Auction 110: 3.45 GHz Service

General auction information and associated licensing information is provided below.  This fact sheet includes:

• Key Dates
• Auction Participation
• Licenses Offered
• Permissible Operations
• License Period and Construction Requirements
• Bidding Credits
• Aggregate Reserve Price
• Licensing Rules

Key Dates

Auction Participation

In order to participate in Auction 110, you must (1) submit a short-form application (FCC Form 175) prior to 6:00 pm ET on July 21, 2021, (2) make various required certifications, including certifications related to statutory and regulatory requirements, and (3) submit a sufficient upfront payment by 6:00 pm ET on September 2, 2021.  Moreover, you must comply with applicable Commission rules and all provisions outlined in the Auction 110 Procedures Public Notice and any additional Auction 110 public notices, which can be found in the Releases section of this web page. 

In addition, under the Education section, interested parties will find additional helpful tools for participating in the auction, including an application tutorial, application filing instructions, and bidding technical guides.

License Offered

Auction 110 will offer 4,060 new flexible‐use licenses for spectrum in the 3.45-3.55 GHz band throughout the contiguous United States.

The 100 megahertz of spectrum available in Auction 110 will be licensed on an unpaired basis divided into ten 10-megahertz blocks in partial economic areas (PEAs) located in the contiguous 48 states and the District of Columbia (PEAs 1–41, 43–211, 213–263, 265–297, 299–359, and 361–411).  These 10-megahertz blocks are designated as A through J.

At this time, the Commission will not issue flexible-use licenses for the following PEAs:  Honolulu, Anchorage, Kodiak, Fairbanks, Juneau, Puerto Rico, Guam-Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Gulf of Mexico (PEAs numbers 42, 212, 264, 298, 360, 412–416).

Licenses in the 3.45-3.55 GHz band are subject to certain cooperative sharing requirements.  Interested parties can find additional information about the cooperative sharing requirements, including information about the encumbrances in specific PEAs, at https://www.ntia.doc/category/3450-3550-mhz.  The Department of Defense (DoD) will hold a workshop to provide further information on transition and coordination plans, which may include guidance on anticipated received power levels from the DoD’s high-powered operations, methods and means for sharing proprietary and classified information (e.g., through “Trusted Agents”), and descriptions of potential national emergency scenarios.  

In some of the PEAs where coordination is required, all ten blocks will be subject to the same restrictions.  In others, the restrictions may vary depending upon the frequency block—specifically, in some PEAs subject to coordination with federal incumbents, the A through D blocks may be subject to different restrictions than the E through J blocks.  In the 72 PEAs subject to coordination with federal incumbents where the restrictions differ according to the frequency, the four blocks A through D will be considered Category 1, or “Cat1,” while the six blocks E through J will be considered Category 2, or “Cat2,” for bidding.  In the three PEAs where certain blocks are subject to special conditions stemming from a grant of special temporary authority to Lockheed Martin (PEA 41 (Syracuse, NY), PEA 44 (Rochester, NY), and PEA 227 (Watertown, NY)), blocks A through H will be designated as Cat1, while blocks I and J are designated Cat2.  In the 331 PEAs where the restrictions, if any, are the same across all frequencies, all ten blocks will be considered Cat1.

Licensees may hold up to four 10-megahertz blocks (out of a total of ten) in the 3.45–3.55 GHz band within any PEA at any given time for the first four years after the close of the auction.  A licensee in the 3.45–3.55 GHz band may provide any services permitted under terrestrial fixed or mobile, except aeronautical mobile, allocations, as set forth in the non-Federal Government column of the Table of Frequency Allocations in section 2.106 of the Commission’s rules, as modified by the 3.45 GHz Second Report and Order. 

Permissible Operations

A licensee in the 3.45 GHz Service may provide any services permitted under fixed or mobile allocations, except aeronautical mobile, as set forth in the non-Federal Government column of the Table of Frequency Allocations in section 2.106 of the Commission’s rules.

License Period and Construction Requirements

License Period

Initial authorizations will have a term not to exceed 15 years from the date of initial issuance or renewal.  (See 47 CFR § 27.13(o))

Performance Requirements

Licensees in the 3.45 GHz Service must meet the following benchmarks, based on the type of service they provide.

Mobile/Point-to-Multipoint Service.  Licensees relying on mobile or point-to-multipoint service shall provide reliable signal coverage and offer service within four (4) years from the date of the initial license to at least forty-five (45) percent of the population in each of its license areas (“First Performance Benchmark”).  Licensees shall provide reliable signal coverage and offer service within eight (8) years from the date of the initial license to at least eighty (80) percent of the population in each of its license areas (“Second Performance Benchmark”).

Point-to-Point Service.  Licensees relying on point-to-point service shall demonstrate within four (4) years of the license issue date that, if the population within the license area is equal to or less than 268,000, they have four links operating and either provide service to customers or for internal use.  If the population is greater than 268,000, they shall demonstrate they have at least one link in operation and either provide service to customers or for internal use per every 67,000 persons within a license area (“First Performance Benchmark”).  Licensees shall demonstrate within eight (8) years of the license issue date that, if the population within license area is equal to or less than 268,000, they have eight links operating and either provide service to customers or for internal use.  If the population within the license area is greater than 268,000, they shall demonstrate they have at least two links in operation and either provide service to customers or for internal use per every 67,000 persons within a license area (“Second Performance Benchmark”).

