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NEW YORK (AP) - The Federal Communications Commission on Friday issued a list of 168 bidders that have qualified to participate in an upcoming auction of wireless licenses that is expected to raise billions of dollars for the government while ushering in more next-generation services.
The auction of 1,122 licenses, slated to begin on Aug. 9, covers slices of the airwaves that are currently used by the federal government. The FCC also issued a list of more than 80 would-be participants whose applications were rejected.
The qualified bidders include T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG that badly needs more spectrum so it can introduce the speedier Internet connections that its main cellular rivals already offer. Two of those competitors, Cingular Wireless and Verizon Wireless also were on the list of qualified bidders even though both already have much more spectrum than T-Mobile.
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