It is round 12 in the auction and the price of the C block has reached $3.78 B, still a bit below FCC’s target minimum of $4.6B. We are likely to see the dance continue this week or the next .. but overall, it doesn’t seem to be going according to FCC’s plan.
Regarding WiMAX and Open Access, I had said repeatedly that the most likely scenario is Clearwire and Sprint making up and asking Google, Motorola and others to fund it .. WSJ has a report that this move is underway. If the players can pull this, it will a win-win for all parties involved and inject some interesting dynamics in the US Wireless Market.