Spain’s leading carriers shelled out more than €1.65bn between them in the latest round of LTE spectrum auctions to take place in Europe. Telefónica, Orange and Vodafone walked away with spectral spoils in the 800MHz and 2.6GHz band after an auction process last week.

Vodafone is the only operator to have been forthcoming about its plans, announcing it had won a total of 60MHz (2x30MHz) of new spectrum – 20MHz (2x10MHz) in the 800MHz band and 40MHz (2x20MHz) in the 2.6GHz band for a total consideration of €518m.

The 800MHz ‘digital dividend’ spectrum will become available in 2014 after the switchover from analogue to all-digital TV broadcasting in Spain. The 2.6GHz spectrum band is immediately available for use.

Vodafone Spain will also begin to offer 3G mobile internet access to customers in rural areas by the end of 2011 after receiving approval from the Spanish government to re-farm spectrum in the 900MHz frequency band currently used for 2G services. The Company has already begun to deploy versatile single Radio Access Network (RAN) base stations designed to handle 2G, 3G and LTE technologies on a common shared platform.