TechCrunch: It’s taken a long time for the U.K. telecoms regulator to be in a position to fire the starting gun on the auction for 4G-suitable spectrum but bidding to acquire the up to 250 MHz of additional mobile spectrum in the 800Mhz and 2.6GHz frequencies has now got underway. The total reserve price for the spectrum has been set at £1.36 billion — but the U.K. Treasury has already factored £3.5 billion from the spectrum sale into its policy decisions.
Bidding is taking place online, using specially developed software and a ‘combinatorial clock’ auction format. The winners won’t be named for a “number of weeks”, as Ofcom notes the bidding will continue over several rounds, and no updates on bidding activity will be provided during the process so that bids remain confidential to reduce the risk of strategic bidding distorting the outcome. Once the winners are determined, and fees are paid, licences will be granted — meaning carriers can start rolling out new 4G networks. Ofcom is expecting that services will be launched by a range of providers from late spring summer 2013.
The full list of bidders are:
- Everything Everywhere Limited
- HKT (UK) Company Limited (a subsidiary of PCCW Limited)
- Hutchison 3G UK Limited
- MLL Telecom Ltd
- Niche Spectrum Ventures Limited (a subsidiary of BT Group plc)
- Telefónica UK Limited
- Vodafone Limited
Everything Everywhere — now rebranded to EE — already has a 4G network up and running, in refarmed 2G spectrum from its existing spectrum holdings, but the company may feel it needs to acquire more spectrum to build out this network, or may simply wish to participate in the bidding process to ensure its rivals pay a competitive price for the spectrum they need to build their own 4G networks.
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