March 18 (Bloomberg) -- The most lucrative airwaves sale in U.S. history ended today with bids totaling $19.6 billion, underscoring demand from AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless for spectrum that will bolster Internet services on mobile phones.

Revenue from the auction came in near the top of analysts' projections of as much as $20 billion. The Federal Communications Commission hasn't decided when it will disclose the winners of the 1,099 licenses, Chairman Kevin Martin said today.

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Google Inc. and 211 others battled for airwaves that will speed up Internet access on phones, easing music and video downloads. The airwaves, which went on sale Jan. 24, will become available when television broadcasters switch to digital signals next February. The government had expected the auction to raise $10 billion to $15 billion.

A $472 million offer for public-safety airwaves known as the D-block fell short of the reserve price of $1.3 billion. The FCC now must craft a new plan to sell the D-block, which was designed to be shared by emergency services and commercial customers.

Martin said he has proposed separating the D-block from the rest of the auction so the FCC can announce winners of other airwaves before it finishes crafting a new plan for the public- safety block.

`Still Committed'

``I'm still committed to work to try to solve public-safety challenges,'' Martin said today on a conference call with reporters.

Bids on most other airwaves topped government projections. The biggest swath, a nationwide package of licenses known as the C-block, sold for $4.74 billion. The Feb. 4 bid surpassed a $4.6 billion minimum price that triggered a requirement for the winner to let any legal mobile device run on the network.

Google, the most popular Internet search engine, pushed for those rules along with consumer-advocacy groups such as Washington-based Public Knowledge. Mountain View, California- based Google is trying to spur development of mobile-Internet access and sell more advertising.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless, the two largest U.S. mobile- phone carriers, were probably the biggest bidders, said Jonathan Atkin, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets in San Francisco.

``It allows them to add capacity and extend their nationwide footprints,'' Atkin said. ``It also gives them a clean block of spectrum to start building out 4G,'' he said, referring to the next generation of wireless Internet services.

AT&T, Verizon Wireless

San Antonio-based AT&T and Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based Verizon Wireless may have spent as much as $7 billion apiece on airwaves, with smaller carriers and new entrants such as cable providers picking up the remainder, Christopher Larsen, an analyst at Credit Suisse in New York, said in an interview.

The winning bids on licenses covering big cities included $892.4 million for airwaves in Chicago, and $884.7 million for New York and Newark, New Jersey. Licenses for two separate spectrum swaths in Los Angeles sold for $580.3 million and $484 million, according the FCC's Web site.

Alltel Corp. and U.S. Cellular Corp. may have won airwaves that cover rural and suburban areas of the Midwest, Atkin said.

The U.S. House telecommunications subcommittee will hold a hearing on the FCC's handling of the auction, Representative Edward Markey said today in an e-mailed statement.

Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who heads the panel, said he is ``eager to ascertain the extent to which new entrants have succeeded in obtaining licenses'' through the auction.

Lawmakers also will examine whether the FCC should lower the price or ease construction requirements for the D-block, Markey said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Molly Peterson in Washington at mpeterson9@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 18, 2008 19:14 EDT