back to article Mobile broadband giants blow $45bn on Uncle Sam's finest air

Cell networks in the US have spent $44.9bn buying the rights to use a chunk of the American government's airwaves for wireless broadband networks. The FCC has just finished auctioning off the frequencies in its latest Advanced Wireless Services sale, dubbed AWS-3. It had hoped to bank just $10bn from the selloff to help line …

  1. P0l0nium

    Bandwidth auctions are simply a form of Stealth Tax.

    The sheeple don't realise that they're about to get sheared to pay for it.

    Government's job is to regulate the infrastructure not milk it like a protection racket.

    1. Brenda McViking
      Alert

      Yeah, good luck America. Our overinflated phone contracts have only just about come to an end thanks our governments hugely overpriced 3G auction on this side of the pond (years and years ago). As a result we're a good 5 years behind the times getting LTE, and UK.Gov had the audacity to complain they didn't get the payday they wanted for the 4G spectrum auction.

      Enjoy your consumer price increases to pay for all of that thin air those telcos just bought for you!

  2. Bill Michaelson

    A public resource was leased for 12 years at market rates

    This can offset some of the regressive taxes I've been paying.

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