The AWS-3 auction in the U.S. finally came to an end on Thursday, raising a staggering $44.9 billion.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revealed that the contest had ended after 341 bidding rounds but has yet to share any details on the winners.
70 companies qualified to take part in the auction that began in mid-November. Major telecoms operators AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are thought to be among the big spenders in the process, as is TV operator Dish Network. Sprint did not take part in the auction.
The regulator had sought to raise $10 billion from the auction, but that total was exceeded early in the process. After 16 rounds of bidding the running total stood at $18.6 billion and less than a week later had risen to more than $36 billion.
After the first few weeks of frenzied activity, bidding slowed considerably and less than $1 billion has been added to the total since mid-December.
There has been much speculation that the likes of Verizon and AT&T have committed to spending tens of billions on AWS-3 spectrum, but Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam played down the situation earlier this month.
"There’s some wild speculation out there," he said at the Citi 2015 Global Internet, Media & Telecommunications Conference, blaming "Christmas cheer" for some of the news reports.
"We’ll set the record straight right after the auction closes," he said.
Watch this space…
