Britain's 4G auction raises 2.3 bn pound, sum less than hoped
Britain's 4G auction has raised 2.3 billion pound for the government, with five major telecom companies bagging licences but the biggest sale of British airwaves failed to meet Chancellor George Osborne's target of 3.5 billion pound. "After more than 50 rounds of bidding, Everything Everywhere Limited, Hutchison 3G UK Limited, Niche Spectrum Ventures Limited (a subsidiary of BT Group plc), Telefonica UK Ltd and Vodafone Limited have all won spectrum. This is suitable for rolling out new superfast mobile broadband services to consumers and to small and large businesses across the UK," UK telecom watchdog Ofcom said in a statement.
The independent regulator and competition authority for the UK's communications industry added that the total bid amount added up to 2.341 billion pound or USD 3.615 billion.
Ofcom now expects 4G services from the operators to be rolled out within the next six months.
The UK government was relying on this auction to help curb national borrowing this financial year based on the 4G proceeds.
As the payments failed to meet the 3.5 billion pound estimate, the government will hope to make up the shortfall with a rise in rental fees for spectrum networks already
owned.
A total of 250MHz of spectrum was up for grabs in the 800MHz and 2.6GHz bands. The former was freed when analogue television transmissions were switched off here last year, while the latter is ideal for delivering the capacity necessary for faster speeds.
It is hoped the combination of the two will allow networks to deal with
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