To: Bernard Levy who wrote (1045 ) 2/6/1998 11:49:00 PM From: Steven Bowen Read Replies (1) | Respond to
What you're allowed to bid on is still confusing to me. I copied the rules here Message 3364087 but I still don't understand. The up front payments required to bid on every market (in the first round, I presume) would be $186M. This would mean that even WNP Comm would only be allowed to bid in the first round on approx half the licenses. NextBand only about a quarter. It sounds like WNP could bid on the other half of the nation in the second round and not bid on the ones they bid on in the first round, etc. I don't know how they would figure which to bid on in which round. But as you win markets, points must get subtracted somehow from your up front payment. No matter how it goes, it doesn't seem like even WNP could win half the nation. You would think that the large bidders are going to chase a particular region, ie instead of WNP going after LA, San Fran, Dallas, Chicago, Boston, etc, they would go after Phil, Boston, DC etc and try to capture the entire New England region for example. This might keep prices down, if WNP wants New England and NextBand wants the Pacific Coast for example. Of course it looks like the real compitition may be in the second tier of cities, say the 100,000 to 1,000,000 population. We have 140 some bidders, and only a dozen or so will be after the likes of San Fran, LA, or Chicago. Of course, the bunch with deposits of 1 to 5 million or so might just be looking to capture their home state. You might have just two companies interested in bidding on and only on licenses in Ohio for example. But then I guess if two companies want Mass and WNP wanted New England, we'll still have a battle. I guess we'll know shortly. It'll be real exciting to see how this all shakes out.
