British regulator Ofcom has not capped the amount of 4G-suitable spectrum relinquished by the Ministry of Defence that can be bought by an individual buyer.
British regulator Ofcom has not capped the amount of 4G-suitable spectrum relinquished by the Ministry of Defence that can be bought by an individual buyer.
Ofcom is set to auction 190 MHz of high frequency spectrum across the 2.3 GHz and 3.4 GHz bands in early 2016.
Since the auction was announced in November 2014, the UK mobile market has gone into flux, with Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison attempting to gets its tie-up of Three and O2 past European regulators, while the British antitrust watchdog is reviewing BT’s proposed takeover of EE.
In a statement, Ofcom said it was mindful of these pending transactions and had considered delaying the auction, but resolved to press ahead in an effort to put spectrum into operators’ hands as quickly as possible.
Ofcom has set a reserve price of £10m (US$15m) per 10 MHz lot in the 2.3 GHz band and £1m (US$1.5m) per 5 MHz lot in the 3.4 GHz band, meaning the tender would raise at least £70m (US$108m).
Explaining why it decided not to limit how much individual bidders could purchase, Ofcom said this could prevent a bidder from buying large blocks of adjacent spectrum, which it said can support particularly fast download speeds.
The two bands are starting to be used more and more around the world as demand for capacity rises. The 2.3 GHz band is not used for 4G services in Europe yet, but is operational in 10 countries further afield including Australia, China and India.
The 3.4 GHz band is already used for 4G in the UK and for mobile broadband in five other countries.
Philip Marnick, Ofcom spectrum group director, said: “We’re responding to rapid change and innovation in the communications sector, which is placing greater demands on spectrum.
“Part of our plan to meet this demand is by making new spectrum available and allowing it to be used in a number of different ways.”
