Ofcom announces first auction winners

Ten organisations awarded licenses

25 February 2008 11:04 GMT / By Katie Scott

The battle for Britain's airwaves has begun and Ofcom has now announced the first ten winners from its fourth radio spectrum auction.

The spectrum licences are in the higher frequency bands at 10GHz to 40GHz, which is suitable for wireless network infrastructure and high capacity wireless services across buildings in close proximity.

T-Mobile UK was the biggest bidder, forking out £321,000 for six licences in the 10GHz, 32GHz and 40GHz bands.

Its rival operator Orange paid £272,130 for two licences in the 32GHz band.

An Orange spokesperson told www.silicon.com: "Orange entered this spectrum auction for operational reasons. We have been successful in acquiring spectrum for use in our transmission network that is used for connecting our 2G and 3G networks".

Mobile communications company Arqiva, which partnered O2 last year in its trial of its mobile TV trial service, paid £260,500 for two lots of 28GHz spectrum.

BT was the fourth largest bidder, spending £183,000 on two lots of 32GHz spectrum.

However, all will now be waiting for the upcoming launch of the L-Band spectrum auction, space on which will be freed up by the switch over to digital TV.

It is set for next year.