Framework library · Finance and valuation

Spectrum valuation by comparables

Spectrum is priced in dollars per megahertz per person covered (MHz-POP), which puts deals of very different sizes on one scale. Multiply a holding's bandwidth and population by the low, middle and high comparables for the same kind of spectrum and you have the range the market supports. What the holding is worth then depends on what makes it better or worse than those comparables.

LevelIntermediate
TimeAn hour, once the licence details are to hand
Who to involveCorporate development or strategy, with a spectrum or regulatory specialist who knows the licences' encumbrances and obligations.
Also called$/MHz-POP, price per MHz-POP, spectrum valuation, spectrum auction benchmarks, MHz-POP

Use it when

  • You are about to bid in an auction, buy or sell licences, or lease spectrum, and need a range before anyone names a price.
  • Someone has put a number on a holding and you want to see what it implies per MHz-POP.
  • You need a market cross-check on a valuation built from a business plan.
  • A board asks what the company's own spectrum would fetch.

Avoid it when

  • The spectrum is low band. There is no clean US low-band benchmark in the public record, and the only published figure that includes it (EchoStar to AT&T, $1.191) blends 600 MHz with 3.45 GHz. Value it from the business plan with DCF valuation and treat the mid-band range as a floor.
  • The question is what the spectrum is worth to you rather than to the market. Value your own plan with DCF valuation. Comparables say what others paid.
  • The licences carry obligations, encumbrances or a remaining term that no comparable shares. Adjust heavily, or rely on the business-plan value instead.

How to run it

  1. Describe the holding

    Band, bandwidth in MHz, the population the licences cover, exclusive or shared, paired or unpaired, remaining term and any encumbrances.

  2. Choose comparables of the same kind

    For exclusive mid-band the defaults are the three published comparables: Auction 110 (3.45 GHz) at $0.662, Auction 107 (C-band) at $0.852 and EchoStar to SpaceX at $0.887 per MHz-POP. For shared CBRS priority licences, use Auction 105: $0.032 for the median county and $0.198 as the national weighted average.

  3. Multiply out

    Bandwidth times population gives MHz-POPs; MHz-POPs times each comparable gives the range.

  4. Adjust for what is different

    Encumbrances, build-out obligations, licence term, adjacency to spectrum you already hold, uplink only. Enter one net adjustment and write the reasons down. In the EchoStar to SpaceX deal, unpaired uplink spectrum was priced at about half the paired rate.

  5. Set any price against the range

    Enter the price on the table to see the rate per MHz-POP it implies and where it sits.

Work through it

Answer the questions below, or load the worked example to see a finished one. The drawing updates as you type. Export the result as a PowerPoint deck, a Word document, an Excel workbook, a PDF or plain text.

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Mistakes to avoid

  • Applying a national average to a local holding. In Auction 105 the median county paid $0.032 per MHz-POP against a national weighted average of $0.198, and only 16% of counties paid above that average.
  • Mixing bases. National-equivalent figures divide the total by the whole US population and assume every licence sold; per-licence figures use each licence's own population. Compare like with like.
  • Using published figures that are not comparables. Auction 113 (AWS-3, $2.658) was leftover inventory in dense markets, and Auction 108 (2.5 GHz overlay, $0.016) covered only unassigned whitespace. Neither is a fair comparable for a typical holding.
  • Reading the range as a valuation. It is what others paid, and it says nothing about encumbrances, build-out obligations or who else wants the spectrum.

Where it comes from

Valuation by comparable transactions is standard appraisal practice, and price per MHz-POP is the usual unit for spectrum. This tool is Blue Prysm's own: the comparables are those published in What does spectrum cost? (data retrieved 17 September 2026, method version 1.0), calculated from FCC auction results, US Census 2024 vintage population estimates and EchoStar Forms 8-K. Source.

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