FCC Record, Volume 27, No. 6, Pages 4697 to 5673, April 30 - May 22, 2012 Page: 4,763
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will be grouped by the census tract in which they are located, and bidders will be able to bid for support
for the eligible census blocks in a census tract, not on individual blocks. For each tract a bidder bids on,
the bidder will indicate a per-unit price to cover the road miles in the eligible census blocks within that
tract. The auction will assign support to awardees equal to the per-road mile rate of their bid multiplied
by the number of road miles associated with the eligible census blocks within the tract as shown in the
files provided by the Bureaus. Bidders may bid on multiple tracts and win support for any or all of
them.204 Awardees will be required to cover a given percentage of the total eligible units in the tract -
that is, a percentage of the total road miles that are in the eligible census blocks in the tract. Blocks in
Alaska will not be aggregated for bidding, however, and bidders can place bids for support on individual
census blocks in Alaska.'05 We also modify our tract aggregation approach for some tracts that include
census blocks covering Tribal lands.
136. The Bureaus conclude that aggregating census blocks into tracts for bidding, except in
Alaska, will provide a manageable bidding process, both for participants and the Cormnission,
particularly in light of the speed with which we want to proceed in distributing this one-time support. As
noted in the Auction 901 Updated Blocks Public Notice, our list of potentially eligible census blocks
includes over 460,000 blocks; bundled into tracts for bidding, there are approximately 6,100 tracts.
137. The predefined aggregation option that we adopt does not pennrmit package bidding - that
is, it does not pennit bidders to create their own groupings of census tracts on which to submit all-or-
nothing bids. It does allow bidders to bid on as many individual tracts as they wish, and to win support
for any or all of those tracts. The absence of explicit package bidding simplifies the process of
determining which bids will be awarded support, relative to the proposed bidder-defined option (that
allows bidders to create packages of census blocks), and consequently, may simplify the bidding
process.206
b. Exception, for Alaska, to Aggregation by Census Tract
138. As mentioned above, we will not aggregate eligible census blocks in Alaska into tracts
for bidding, but will permit bidders to bid for support for individual census blocks. Bidders seeking
support for eligible blocks in Alaska will indicate a per-unit price to cover the road miles in the eligible
census block. The auction will assign support to awardees equal to the per-road mile rate of their bid
multiplied by the number of road miles associated with the eligible census block, as shown in the files
provided by the Bureaus. Bidders may bid on multiple blocks - including, if they wish, all the eligible
census blocks in a tract, but they will have to bid on the blocks individually - and may win support for
any or all of them.
139. In the Auction 901 Comment Public Notice, we sought comment on this alternative
approach for areas in Alaska under the suggested predefined aggregation option, which we adopt here.207
In the USF/ICC Transformation Order, the Commission noted the large size of census blocks in Alaska,
and in the Auction 901 Comment Public Notice, we further pointed out that the average area of the Alaska
census blocks on the preliminary list of eligible areas is approximately 40 square miles compared to an
24 As discussed below in para. 137, this approach requires separate bids on individual census tracts.
20s This exception for Alaska is discussed further below, in Section V.A.2.b.
206 Because of the simple auction design we are adopting, we will not need to use a combinatorial optimization
algorithm to determine winning bids. This obviates the need to publish such an algorithm prior to the auction, as
several commenters request. See, e.g., AT&T Comments at 6: USA Coalition Reply at 3; Verizon Comments at 4;
US Cellular Reply at 10.
207 Auction 901 Comment Public Notice, 27 FCC Red at 541 para. 41.4763
Federal Communications Commission
DA 12-641
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United States. Federal Communications Commission. FCC Record, Volume 27, No. 6, Pages 4697 to 5673, April 30 - May 22, 2012, book, May 2012; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc111168/m1/83/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.