The US Federal Communications Commission accelerated the bidding in its auction of licenses for advanced wireless services, which has already raised more than $13.6 billion after 15 days, a Reuters report said.
The Reuters report said the FCC added two rounds of bidding per day to bring the daily total to six rounds and cut the time of each round in half to 30 minutes, an effort to complete the sale as companies vie for 1,122 licenses.
The auction continues until there are no new bids, withdrawals or other activity, the report said.
The Reuters report said after 58 rounds, T-Mobile USA, the No. 4 U.S. wireless carrier and a unit of Deutsche Telekom, provisionally had the highest bids for 118 licenses with offers of almost $4.2 billion.
Analysts predicted the company would be an aggressive bidder because it does not have as many airwaves as its larger competitors. T-Mobile has the highest bids for several large regional licenses as well as ones that cover smaller areas.
No. 2 wireless carrier Verizon Wireless is second in the bidding, with provisionally winning bids of $2.8 billion for four licenses. The company is a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone.
While traditional wireless companies have largely dominated the auction, a group that includes the major cable television providers and No. 3 wireless carrier Sprint Nextel is in third place based on provisionally winning bids.