Spectrum auctions usually don’t have clear winners, but T-Mobile looks like it won the 2.5 GHz auction, MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett told investors. The auction ended Monday with net proceeds of $427.8 million (see 2208290043). “While we won’t know for sure who ‘won’ the licenses in question for another week or so, it is universally assumed that T-Mobile was far and away the auction’s principal buyer,” Moffett said: It's “the only U.S. company that uses 2.5 GHz spectrum (2.5 GHz is the backbone spectrum band of their 5G network), and the licenses at auction were best seen as the ‘holes in the Swiss cheese’ of T-Mobile’s otherwise national 2.5 GHz footprint. There was a great deal of spectrum here for sale, but it wasn’t geographically contiguous, and thus it would be difficult for anyone other than T-Mobile to use it.” Few speculators likely jumped in, he said. “If there is but one true exit -- i.e., to sell to T-Mobile -- then bidding more than T-Mobile was willing to pay would seem an ill-advised strategy.” The spectrum adds to T-Mobile’s “already-large spectrum advantage versus Verizon and AT&T” at a “much lower price than had been expected,” he said. “We congratulate the FCC on completing the 2.5 GHz auction, which will help enhance 5G coverage across the country,” emailed CTIA Senior Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Scott Bergmann: “We look forward to working with Congress, the FCC and the Administration to identify the next 5G auction of licensed spectrum that will be critical to maintaining our position as the world’s innovation hub and leader of the growing 5G economy.”

The FCC’s 2.5 GHz auction ended Monday, after 73 rounds, hitting net proceeds of $427.8 million. The FCC found winning bidders for 7,872 of the 8,017 licenses offered. The FCC holds the remaining 145 licenses. “After some extended bidding in Guam today, Auction 108 finally came to an end,” emailed Sasha Javid, BitPath chief operating officer. “While the end of this auction should not be a surprise for those following activity on Friday, it certainly ended faster than I expected just a week ago.” With no assignment phase, Javid predicted the FCC will issue a closing public notice in about a week, with details on where each bidder won licenses. T-Mobile was expected to be the dominant bidder as it fills in gaps in the 2.5 GHz coverage it’s using to offer 5G (see 2207290045). AT&T, Verizon and Dish Network qualified to bid but weren’t expected to make a play for many licenses. New Street significantly downgraded projections for the auction as it unfolded, from $3.4 billion, to less than $452 million in its latest projection. New Street’s Phillip Burnett told investors Sunday Guam Telephone Authority was likely the company making a push for the license there. The authority owns citizens broadband radio service and high-band licenses “but lacks a powerful mid-band license” since “no C-Band or 3.45GHz licenses were offered for Guam,” he said. “We still assume T-Mobile won essentially all the licenses,” Burnett said in a Monday note. The auction translated to just 2 cents/MHz POP, 8 cents excluding the areas where T-Mobile is already operating, he said: “This will make it the cheapest of the 5G upper mid-band auctions at the FCC to date, both in terms of unit and aggregate prices. However, given how odd these licenses were, we wouldn't expect to see the auction used as a marker for mid-band values going forward.”

NYU Wireless, an academic research center at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, got a $3 million award from the National Science Foundation to study THz band spectrum, said the school. The program -- and partners University of Colorado-Boulder, University of Nebraska–Lincoln and Florida International University -- will use the money to perform “basic measurements of devices, circuits, materials, and radio propagation channels at the highest reaches of the radio spectrum,” the release said. “Today’s cellular telephones and wi-fi networks operate at frequencies below 100 GHz,” said Ted Rappaport, NYU electrical engineering professor: “There is great promise for greater download speeds and vast new wireless applications by moving up to the underexplored sub-THz and THz frequency bands -- frequencies from 100 to 500 GHz, in both indoor and outdoor urban and rural contexts, and this support from the NSF will allow us to be at the forefront of exploring those frontiers.”

