FCC to auction off deadbeat bidders' 700MHz spectrum on July 19th, 2011
If there's one thing we've learned from our stratospheric rise in smartphone adoption over the past several years (with no end in sight), it's that we can never have enough spectrum to run data services for them -- just ask the chairman of the FCC, the president of the CTIA, or pretty much anyone who's ever tried to load Engadget on an iPhone in Times Square. To that end, we're excited to see that the FCC has slated another round of 700MHz spectrum -- the pure gold that Verizon, AT&T, and others are using for LTE deployments -- but we wouldn't get too excited, because it's actually just a few blocks left over from the last auction that went unsold or unpaid. Markets in Puerto Rico, North Dakota, North Carolina, and South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia make up the 16 licenses available, so if you were planning on setting up 4G services in the Bismarck metropolitan area, you're in good shape.
