FCC 28 GHz Auction Offers Poor 'Yardstick' for Valuations, New Street Says
New Street Research is watching closely the aftereffects of the first U.S. high-band auction, of 28 GHz spectrum, which ended last week (see 1901250043). “We’ve had a fairly bearish view on the value of mmWave [millimeter-wave] due to the unfavorable…
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economics,” it wrote investors Monday. “This has been supported by anemic investment in the mmWave to date.” The 28 GHz auction “was a highly imperfect yardstick for value given several issues with the spectrum being auctioned, but it did not indicate a more positive view of mmWave emerging,” the firm said. “The 24GHz spectrum about to be auctioned isn’t a perfect yardstick either (it has some modest sharing requirements), but it is a better one than the 28GHz auction.” Verizon owned most of the 28 GHz spectrum, “and the licenses being auctioned only covered about one-fourth of the country, so the results were unlikely to be large in terms of dollars or important in terms of changing the competitive dynamic,” emailed Blair Levin, New Street analyst: “The 24GHz auction could prove far more interesting since it is greenfield for the carriers.”