United Kingdom, bidding for 5G frequencies will begin on March 12

The British telecom regulator ofcom has announced that the auction of spectrum in the frequency band for the deployment of 5G networks, in which the participation of Telefónica UK, Vodafone, Hutchison 3G UK and BT / EE Limited, is confirmed and was to be Kovid – 19 pandemic delays, starting this Friday 12 March.

“After a stagnation in the process following a significant worsening of the coronovirus situation in late 2020, we can now confirm that bidding in the main phase of the process will begin on Friday 12 March,” a statement announced.

In early January, the British regulator released a definitive list of published operators who would participate in the auction and then indicated that the exact date the auction was scheduled to begin would depend on what caused the situation in the country to evolve. is. Kovid epidemic em19 em

The auction was initially scheduled for spring 2020, but had to be delayed, as it did in other countries such as Spain due to the Kovid-19 outbreak. Oxcom was forecast for this to happen in January 2019, but the outbreak of the epidemic in the country once again made this March a breeze.

The British telecom regulator details that operators in this auction will bid for a total of 200 MHz of spectrum in the frequency bands of 700 MHz and 3.6-3.8 GHz, which will help improve current mobile services and support continuous rollout of 5G. UK “.

In particular, 80 MHz spectrum will be auctioned in the 700 MHz band, which is ideal for providing good mobile coverage indoors and over very wide areas including the area. In addition, he comments that the release of this band will also increase the capacity of existing mobile networks, giving customers a “more reliable” service.

Likewise, the British regulator will auction another 120 MHz spectrum in the 3.6–3.8 GHz band, specifically in the range between 3,680 and 3,800 MHz, which is mainly used for 5G, as it is used for multiple connections. Considering allows high volume of transport. Regions.

As in the auction that took place in 2018, there will be two stages of the process, the first in which companies make their offerings for different spectrums to determine how much each receives and the one second of allocation in which they offer to choose. From will provide, the specific frequencies in which they want to operate it.

Ofcom also adds that, so that companies can compete objectively and customers have a good choice of mobile networks, a cap of 37% will be placed on the total spectrum that any mobile phone company can post after the auction.