In stark contrast to the wildly successful Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service auction held in the United Kingdom this spring, the U.K.’s broadband fixed wireless access spectrum auction barely made a whimper as only 16 of the 42 available licenses were bought up by bidders. The auction ended last Monday.
The auction raised $54.43 million, about half of what was expected. Winners bought the 16 licenses in eight of the 14 eligible regions. Several rural regions, including East Anglia and Wales, where fixed wireless is supposed to be most feasible, were passed over. This led the government to warn that if such rural areas remained “broadband poor,” they would miss out on a share of the digital economy.
Alan Duncan, opposition technology spokesman for the Conservative party, told The Financial Times, “The countryside is not just about sheep and wellies, it’s about issues like this. Businesses will not be attracted to places where you cannot get high-speed Internet access. Rural areas will become business blackspots.”
The auction resulted in Energis plc buying six licenses, Norweb Telecom Ltd. buying four and Faultbasic Ltd. buying three. One license each went to Eircom plc, Broadnet UK Ltd. and Chorus Communications Ltd. FirstMark Communications and Unica Communications withdrew from the auction.
Analysts speculated that carriers were nervous about the prices, and chose to concentrate on cities where there is much business activity and the possibility for rapid subscriber growth.
Immediately following its closure, e-Commerce Minister Patricia Hewitt ordered a report on the auction to plan for future spectrum allocations and to examine how unsold licenses would be awarded, including the possibility of holding a second auction at lower prices.
