The Netherlands has completed its latest spectrum auction and the spoils were evenly distributed across all three MNOs, with T-Mobile getting a bit less.

Scott Bicheno

July 21, 2020

1 Min Read
T-Mobile gets a bit ripped off in the Dutch 5G spectrum auction

The Netherlands has completed its latest spectrum auction and the spoils were evenly distributed across all three MNOs, with T-Mobile getting a bit less.

“The 700, 1400 and 2100 MHz frequency bands were allocated over the course of a multi-round auction,” said the Dutch government announcement. “A total of 26 licences with a term of twenty years were auctioned for the three bands. Three participants had been admitted to participate in the auction.

“Measures had been taken to ensure that participating market players had access to no more than 40% of the available frequencies. This percentage includes all current licences held by the various providers. The measures are designed to ensure sufficient competition on the telecoms market. A second high-speed mobile communications frequency auction will take place in early 2022. The 3.5 Gigahertz frequency band will then be auctioned off.”

All three MNOs issued press releases, but there were varying degrees of transparency regarding what they paid. Only KPN itemised its costs, but Vodafone Ziggo said it paid the same amount for the same stuff, to in the table below we have assumed the same itemised pricing. T-Mobile didn’t specify any of its costs, but thing we know the total spend was €1.23 billion, that means it must have shelled out €398m, for which it got 5 MHz less 1400 MHz spectrum. That discount of only €18m seems quite small, hence the headline.

Dutch spectrum auction

700MHz

1400MHz

2100MHz

Total

Spectrum acquired by KPN

20MHz

15MHz

40MHz

75MHz

(number of licenses)

2

3

4

Cost

€158m

€95m

€163m

€416m

Spectrum acquired by T-Mobile

20MHz

10MHz

40MHz

70MHz

(number of licenses)

2

2

4

Cost

€158m

€77m

€163m

€398m

Spectrum acquired by Vodafone

20MHz

15MHz

40MHz

75MHz

(number of licenses)

2

3

4

Cost

€158m

€95m

€163m

€416m

Total spectrum

60MHz

40MHz

120MHz

€1.23b

About the Author(s)

Scott Bicheno

As the Editorial Director of Telecoms.com, Scott oversees all editorial activity on the site and also manages the Telecoms.com Intelligence arm, which focuses on analysis and bespoke content.
Scott has been covering the mobile phone and broader technology industries for over ten years. Prior to Telecoms.com Scott was the primary smartphone specialist at industry analyst Strategy Analytics’. Before that Scott was a technology journalist, covering the PC and telecoms sectors from a business perspective.
Follow him @scottbicheno

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