DirecTV Group Inc., operator of the largest U.S. satellite television service, said it won’t bid in the auction of airwaves to be conducted by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.
The El Segundo, Calif.-based company won’t participate in the sale either alone or with partners, according to a filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and Google Inc. are among the companies that plan to bid in the auction, which starts Jan. 24 and may raise as much as $15 billion. The spectrum will be freed when television broadcasters convert to digital signals in February 2009. Wireless carriers want the airwaves to offer high- speed data services, such as Web videos, on mobile handsets.
Last year, DirecTV formed a joint venture with EchoStar Communications Corp., the second-biggest U.S. satellite-TV provider, to participate in an FCC auction of higher-frequency airwaves. The companies dropped out of the auction without winning any of the spectrum licenses.
EchoStar spokesman Parker McConachie declined to comment on the auction.
DirecTV fell 31 cents to $24.16 at 1:11 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares had declined 1.9 percents this year before today. EchoStar, based in Englewood, Colorado, fell $2.29, or 5.4 percent, to $40.07.
—With reporting by Sarah Rabil in New York.
