Ofcom UK announces the results of the low-power GSM auction
Published April 27th, 2006
The successful bidders are British Telecommunications PLC, Cable & Wireless, COLT Mobile Telecommunications Ltd , Cyberpress Ltd, FMS Solutions Ltd, Mapesbury Communications Ltd, O2 (UK) Ltd, Opal Telecom Ltd, PLDT (UK) Ltd, Shyam Telecom UK Ltd, Spring Mobil AB and Private Mobile Networks (Teleware PLC).
With the auction, the UK regulator is claimed to have enabled a world first, by auctioning a small prime piece of GSM spectrum for concurrent use in a technology neutral way. The Spectrum is 3.3MHz at the top end of the GSM 1800MHz band and with the vast majority of handsets capable of working in this spectrum, the opportunity to offer niche (and mass market) mobile services is ‘open wide’.
Although auctioned as technology neutral, it is envisioned that new GSM mobile services will be offered through these new entrants.
