Spain’s Ministry of Industry will launch a new spectrum auction in October for several blocks that were not sold in its frequency tender that completed 31 July.
The blocks of spectrum concerned are 2×20 MHz in the 800 MHz and 900 MHz bands, and 115…
Spain’s Ministry of Industry will launch a new spectrum auction in October for several blocks that were not sold in its frequency tender that completed 31 July.
The blocks of spectrum concerned are 2×20 MHz in the 800 MHz and 900 MHz bands, and 115 MHz in the 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands, according to a government spokeswoman.
“Those blocks were not sold in the recent auction [essentially] because the Ministry established caps in order to improve the competition in the mobile phone market,” she explained in an email.
Spain’s last spectrum auction, for a total 51 blocks of frequencies, raised approximately E1.65bn (US$2.34bn) for the country’s treasury.
As expected, Vodafone, Telefonica and France Telecom acquired the majority of these blocks, but the auction also saw a number of local cablecos being awarded spectrum for the first time.
The other spectrum winners were Jazz Telecom, Ono, Euskatel, R Cable, Telecom CLM and Telecable.
In total, 11 telcos were allowed to participate in the auction, but Cota and Opnatel failed to make any successful bids.
A further E168m will go to the Spanish treasury from France Telecom and Xfera Telecom from a separate contest for spectrum in the 900MHz and 1,800MHz bands. Operators that already had spectrum in these two bands were not allowed to enter this specific contest, as the authorities were seeking to promote competition.
