The Financial Post reports in its Wednesday edition Telus was the biggest spender in the federal government's latest auction of airwaves, paying $478.8-million for 122 licences. The Post's Christina Pellegrini writes Telus bolstered its holdings by 37 per cent, securing "a sizable amount of spectrum across the country at a relatively cheap cost in terms of coverage area and population size," Desjardins analyst Maher Yaghi said in a research note to clients. BCE's Bell Mobility unit spent $29.9-million and Rogers Communications paid $24.1-million for spectrum outside the big cities. In an effort to strengthen competition, Industry Canada's limit on how much spectrum licensees can possess in this frequency band relegated Bell and Rogers to the sidelines in many markets, sacrificing its own financial gain in the process. The benefactors of this policy were the five other provisional winners: Bragg Communications' Eastlink, Alberta-based Corridor Communications, MTS, TBayTel and Xplornet Communications. Fledgling new entrant Wind Mobile, which won big in March's AWS-3 auction for bargain prices, was a notable absence on the winner's list this time around. Sealed bids for the next round are due Aug. 6.