A coalition of four top cable operators and Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) appears close to capturing a hefty chunk of public wireless spectrum for cellular phone, fixed and mobile broadband, and other advanced services.

Known as SpectrumCo LLC, the Sprint/MSO consortium – which encompasses Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC), Cox Communications Inc. , and Bright House Networks – has placed the leading bids for 137 metro market licenses through the first 97 rounds of the federal government's ongoing Advanced Wireless Spectrum (AWS) auction. The lineup of markets includes most of the nation's biggest urban areas, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington/Baltimore, Atlanta, Detroit, Miami, Dallas/Fort Worth, and San Francisco/Oakland.

Only one other bidder, AWS Wireless , has racked up more "provisionally winning bids" (PWBs) than SpectrumCo as the month-long auction winds down. But AWS, which has submitted the highest bids for 153 wireless licenses so far, has mainly pursued available spectrum in much smaller metro areas. AWS has also seen its lead dwindle in recent rounds as other bidders have topped its earlier offers in a number of markets.

With nearly $2.37 billion in PWBs so far, SpectrumCo also ranks as the third highest spender in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 's huge spectrum auction of 10MHz and 20MHz blocks in two separate radio frequency bands...

Get all the details at Cable Digital News.

— Alan Breznick, Site Editor, Cable Digital News