AMX America Movil SAB de CV

Comcast Corp., a Silicon Valley investor and other potential new wireless players have filed paperwork to bid in an upcoming government auction of airwaves that are expected to fetch tens of billions of dollars.

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday released a list of dozens of companies that have applied to bid in the auction, which is set to begin later this month. The FCC is buying airwaves from local TV stations and reselling the spectrum to companies that operate cellular networks.

In the mix are the usual participants such as AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., and T-Mobile U.S. Inc., as well as a handful of rural telecom operators from North Dakota to New Mexico. Sprint Corp., which had said it wasn't going to participate, isn't on the list.

Some outsiders also emerged such as Social Capital Rama Spectrum Holdings LLC, which is connected to Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist and former Facebook Inc. executive. Also is on the list is Puerto Rico Telephone Company Inc., which is owned by telecom billionaire Carlos Slim's America Movil SAB.

Many entities on the list are unknown because the FCC only includes the legal names of the participants and not the identities of any backers. For instance, Comcast and Dish Network Inc. are both participating through entities that don't use their names.

Dish, which is run by CEO Charlie Ergen, was the big buyer in the last FCC auction but hasn't put that spectrum to use for cellphone service. Comcast, the nation's biggest cable-TV provider, has said it is exploring entering the wireless phone business.

The list released Friday includes 104 total applications, and about a third were found to be incomplete. The applicants have time to submit their needed additional information to the FCC before the auction begins.

The auction is set to begin later this month in a two-phase process. First television stations will sell their licenses in a reverse auction with declining bids until the government gets what it needs. Following that, the government will sell licenses for wireless service to the highest bidder.

Among those selling TV airwaves are big broadcasters such as CBS Corp. and Univision Communications Inc. as well as local PBS stations. Billionaire Michael Dell stands to make as much as $4 billion from selling local TV stations that his investment firm scooped in recent years and could fetch much higher prices in the auction.

The most recent FCC auction, which ended in January of 2015, attracted nearly $45 billion of bids from 70 qualified participants, as companies and investors jumped on an opportunity to claim spectrum.

â "Shalini Ramachandran contributed to this article

Write to Thomas Gryta at thomas.gryta@wsj.com and Ryan Knutson at ryan.knutson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 18, 2016 17:45 ET (21:45 GMT)

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