Ofcom UK Set Timetable for 5G Mobile Auction of 26GHz and 40GHz

The UK telecoms regulator has today set out their expected timetable for the long-in-gestation plan to auction off a large chunk of millimetre wave (mmW) radio spectrum frequency in the 26GHz and 40GHz bands, which will be used by mobile operators to deliver faster 5G (mobile broadband) services. But you’ll have to wait until October 2025.

At present EE (BT), O2 (Virgin Media), Vodafone and Three UK already have access to several 5G bands between 700MHz and 3.8GHz. Such frequencies reflect the same sort of mid-band radio spectrum that mobile network operators have been harnessing since the advent of the first 3G and 4G networks many years ago.

The move to auction off 26GHz (25.1-27.5GHz) and 40GHz (40.5-43.5GHz) is designed to complement those existing bands by providing lots of additional spectrum frequency to operators, which means more data capacity for extremely fast speeds (e.g. multi-Gigabit). But such signals tend to be very weak, which means they’re often only best for serving busy urban areas (shopping malls, airports etc.) and fixed wireless broadband (FWA) links.

However, the auction process for this, which was set out in 2023 (here), has been stuck in a state of limbo for much of 2024 while the country awaited a final decision on the mega-merger between Vodafone and Three UK. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) granted approval for that merger on 5th December 2024 (here), although “legal-completion” is still expected to take 3-6 months to achieve. As a result, Ofcom has today confirmed when the new bands will be auctioned off.

Ofcom Statement

On 5 December 2024, the CMA published its decision to approve the proposed merger between H3G and Vodafone’s UK businesses.

We have considered whether we need to review any of the policy decisions we have taken for the mmWave auction in light of the CMA’s decision, and we consider all of our decisions would remain appropriate in a three player market. In particular, we do not consider that the new structure of the market changes our reasoning for not imposing competition measures.

We will now commence preparation for the auction. In order to enable the merged entity to prepare for the auction, we currently expect to work to the following timetable:

• accept applications to participate in the auction on 16 and 17 September 2025; and
• begin the principal stage of the auction in October 2025.

Ofcom are currently aiming to award several 15-year, fixed term citywide licences (“high density areas”) to use the “new” mmWave bands – reflecting 68 major towns and cities across the UK, as well as some localised licences for “low density areas” within those cities via their Shared Access licensing framework. The UK is a long way behind other countries that have already awarded spectrum in the mmW bands, but one advantage of playing catch-up is that supporting mobile kit and device support should be more mature.