If the INQUIRER is to be believed....
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US spectrum auction is failing
UNLIKE in Blighty, where telcos were prepared to spend stupid amounts of cash for 3G licences, the radio spectrum sales in the U,S and A are not doing so well.
Kevin Martin, the chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, thought he would raise $10 billion flogging the 700-megahertz spectrum to be abandoned next year by UHF television stations.
Theoretically he has met that target by $1.6 billion but alas all is not well. In the middle of the sale are the C frequencies. These should have been worth shedloads and the FCC set a minimum bid for them of $4.6 billion. However the only bid that comes close to that reserve price is $4.3 billion and that means that the bid will fail and the FCC will be below its targets.
Google was supposed to be bidding at least $4.6 billion but now seems to be the highest bidder at $4.3 billion. No one quite knows why the outfit has gone in that low and some are even suggesting that it wanted to fail, having made its point that whoever operated the C block should open its network to rival companies and their devices.
However if Google does not up its bid there is a chance that the FCC will order a new auction without the criteria that the network should be open.
But in other areas of the sale things are not looking good. The FCC's attempts to sell D Block frequencies also look set to fail because they need to be able to run along side those of the Emergency services. Not surprisingly no one wants their service switched off because there is a fire happening somewhere in the city.
More here. µ
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... instead of the one from two days ago?
http://www.rcrnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080131/FREE/997329880/1005/rss01

Block C has passed $4.6b
Back in the days when the only way to distinguish one data stream from another was by frequency -- "tuning the radio" -- owning spectrum made sense, and the more you owned the better. We just don't do it like that any more -- for an example, just look at how much crap is packed into the tiny sliver of spectrum at 2.4GHz, for example (spectrum that was only open in the first place because it was thought to be useless).

I'm fundamentally opposed to the idea of a public resource being auctioned off like this anyway. The government is supposed to be the custodian of our resources, sharing it out equitably between users, but instead it acts like its just surplus property to be sold off for a bit of spare change.
The auction is going on four rounds per day, so the NYTimes article you quoted was out of date. The C-block reserve has been met, as have many A, B and E block (smaller geographic area) license reserves.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080131-open-access-for-all-prime-700mhz-block-c-hits-reserve-price.html
ArsTechnica is reporting the C block hit the reserve price already.

Even if you go directly to FCC's website:
http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=auction_summary&id=73

you can view the auction results straight from the horses mouth and the latest bid is $4,713,823,000