Verizon Wireless and AT&T won most of the spectrum in the FCC's (News - Alert) 700 MHz auction, according to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. As most had expected, Verizon, which really needs more spectrum, won the C block.

Rival AT&T (News - Alert) won 227 licenses from among the B block of regional licenses, to fill in and augment what most observers would have said was a healthy bandwidth position with some "coverage holes" to fill.

Perhaps the biggest "surprise" was that EchoStar, the satellite video provider, won enough E block spectrum to create a nearly-national terrestrial network. EchoStar now will have an opportunity to create its own facilities-based triple play services, an objective it long has sought.

Verizon (News - Alert) Wireless bid $9.6 billion to grab enough spectrum to build its fourth generation Long Term Evolution network.

Rival AT&T spent $6.6 billion.

According to an analysis by The Associated Press, the two telecom companies bid more than $16 billion, constituting the vast majority of the overall $19.6 billion that was bid in the FCC auction.

Given that the cost of building out the new 700-MHz networks generally is ball-parked at about twice the cost of spectrum, not many observers held out serious hope that a new bidder from outside the traditional communications business would win the C block.

Still, lots of smaller telcos won regional allocations that will allow them to create new broadband access networks that might provide mobility within a city or in a region, but probably are best seen as fixed wireless assets cheaper to deploy than wired alternatives.

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Gary Kim is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

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