After an almost 4-year hiatus with no spectrum auctions, FCC Auction 113 is set to start on June 2, 2026. Auction 113 consists of 200 AWS-3 licenses in 1.7 and 2.1 GHz, sometimes referred to as Lower Mid-band. 197 of these are licenses returned to the FCC by EchoStar (Dish Network), as payment for denied small bidder discounts in the original AWS-3 auction. This auction, Auction 97, had started in 2014 and ended on January 29, 2015. To date, Auction 97 is the auction that raised the highest average price for spectrum at over $2 per MHz-pop with very contentious bidding activity.
After the auction, on August 18, 2015, the FCC determined that two bidders associated with EchoStar (then Dish Network) were not eligible for the very small business bidding credits they had applied for. On October 1, 2015, those two bidders sent a letter to the FCC indicating they would default on payment for certain spectrum licenses worth US$3B and thus these were returned to the FCC. The FCC then determined that those licenses would be reauctioned and, as per the rules in place, the defaulting winner of the returned licenses would be on the hook for the value of its winning bid in 2014 versus the amount raised in a future auction for these licenses.
The licenses are a mixture of Basic Economic Area (BEA) and Cellular Market Area (CMA) licenses covering about 36% of the US population. The proceeds are earmarked for the Rip-and-Replace program, which funds operator costs of removing Chinese equipment from their networks.
On March 26, 2026, the FCC released the list of applicants for Auction 113. Note that not all applicants were fully qualified per the list released by the FCC, so there may be some changes. There are 19 parties that filed Short Form applications to participate, a much lower number than usual for a US spectrum auction. The list of applicants includes:
- The Big3 mobile carriers: AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, which accounted for 44%, 25% and 4% of the net bids, respectively, in Auction 97.
- Conundrum Wireless – The aptly named bidder for EchoStar (Dish), perhaps looking to have the auction mechanism help solve the conundrum of buying licenses versus paying penalties.
- SpaceX, on the heels of its proposed acquisition of licenses from EchoStar, including unpaired AWS-3 blocks, of which a couple are included in Auction 113. The disclosure of the SpaceX application has already raised a significant level of interest.
- Large investor groups that have participated in recent auctions are absent, as are many small operators.
There was high demand in Auction 97 and high prices since it came at a particular juncture, when the mobile industry was starved for new spectrum capacity to support the growth in smartphone data usage, notably due to the iPhone. Now over 10-years later, will demand be as robust? The Big3 are all there, but all have made significant investments in other parts of the mid-band. Although AWS is very good spectrum, an additional 5+5 MHz of FDD spectrum, the quantity of FDD spectrum available in most areas, may not carry the same value in 2026 as it did in 2014/2015.
The big question is whether prices will increase to the point where EchoStar’s penalty for having returned the licenses gets erased. EchoStar is on the hook for penalties which could be “billions of dollars”, per EchoStar, based on the difference between the original bid prices from Auction 97 relative to the result of Auction 113. In the meantime, EchoStar is still in court versus the FCC to have its obligations related to Auction 97 removed, given the difference in the auction rules put in place for Auction 113.
While Auction 113 has may not be as critical to the future of the US mobile industry as the upcoming Upper C-Band auction, it does bring about a good opportunity for one or more of the Big3, also potentially for SpaceX and a real risk of a high penalty payment for EchoStar.
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