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The U.S. government's massive airwaves auction again failed to move forward Monday after a single two-hour round of bidding didn't generate enough demand.

The complex process will now move into its fourth stage with another cut to the supply of available licenses, and the auction which kicked off in May likely won't conclude until next year.

This is the third time the FCC hasn't drawn enough interest from cellphone operators like AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp. in buying the licenses for airwaves now used by television broadcasters. FCC officials have said the auction is designed to run multiple rounds.

The auction aims to free up spectrum for wireless services by repurposing broadcaster's licenses for cellular use. The airwaves the government is seeking to free up are ideal for wireless and are capable of sending signals great distances and penetrating deep into buildings. With growing smartphone use especially for data-heavy video watching, the country's biggest wireless operators need more spectrum to support that traffic.

In the auction process, if demand doesn't exceed supply in the biggest markets, then the stage will end. In this stage's lone round of bidding, participants only offered to pay $19.7 billion for the licenses, below the auction's threshold to continue. The third stage also ended with a sole round of bidding in October.

The FCC will now go back to television broadcasters for a fourth time, cutting the number of licenses it will buy from stations while also likely reducing the price the agency pays for those it does acquire.

After each failed stage, the FCC had to substantially lower the amount it is seeking to buy from broadcasters. Last week, the FCC agreed to spend $40.3 billion to buy station licenses, down from $54.6 billion in the second round and well below the initial round of $86.4 billion.

The FCC first tried to draw bids for 100 megahertz of licenses and has lowered the cleared amount by 10 megahertz each round. It will now likely be cut to 70 megahertz in the next attempt.

Write to Thomas Gryta at thomas.gryta@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 05, 2016 15:35 ET (20:35 GMT)

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