{"id":40392,"date":"2024-12-16T11:29:43","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T11:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=40392"},"modified":"2024-12-16T11:32:29","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T11:32:29","slug":"ofcom-uk-set-timetable-for-5g-mobile-auction-of-26ghz-and-40ghz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2024\/12\/ofcom-uk-set-timetable-for-5g-mobile-auction-of-26ghz-and-40ghz.html","title":{"rendered":"Ofcom UK Set Timetable for 5G Mobile Auction of 26GHz and 40GHz"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a> (mobile broadband) services. But you’ll have to wait until October 2025.<\/p>\n

At present EE<\/a> (BT<\/a>), O2<\/a> (Virgin Media<\/a>), Vodafone<\/a> and Three UK<\/a> already have access to several 5G<\/a> bands between 700MHz<\/strong> and 3.8GHz<\/strong>. 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<\/a> and 4G<\/a> networks many years ago.<\/p>\n

NOTE:<\/strong> The regulator aims to make 6.25GHz of spectrum frequency available across the 26GHz and 40GHz bands.<\/div>\n

The move to auction off 26GHz<\/strong> (25.1-27.5GHz) and 40GHz<\/strong> (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\u2019re often only best for serving busy urban areas (shopping malls, airports etc.) and fixed wireless broadband (FWA) links.<\/p>\n

However, the auction process for this, which was set out in 2023 (here<\/a>), 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<\/a> and Three UK<\/a>. The Competition and Markets Authority<\/a> (CMA) granted approval for that merger on 5th December 2024 (here<\/a>), although “legal-completion<\/em>” is still expected to take 3-6 months to achieve. As a result, Ofcom<\/a> has today confirmed when the new bands will be auctioned off.<\/p>\n

Ofcom<\/a> Statement<\/strong><\/p>\n

On 5 December 2024, the CMA published its decision to approve the proposed merger between H3G and Vodafone<\/a>\u2019s UK businesses.<\/p>\n

We have considered whether we need to review any of the policy decisions<\/a> we have taken for the mmWave auction in light of the CMA\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n