CRA provided bidder support in Canada’s AWS Auction and assisted our client in acquiring its desired spectrum licenses at the lowest possible prices. CRA conducted business case assessments, assisted in license valuations, analyzed Industry Canada’s auction design and rules, provided comments to Industry Canada, conducted competitor assessments, developed bidding strategies and tactics, customized bid tracking tools, advised on logistics for the bidding war room, and provided on-site and remote bidding advice and support for the mock and real auctions. The client acquired its desired licenses at prices below prices paid by other winning bidders for comparable licenses. Our client CEO was quoted publicly as saying, “We got the most spectrum for the least amount of money.”

To assist a bidder in U.K.’s 3G auction in acquiring its desired spectrum licenses at the lowest possible prices, CRA analyzed the auction design and rules, conducted competitor assessments, developed bidding strategies and tactics, customized bid tracking tools, advised on logistics for the bidding war room, and provided on-site and remote bidding advice and support for the mock and real auctions.

CRA assisted a bidder in U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s AWS-1 Auction #66 in acquiring desired spectrum licenses at the lowest possible prices. CRA conducted business case assessments, assisted in license valuations, analyzed the FCC’s auction design and rules, conducted competitor assessments, developed bidding strategies and tactics, customized bid tracking tools, advised on logistics for the bidding war room, and provided on-site bidding advice and support for the mock and real auctions. Our client acquired its desired licenses at prices below prices paid by other winning bidders for comparable licenses.

CRA was retained to develop alternative and advanced auction designs for the FCC’s spectrum auctions. The designs and recommended implementations allow for very large and combinatorial auctions to be run efficiently and competitively, and ensure that the objectives of the FCC are achieved. These auction designs enable the FCC to choose the best auction format for each of its auctions. The CRA team also developed prototype software for running advanced, combinatorial auctions. The software compared how various rules for combinatorial auctions performed versus the FCC’s existing rules and software. The key steps in the undertaking included developing design specifications and combinatorial algorithms, creating a database, coding, testing, experimenting, and documenting.

Industry Canada retained CRA to design spectrum auctions and to provide auction software to conduct the spectrum auctions. CRA provided a simultaneous multiple round (SMR) auction design as well as a version of CRA’s Auction Management System (AMS) and Bid Tracking Software (BTS). Industry Canada relied on CRA’s design and system for its first spectrum auctions.

For Cofetel’s first spectrum auction for paging licenses, as Auction Manager CRA provided auction design, auction rules, auction software, documentation, bidder training, and auction execution. CRA customized the simultaneous multiple round (SMR) auction format to account for the particular characteristics of the Mexican telecommunications industry. The Mexican paging auction was considered an important success and precedent by the Mexican government as well as by the participants. CRA assisted the Mexican government in subsequent auctions, including PCS and wireless access, MMDS, and microwave point-to-point auctions. These spectrum auctions raised 9.7 billion pesos, or more than US$1.1 billion.

CRA has developed auction simulation software tools that can be used by TV broadcasters participating in the Federal Communications Commission’s reverse incentive auction scheduled to start in Q1 2016. In the reverse incentive auction, TV broadcasters will be bidding to be paid to free up their TV channel bandwidth, by voluntarily moving to another TV channel band, by channel-sharing with another broadcaster, or by exiting their channel completely. If they choose not to participate in the auction, or choose to drop out of the auction, they will be “re-packed” by being moved to another channel. The freed-up spectrum then will be re-purposed in the FCC’s forward incentive auction in which providers of mobile broadband services will bid to purchase the spectrum. The re-assignment of the channel bandwidths will result in better, more economically efficient use of the spectrum. The FCC has estimated that individual stations may receive compensation nearing $600 million for selling their spectrum in the reverse auction. One of CRA’s tools is the Blocking Set Generator which can be used to assess the relative importance of each TV station. A second CRA tool is the Reverse Auction Simulation Tool that simulates the FCC’s reverse incentive auction round by round. It establishes winning bidders (and the round they are “frozen”) and non-winning bidders (and the round they dropped out of the auction). These tools have been used to assist a TV broadcaster group preparing for and planning to participate in the FCC’s incentive reverse auction. CRA also has a Bid Tracking Tool for real-time bidding strategy support as well as other tools that would be helpful for auction participants.