Ofcom to Begin UK 4G and 5G Mobile Spectrum Auction Next Week

The national telecoms regulator has today confirmed that their auction of 4G and 5G friendly Mobile spectrum, which will see 40MHz of frequency in the 2.3GHz band (2350-2390MHz) and 150MHz in the 3.4GHz band (3410-3480MHz and 3500-3580MHz) being distributed, will begin on Tuesday 20th March.

The auction process is expected to run for “a number of weeks” before Ofcom will be able to confirm which of the six bidding operators (here) have won some of the spectrum. The 2.3GHz band is more suited to modern 4G based services and EE will not be able to bid on that, while all operators will be able to bid on the future 5G ultrafast Mobile Broadband friendly 3.4GHz band.

Enough has been written about this auction over the past few months and so we won’t repeat all of that again today (see link above). The first commercial 5G services aren’t expected to launch until 2020 but plenty of trials will take place before then.