During the waning weeks of 2020, the nation s top 5G executives played what might have been the most expensive game of chance ever. They weren t at the Caesars sportsbook or the Bellagio blackjack tables. No, these business titans placed multimillion-dollar bids on thousands of spectrum licenses around the country, some in the nine-figure range.
These executives didn t know who they were bidding against. They only knew that, if they lost, their company might forever fall by the 5G wayside.
Some executives decided to go all in no matter how high the price, they would pay it. Others played aggressively in early rounds of bidding, only to pull back as prices surpassed even the most aggressive predictions. And a few executives in the cable industry decided to conduct a bidding head fake that cost them $100 million dollars. They did not place a single bid during the entire auction.