Italy trousers €2 billion in pre-5G 700 MHz auction

A spectrum action in Italy covering a bunch of bands has concluded its first phase with prices roughly in line with expectations.

Bidding is underway on spectrum in the 700 MHz, 3.7 GHz and 26 GHz bands, but only the former has concluded. The starting price was €338 million per 2×5 MHz block of 700 MHz spectrum and TIM, Vodafone and Iliad all got 2×10 paired. Iliad apparently didn’t need to bid but the other two don’t seem to have craven the price up much as you can see from the table below.

Wind didn’t get any 700 MHz spectrum, but seems to be pretty keen on some 3.7 GHz action, having bid €338.5 mil for an apparently pre-specified 80 MHz block of it. TIM is leading the chase for the only other 80 MHz chunk, with Iliad apparently content with 20 GHz and Wind the front runner for the other 20 MHz. A contiguous 100 MHz block of 3.7 GHz would come in handy but it seems likely that Wind is bidding against Vodafone for that bit.

TIM issued an announcement gloating about the fact that it now has spectrum in every sub-1 GHz band available. “This important result increases the frequencies available to TIM which are essential for the 5G services,” said the TIM statement. “The new spectrum will be added to the 20+20 MHz that TIM has in the low frequency 800 MHz and 900 MHz bands, which already ensure the supply of UBB services to more than 98% of the population.”

It seems sensible to have a great big auction of a bunch of different spectrum, given the imminence of 5G in the wild. Iliad has been guaranteed a nice lot of 700 MHz, which will help a lot with coverage, but it might want to have another bid for that bigger block of 3.7 GHz if it want to be a significant 5G player. You can read further analysis on this at Light Reading here.