Internet of Things Service.  Licensees offering Internet of Things-type services shall provide geographic area coverage within four (4) years from the date of the initial license to thirty-five (35) percent of the license (“First Performance Benchmark”).  Licensees shall provide geographic area coverage within eight (8) years from the date of the initial license to sixty-five (65) percent of the license (“Second Performance Benchmark”).

Failure to Meet Performance Requirements.  If a licensee fails to establish that it meets the First Performance Benchmark for a particular license area, the licensee’s Second Performance Benchmark deadline and license term will be reduced by one year.  If a licensee fails to establish that it meets the Second Performance Benchmark for a particular license area, its authorization for each license area in which it fails to meet the Second Performance Benchmark shall terminate automatically without Commission action, and the licensee will be ineligible to regain it if the Commission makes the license available at a later date.

Compliance Procedures.  To demonstrate compliance with these performance requirements, licensees shall use the most recently available decennial U.S. Census Data at the time of measurement and shall base their measurements of population or geographic area served on areas no larger than the Census Tract level.  The population or area within a specific Census Tract (or other acceptable identifier) will be deemed served by the licensee only if it provides reliable signal coverage to and offers service within the specific Census Tract (or other acceptable identifier).  To the extent the Census Tract (or other acceptable identifier) extends beyond the boundaries of a license area, a licensee with authorizations for such areas may include only the population or geographic area within the Census Tract (or other acceptable identifier) towards meeting the performance requirement of a single, individual license.  If a licensee does not provide reliable signal coverage to an entire license area, the license must provide a map that accurately depicts the boundaries of the area or areas within each license area not being served. Each licensee also must file supporting documentation certifying the type of service it is providing for each licensed area within its service territory and the type of technology used to provide such service. Supporting documentation must include the assumptions used to create the coverage maps, including the propagation model and the signal strength necessary to provide reliable service with the licensee's technology.

(See 47 CFR § 27.14(w))

Bidding Credits

Bidding credit discounts will be available to those applicants that demonstrate that they are eligible small businesses or rural service providers and win one or more licenses at auction. 

An applicant may claim either a small business bidding credit or a rural service provider bidding credit, but not both.  Each applicant must also certify that it is eligible for the claimed bidding credit in its FCC Form 175.  Each applicant should review carefully the Commission’s decisions regarding the designated entity provisions as well as the Part 1 rules. 

Small Business Bidding Credits

Bidding credits will be available to eligible small businesses and consortia thereof, subject to the caps discussed below.  Under the service rules applicable to the 3.45 GHz Service licenses to be offered in Auction 110, the level of bidding credits available is determined as follows: 

A bidder with attributed average annual gross revenues that do not exceed $55 million for the preceding five years is eligible to receive a 15% discount on its overall payments.

A bidder with attributed average annual gross revenues that do not exceed $20 million for the preceding five years is eligible to receive a 25% discount on its overall payments.

Small business bidding credits are not cumulative; an eligible applicant may receive either the 15% or the 25% bidding credit discount on its overall payments, but not both.  The Commission’s unjust enrichment provisions apply to a winning bidder that uses a bidding credit and subsequently seeks to assign or transfer control of its license within a certain period to an entity not qualifying for at least the same level of small business bidding credit.

Rural Service Provider Bidding Credit

An applicant that is eligible for a rural service provider bidding credit will receive a 15% discount on its overall payment, subject to the $10 million cap discussed below.  To be eligible, an applicant must (1) be a service provider that is in the business of providing commercial communications services and, together with its controlling interests, affiliates, and the affiliates of its controlling interests, have fewer than 250,000 combined wireless, wireline, broadband, and cable subscribers; and (2) serve predominantly rural areas, defined as counties with a population density of 100 or fewer persons per square mile.  These eligibility requirements must be satisfied by the FCC Form 175 filing deadline.     

Caps on Bidding Credit Discounts

Applicants eligible for bidding credit discounts will be subject to caps on the total amount of discounts they may receive.  Specifically, an eligible small business is subject to a $25 million cap, and an eligible rural service provider is subject to a $10 million cap.  In addition, no eligible small business will be able to obtain more than $10 million in bidding credit discounts in total for licenses won in markets with a population of 500,000 or less.

Tribal Lands Bidding Credit

A winning bidder that intends to use its license(s) to deploy facilities and provide services to federally recognized tribal lands that are unserved by any telecommunications carrier or that have a wireline penetration rate equal to or below 85% is eligible to receive a tribal lands bidding credit as set forth in sections 1.2107(e) and 1.2110(f)(3) of the Commission’s rules.  A tribal lands bidding credit is in addition to, and separate from, any other bidding credit for which a winning bidder may qualify.

Aggregate Reserve Price

For Auction 110, the Commission establish a single aggregate reserve price to ensure that total cash proceeds from the auction equal at least $14,775,354,330. Please see paragraphs 118–124 of the Auction 110 Procedures Public Notice for further information.

Licensing Rules

47 CFR Parts 1, 2, and 27