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FCC announces results of 600MHz auction, T-Mobile wins more spectrum than any other company

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The FCC’s 600MHz incentive auction officially wrapped up earlier this year following a lot of back and forth between the TV broadcasters, the FCC, and the auction bidders. Now the results of that auction have come out.

T-Mobile announced today that it came away with 1,525 licenses and an average of 31 MHz nationwide, which it spent a total of $7.99 billion on. T-Mo won 45 percent of all of the low-band spectrum available in the auction. This spectrum covers every bit of the US and Puerto Rico, and you can check out the depth of T-Mobile’s 600MHz spectrum winnings in the map below.

As for when you’ll actually see the benefits of this 600MHz auction, T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray says that T-Mo will start deploying this year in both new and existing markets. Also of note is that Qualcomm is working on smartphone chipsets that support 600 MHz and that T-Mo suggests that smartphone makers could start offering 600MHz-compatible phones as soon as this year.

When it comes to the auction as a whole, the FCC says that T-Mobile, US Cellular, Dish, and Comcast emerged as the biggest winners. The forward auction included $19.8 billion in gross revenues, which is the second largest in FCC auction history.

There was 70 MHz of low-band spectrum made available in the auction, as well as 14 MHz available for wireless mics and unlicensed use. There were 2,776 license blocks sold in the auction out of a total of 2,912 offered. The FCC also says that there were a total of 50 winning bidders in the forward auction.

You can check out more details on the bidders in the forward auction, including the number of licenses they won and how much they paid, right here.

Sources: T-Mobile, FCC

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