Verizon Emerges As Top Bidder In $81B 5G Spectrum Auction

Verizon Communications Inc. VZ has emerged as the top bidder in an $81 billion auction that provides the license to use mid-band spectrum for 5G services.

What Happened: The Federal Communications Commission(FCC) said that the auction net winning bids resulted in $81.11 billion, with 21 bidders winning all of the available 5,684 licenses.

Verizon’s Cellco Partnership subsidiary emerged as the top bidder in the auction for the coveted C-band spectrum with a winning bid of over $45 billion, followed by AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) through AT&T Spectrum Frontiers LLC with a bid of $23.41 billion. 

T-Mobile Us Inc (NASDAQ: TMUS)'s T-Mobile License LLC had the third winning bid of $9.34 billion.

Verizon’s Cellco Partnership won 3,511 licenses in the auction, while AT&T Spectrum Frontiers LLC won a total of 1,621 licenses. 

United States Cellular Corp. won 254 licenses to take the third position.

Why It Matters: Winning licenses for the airwaves is crucial for the carriers to develop their 5G networks. 

In December, Verizon announced it had extended 5G nationwide to cover a total of 230 million people in over 2,700 cities.

Price Movement: Verizon shares closed 0.2% higher at $57.12 on Wednesday and added almost 0.3% in the after-hours session.

Image: Frederik Lipfert via Unsplash

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs
Comments
Loading...
Posted In: NewsTechGeneral5GMobile internetVerizon
Benzinga simplifies the market for smarter investing

Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.

Join Now: Free!