As expected already before the mega auction of wireless spectrum in the US started, T-Mobile is aggressively trying to fill its blanks in North America. The end of this auction is in sight now and T-Mobile is leading in total amount of bids reaching 4 bln USD.

All infos including details on the bidders can be found here.

The top 5 after round 34 are:

1. T-Mobile $4 billion
2. Verizon Wireless $2.8 billion
3. SpectrumCo $1.9 billion
4. MetroPCS $1.3 billion
5. Cingular $1 billion

When tomorrow the US regulator FCC starts with the biggest auction in the US ever, German T-Mobile USA will be ready - with a bag full of money standing by - to obtain lots of licenses. As the FAZ writes today, they could spend up to 5 billion USD for licenses alone. Then another 5 billion USD might be needed to build up the infrastructure. In fact, T-Mobile being the smallest player in the US with 15 million subscribers (Cingular 28 million, Verizon 26, Sprint Nextel 25) and at the same time dependent on the growth in the US due to slow or declining business in Europe, they have to invest and are therefore under quite some pressure. The auction process requires a down payment from each bidder (get the money back if one loses the auction). T-Mobile has already put down 583 million USD more than anyone else. (Cingular 500 million USD, Verizon 383 million USD) As usual the big winner will be the FCC who will make about 15 billion USD from this auction, which counts a total of 168 bidders participating. I am sure, as in Europe, they will invest this money in a smart way...

The German regulator Bundesnetzagentur runs what they call a hearing until August 4, 2006 where everyone can hand in comments. Thereafter the auction should happen. The original deadline was end of 2005.

The auction does not require the biddders to use any specific technology - although one can expect that it will be WiMAX.