AT&T and Verizon Wireless dominated the country's most lucrative spectrum auction ever, helping it maintain the infrastructure advantages it has over smaller competitors.

The auction brought in $41.3 billion from 31 winning bidders who will get a total of 1,611 licenses throughout the country, the Federal Communications Commission said today. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said it was "by far the highest-earning spectrum auction the United States has ever seen."

AT&T's winning bids totaled $18.2 billion, while Verizon Wireless's winning bids totaled $10.4 billion. T-Mobile's winning bids came in at $1.8 billion.

Dish also did well with partnerships that netted $10 billion in winning bids. Dish entered bidding agreements with Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless, companies in which Dish has partial ownership. The Northstar winning bids came in at $5.9 billion while SNR Wireless posted $4.1 billion worth. Dish also bid through a third organization that did not win any licenses.

It's not yet clear what Dish plans to do with its spectrum.

You can check out the total results here and winning bids in each geographic area here.

The auction involved Advanced Wireless Service licenses in the 1695-1710 MHz, 1755-1780 MHz, and 2155-2180 MHz bands, 65MHz in all. Sprint did not participate because it "doesn't have complementary AWS spectrum like the other" national carriers, 556 Ventures mobile analyst William Ho told Ars.

This auction and others were called for in part to raise $7 billion to construct FirstNet, a nationwide public safety wireless broadband network. The FCC said the auction also raised "$300 million for public safety communications research; $115 million in grants for 911, E911, and NextGen 911 implementation; more than $20 billion for deficit reduction; [and] funding for relocating Federal systems [to new spectrum]."

Another auction next year might be even more important for wireless carriers, particular T-Mobile. In early 2016, the commission plans to auction broadcast TV spectrum in the 600MHz band. T-Mobile needs some of this low band spectrum to improve its network's ability to cover long distances and penetrate building walls. Wheeler wants to impose bidding restrictions that would prevent AT&T and Verizon from dominating the 600MHz auction at smaller carriers' expense.

Sprint is also expected to bid on the low-band frequency.