NEWSNEWS
                                                           December 8, 1997
NEWS                                                                       
       FCC CLOSES 800 MHZ SPECIALIZED MOBILE RADIO SERVICE AUCTION

     Today the FCC completed its auction of licenses for the Specialized Mobile Radio
(SMR) Service that operate in the upper 800 MHz band.  Winning bidders will compete in
providing telephony, paging, voicemail and remote database access to consumers who will
now have more choices when choosing providers for such services.  Although SMR systems
are primarily used for voice communications, bidders have indicated that some new systems
are being developed to use the SMR licenses for data and facsimile services.  

     This auction raised a net revenue of $96,232,060 for the U.S. Treasury after 235
rounds of simultaneous multiple round bidding.   The leading bidder in the auction was
Nextel with bids of $ 88, 805,075 on 475 licenses in 175 markets.  Nevada Wireless had the
second highest number of winning bids, paying $1,067,300 for 16 licenses in 14 markets. 

     Small and very small businesses bidding in that auction had high bids on 38 licenses,
with bids of nearly $5 million.  Auction rules for the SMR auction defined small businesses
as those entities with average gross revenues that do not exceed $15 million for the preceding
three years and the FCC granted them a 25 percent discount on their winning bids.  Very
small businesses were defined as those businesses with average gross revenues that do not
exceed  $3 million for the preceding three years and the FCC provided them with a 35
percent discount on their winning bids.  Small businesses will have the opportunity to bid on
additional spectrum in the lower 800 MHz band and General Category Channels in an
auction scheduled to be held in mid-to-late 1998.

     In the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, Congress requested that the FCC set minimum
opening bids or reserve prices on the licenses to be auctioned.  The SMR auction marks the
first FCC auction in which the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau set minimum bids for a
large number of licenses.  Bidders accepted the minimum bid for each license.

     Also new to this auction was a simplified electronic auction bidding process  -- click
box bidding.  This streamlined process eliminated both "trailing digits" and "extra zero"
bidding problems.  In previous auctions, some bidders used "trailing digits" in their bids to
communicate market information and potentially collude in violation of the FCC's rules.
Click box bidding also prevented bidders from placing extra zeroes on their bid that do not
reflect the intended bid amount. 

                                  (over)

                                   - 2 -

     Auction rules require that winning bidders of the 800 MHz SMR auction provide
service for consumers for 1/3 of the licenses' service area population within 3 years, and for
2/3 of the population within 5 years.  

  -FCC-
                                    
     News Media Contact:  Audrey Spivack at (202) 418-0654 or Rosemary Kimball at
     (202) 418-0500.
     Wireless Bureau Contacts: Wilbert Nixon (Commercial Wireless Division) at (202)
     418-7240 and Alice Elder (Auctions) at (202) 418-0660.