Could the 700Mhz auction be a bust?

The 700Mhz auction hasn't gotten off to an auspicious start: Presumed public-safety bidder Frontline closed up shot before things got off the ground, unable to put together the table stakes for an opening bid. The question on many minds is whether Frontline's collapse is a harbinger of things to come in the newest spectrum allocation battle, or the simple failure of a single company. It's possible that no company will come up with the $4.2 billion minimum bid in the open-access part of the bidding process, in which case the FCC will re-auction to the highest bidder. If the bids stay low, though, it means that the $20 billion windfall for the government coffers could be reduced by a considerable amount.

For more on the possibility of a quiet auction:
- Read the pre-auction analysis at WirelessWeek