T-Mobile announced Friday three more companies joined its accelerator program for augmented-reality smart glasses experiences. The firms are: (1) Foundry Six and its Arealm, a role-playing game metaverse; (2) Stops, with a location-based platform for helping businesses and influencers share locations with customers and followers in the metaverse; and (3) WeR, with an AR/AI platform for monetizing and optimizing retail space. The T-Mobile Accelerator is working on 5G AR smart glasses using heads-up displays, spatial awareness and computer vision across industries. Participants work with T-Mobile engineers and business leaders while using Lenovo ThinkReality A3 AR smart glasses, which support Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Spaces. Other participants in the program include Beem, Krikey, Mawari, Mohx-Games, Pluto and VictoryXR. T-Mobile is accepting applications from developers interested in building immersive 5G experiences for AR glasses on Snapdragon Spaces, it said. “5G and Augmented Reality have the potential to transform gaming, education, training, the way we communicate and so much more,” said John Saw, executive vice president-advanced and emerging technologies at T-Mobile.

Marvell Technology continues to see “healthy demand” for its products, except for consumer hard drives, and its overall demand is still “outpacing supply,” said CEO Matt Murphy on an earnings call Thursday for its fiscal Q2 ended July 30. Net revenue of $1.52 billion grew 41% year over year and 5% sequentially, he said. Marvell endured a “choppy” supply environment in the quarter, and “we expect our revenue mix by end market will continue to be influenced more by supply than demand in the near term,” he said. “We are encouraged to see some pockets of additional supply starting to open up,” said Murphy. But for higher-complexity products with long manufacturing cycle times, “the supply chain for leading-edge technology and advanced packaging remains very tight,” he said. Q2 revenue in Marvell’s carrier infrastructure end market grew 45% year over year to $285 million, “well above our forecast,” he said. Marvell’s wireless business “continued to advance in the second quarter, benefiting from the growth in 5G adoption,” said Murphy. “We expect to see an extended period of growth for our 5G business, with multiple regions such as Europe and India yet to launch 5G in a meaningful fashion.” Additional growth is also expected “in other large geographies such as the U.S., which are only in their first year of mainstream deployment,” he said.

TCL’s TAB 10 5G-enabled tablet will go on sale at T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile Friday starting at $299, the company emailed Wednesday. The Android tablet has a 10.1-inch Full HD display, stereo speakers and eye-protection features such as reading, dark and eye comfort modes, plus adaptive brightness, the company said. The 5G phone is powered by MediaTek’s Kompanio 800T chipset, has 4 GB RAM and an 8000mAh battery. The camera array includes an 8-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front sensor, it said.

Continued 5G expansion into more regions will enable growth in the worldwide IoT market, said a Tuesday eMarketer report. The research firm predicts 4.3 billion mobile IoT connections worldwide by 2026, up from 2.1 billion last year. 5G enables faster broadband and better machine-to-machine interaction, said analyst Sara Lebow. Markets driving 5G IoT growth are North America, China and Western Europe.

NTIA will host a spectrum sharing symposium Sept. 19, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. EDT, at the National Press Club. The focus is “continued innovation in the use of radio-frequency spectrum, the evolution of new techniques and technologies to manage its use domestically and internationally, and principles for the development and execution of a national spectrum strategy,” said a notice for Tuesday’s Federal Register. The Biden administration reportedly is moving closer to releasing a national spectrum strategy (see 2208150035).

The FCC’s Technological Advisory Council will meet Sept. 15, starting at 10 a.m. EDT, its first meeting since June (see 2206090059), said a Friday Federal Register notice. The meeting will be virtual. TAC's focus this cycle is preparing for 6G.

The number of 5G connections at manufacturing and industrial facilities will exceed 49 million globally by 2030, generating $2.4 billion in revenue for suppliers, reported ABI Research Thursday. But the lack of 5G industrial devices has stalled manufacturers’ interest in 5G private wireless, said ABI. “In turn, the lack of enthusiasm has discouraged hardware suppliers from creating the necessary devices. As a result of the state of flux, equipment vendors, such as Nokia, have launched converged devices supporting Wi-Fi, LTE, and 5G connectivity.” Suppliers need to showcase the attributes of a 5G network “and prove how a 5G network can upgrade operations,” said ABI. “The lack of 5G devices is a genuine drag on adoption.”