AT&T hopes Discovery deal will unlock value - The Washington Post washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Drew FitzGerald and Sam Goldfarb Bidders spent a record $80.9 billion in a U.S. government airwaves-license sale, capping a frenzied auction that will demand a commensurate wave of borrowing in an already-indebted telecom sector. AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and others competed in the Federal Communications Commission s sale of C-band spectrum rights a hot commodity for cellphone carriers seeking more frequencies for 5G services. The sale ended Friday ahead of a second phase that determines the specific frequencies each company will receive. The public won t likely learn the names of the auction s winners for several weeks, but Wall Street is already taking cues from traditional network operators seeking loans or issuing bonds that could be used to foot the bill.