The USA’s auction of priority access licences (PALs) in the CBRS spectrum concluded on Tuesday. The winning bidders have not yet been named by the FCC, but the sale brought in proceeds of almost $4.6bn after 76 rounds. This was higher than predicted a year ago, when the procedure was being devised, but at the low end of recent analyst estimates, some of which were as high as $10bn. The large number of licences (22,631) on offer for relatively small footprints encouraged non-traditional bidders, such as public utilities, rural service providers, universities and enterprises, to participate alongside the MNOs and the cablecos. As well as operators looking to supplement their capacity, and WISPs or enterprise providers getting into the 5G…