Time Warner, Cable Companies Eye Spectrum Auction
There’s been plenty of speculation that different content providers would try to buy wireless spectrum in upcoming auctions, though much of it’s just been idle speculation. Today, however, Time Warner’s CEO said it and the three other cable companies that are its partners in a joint venture with Sprint were considering bidding in the auction that begins at the end of June. It’s still hard to see these companies buying spectrum and building their own networks, though one idea that’s been tossed around is for them to buy the spectrum, then license it out to a wireless provider or contribute it to a joint venture. However, it’s doubtful this will be the case in the cable companies’ JV with Sprint, since Sprint already has a wide swath of 2.5 GHz spectrum sitting unused, and plans to sit this auction out, accordingly.