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I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I ""'7'"i"'i' . " . . ... . , , ... t ~>. ,it . t,'.' '- . \ ,( TELECOMMUNICATIONS ... License winner plans services for Twin Cities WALTER PARKER STAFF WRITER Order a pizza by Le.t week'. clicking your TV auctton. for remote? Pay your bills? Buy new Ipace on the shoes? Order airwave b kf t f .ectrum for rea as rom Interactive video Denny's? Scan the wares of the near. HrYlee' and est Target from pa,ln, railed your sofa? hundred. of Those are' among million. of - the not-so-distant dollars that will possi biU ties that '0 Into the occurred to Carlo federal trea8Ury. Anneke, whose 300- member partnenhip successfully bid $1.8 million last week for one of two licenses · to use narrow bal1ds of radio spectrum ,~ for interactive video services in the Twin Cities. "We're hoping we can (piggyback) with a TV station or maybe a cable sys- tem. They're facihg the cost of interac- tivity, which is prohibitive," said Anneke, a retired general manager of several in- dependent TV stations across the country who started his career in Duluth, Minn. · Most visions oC interactive TV Involve the transmission of movies on demand " over fiber optic lines strung to each household or neighborhood, US West has announced plans, for examplè, to spend $300 million in the next few years to lay interactive fiber in the Twin Cities. But Anneke said it also appears possi- ble to send some kinds of interactive ' · ~ transmissions over the air much sooner, perhaps through a special TV set-top box. Apart fr~m tbe set-top boxes in users' homes, the only other major infrastruc- ture addition reqUired would be a ligna) tower on top of a skýscraper. Annek~, who Uvea in Orlando, Fla., hel¡.ed organize IVDS Interactive Acqui- sition Partners this spring, with investors nationwide, to bid in the Federal Com· munications Commission's auction for ra- dio spectrum licenses. The group also was one of the two ,winners in both Atla!tta and Kansas City, "M.o. Altogether, bidders for some 594 U- ¡ ~: AUCTION COtmNUEO ON IC .. f'~_ ~- .. CONTINUED FROM IC ceDSeS in cities across the country offered hundreds of millions of doUars in tbe auction, The other successful bidder for s~trum space in the Twin Cities is listed in FCC papen as Com- mercial Realty St. Pete, but there is no such listing in the St. Peters- burg, FIa" exchange. It bùJ fl.' million, but ~ause it is owned by either a minorlty or a woman, the bidder will have to pay only 'US million, or 7~ percent of its bid, under FCC rules for the auction, Anneke said his group, wbose other members h'e declined to identify late Tuesday aftemooD without first obtaining their per- mission has 60 to 90 days to com- plete pÓst-auction planning for ita operations. ' Last week's auctions for space on the airwave spectrum for inter- active video services and paliDl. raised hundreds of millions of ãof. )ars that will go into the fectera1 treasury, astonishing even some experts in the field. Annete øld it's not difficult to understand ....' veaton' eagerness, however, eveo, though the specific appUcatiOlll for the techno1ogy have yet to be , ironed out. .~ "There's inherent value to 0"':, ing radio spectrum," he said. "It.. not infinite. It's finite. It's Umlted~ only by the equipment you'll need. , And 1 also think people saw tbI, opportunity of offering interac:tirio ty quickly." This report contain !I material ffOnj, Bloomberg Business News.