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WASHINGTON (AP) - Bidding closed Tuesday on a record-setting government airwaves auction with the total amount pledged reaching nearly $19.6 billion. But enthusiasm in the result was tempered by doubts concerning the future of a proposed emergency communications network.
The total was the most since the Federal Communications Commission began using auctions in 1994 as a way to decide who should be granted rights to use portions of the publicly owned airwaves.
About one-sixth of the spectrum at auction was dedicated to the creation of a nationwide, emergency communications network for first responders. But the so-called D block did not attract the minimum bid required by FCC auction rules.
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