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PCS auction nears end
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August 29, 1996: 4:13 p.m. ET
Bidders vie for spectrum space needed for latest communication technology
From Correspondent Kelli Arena
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WASHINGTON (CNNfn) - The Federal Communications Commission is conducting its final auction of personal communication service licenses.
PCS is a new digital technology that offers crisper and more reliable wireless telephone service than cellular phones. The auction is the FCC's largest to date, with 153 qualified bidders vying for the valuable spectrum space.
"(The) PCS phone would be your office phone, then you could take it in your car," said MCI's Whitey Bluestein. "That one phone, one number could be your only phone number."
The PCS frequency is digital, and can be used for both phone and pager service. And developers are currently working on gateways to the Internet.
The FCC began auctioning off PCS spectrum space in March 1995 and since then has raised some $18 billion. After factoring in expenditures and financial breaks for minority-owned and small businesses, the U.S. Treasury Dept. took in about $10 billion.
The current auction, which has attracted big-name companies such as Bell South, Sprint and AT&T, should do well.
""We're...seeing more than 40 new entrants who do not have paging, cellular or PCS licenses previously, so we're seeing a stream of new participants which we think will bring about more innovative services to the American public," said Michelle Farquhar, the head the FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau.
Analysts said increased competition will mean lower prices for consumers when it comes to air time, even if there may be a few kinks in the system.
"It doesn't go through buildings as well as cellular frequency does," said George Reed-Dellinger of HSBC Washington Analysis. "That's why you're going to see the deployment of thousands of little transmitters in atriums, in garages and in apartment buildings."
PCS service is now available in seven markets, and industry experts expect that at the current rate of allocation, it will be available across the nation by the turn of the century. 
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