Ofcom awards 1.5 million pounds of radio spectrum in auction

Ofcom has awarded licences to 10 organisations, including BT, Orange and T-Mobile, following its fourth auction of radio spectrum which amassed nearly £1.5 million.

The licenses will allow the organisations to operate services in the higher frequency bands at 10GHz to 40GHz, which is suitable for high capacity wireless services.

Orange paid £272,130, T-Mobile paid £321,000 and BT paid £183,000 for various amounts of selected spectrum levels.

The auction was part of a programme to release spectrum for a wide range of uses. The spectrum awarded is suitable for high-capacity broadband such as wireless internet connections across buildings in close proximity and providing infrastructure for wireless networks.

“The spectrum has been released on a technology and service neutral basis, allowing these users the flexibility to decide what technology to use, what services to offer and to change their use of the spectrum over time,” a spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, Ofcom has decided not to contest an appeal made by T-Mobile against a determination made regarding a dispute between 3 and T-Mobile regarding donor conveyance charges.

The ruling was made in August last year, after 3 took issue with the amount it was paying in donor conveyance charges to O2, Orange and T-Mobile. Donor conveyance charges are paid by a receiving network to a ported customer’s original network.

Ofcom ruled that the charges should be split equally across both the original and recipient networks involved in the dispute. T-Mobile’s appeal will make the decision apply to all mobile networks in the UK.