A strange new entrant to the 700 MHz auction

Surely you’ve heard of Paul Allen. You know, the dude who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates back when they both looked like this. He’s representing his investment company, Vulcan Capital, represented as Vulcan Spectrum LLC. His is just one of 96 current names accepted for bidding. There are 170-something incomplete applications, which has led the FCC to move the deadline to January 4, from December 3. Yeah, there are some interesting applicants on the already-accepted list.

Notably, Verizon, Alltel, and AT&T are among the incompletes. It probably means nothing, but it’s still strange to see such noteworthy companies — bidding on such a coveted spectrum — hand in an unacceptable applications.

On the completed applications end, there are few surprises, other than Allen, of course. There are a bunch of small-name companies bidding in the zero to 15 million range, and the 15 to 40 million range. A notable name on the incomplete end we hadn’t considered yet is Qualcomm, though they won some 700 MHz spectrum back in 2003.

If you want to browse the lists yourself, you can see the accepted applications here, and the incomplete applications here. WARNING: They’re both PDFs.

By the way, and not that this is his intention, but if Paul Allen started a cell phone company called Vulcan, we’d totally sign up. And we’re not even Sci-Fi fans.

[Reuters] via [Engadget]

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