Germany could conduct further spectrum auctions as early as next year, to boost LTE expansion, even though operators are campaigning to have former GSM frequencies allocated rather than sold off, given the intense economic pressure on European cellcos.
The country’s regulator, the Federal Network Agency (BnA), has published a consultation paper on mobile broadband spectrum, particularly the opportunities to reuse 900MHz and 1.8GHz GSM bands for 4G.
While it does not plan to auction the 900MHz band, which has less capacity and a less developed LTE ecosystem than 1.8GHz, it aims to include the higher band 2G spectrum in a potential 2014 sale, even though the licences do not expire until 2016. This would give it the opportunity to run a single auction for these frequencies and for the 700MHz broadcast band, opening up mobile broadband capacity even if some of it could not be deployed for a couple of years.
The BnA proposes reserving a block of 900MHz spectrum for each of the four mobile operators ‘ T-Mobile, Vodafone, E-Plus and O2. These licences are also set to expire in 2016. According to Reuters, the four cellcos have petitioned the regulator to extend their 900MHz and 1.8GHz licences until 2018 or later, since they had to spend almost €4.4bn on 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum in 2010 and would struggle to fund another LTE auction so soon afterwards.
The operators have until October to submit their comments, and a final decision is expected to be made early next year.