The wireless spectrum auction is reaching an interesting stage: After 18 rounds of bidding that began one week ago, bids for the “C block” of nationwide spectrum reached $4.7 billion, according to FCC data, reports MarketWatch. This means that FCC’s open access rules for part of the spectrum will now come into play, something Google (NSDQ: GOOG) had been pushing for. The bids will go on until, well, no more bids come in.

The govt had targeted raising roughly $10 billion from the auction, but a total of $13.7 billion had been bid for various blocks and licenses as of Thursday afternoon. All bidding is anonymous, but Verizon (NYSE: VZ), AT&T (NYSE: T) or Google would be seriously in the running. All three companies were disclosed as qualified bidders in the auction earlier this month.

RCR:  The potential winning bid for the block in round 17 sat at $4.7 billion, with the minimum bid for round 18 set at nearly $5.3 billion.