After 23 rounds of bidding, the 700 MHz auction has brought in nearly $17 billion in provisionally winning bids, a total that exceeded FCC expectations. Originally, the FCC expected total winning bids to fall between $10 billion and $15 billion. The commission needed to ensure that the auction raised at least $10 billion because Congress had already allocated that much of the proceeds from the auction. The $6.9 billion (and counting) leftover is profit for the Treasury Department.