid-band spectrum critical for 5G network capacity, is expected to be considerably larger than the AWS-3 sale. The C-Band auction in 2021 raised more than $80 billion in winning bids from Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.
The AWS-3 auction’s $3.5 billion total fell well short of that record, reflecting the smaller amount of spectrum available and the shorter hiatus since the previous AWS-3 sale. Still, the FCC framed the auction as evidence that its spectrum pipeline is restarting after a four-year pause under the previous administration.
Verizon’s $3.16 billion outlay was by far the largest single commitment in the auction. The company, which bid under the name Cellco Partnership, has been adding mid-band spectrum to support its 5G network and was the top spender in the 2021 C-Band auction as well.
T-Mobile, at $277.8 million for 102 licenses, paid far less than Verizon per license, reflecting the lower population density of the areas covered by many of the licenses it won.
SpaceX’s $8.49 million purchase of two licenses adds to the company’s growing wireless-spectrum portfolio, which the satellite operator uses for its Starlink direct-to-cellphone service. The company has been expanding its telecommunications ambitions and has pushed regulators for access to additional bands.