Result of April 18 UK 5G auction of 2.3 and 3.4 GHz spectrum

1. 1
INFORMATION NOTE
Result of UK 2.3 and 3.4-3.6 GHz Auction for 5G
Source: SAMENA Telecommunications Council – April 18
Roberto Ercole, Director Public Policy
UK Auction
Ofcom UK is in the process of auctioning a total of 190 MHz of spectrum in two ‘frequency
bands’: 40 MHz in the 2.3 GHz band, and 150 MHz in the 3.4 GHz band.
The Ofcom has completed the first stage of the 2.3 GHz and C-band auction for 5G services,
called the “principle” stage of the auction. That is when the bidders win a generic lot from
the band plan, but not an actual specific lot (i.e. beginning, middle, top of band).
The total raised in the principle stage was just over £1.3 billion of which C-band accounted
for around £1.1 billion. The table of bids is given below, and the actual band plans given in
the attached Annex. The price per MHz per pop was around £0.12 (MHz/pop) for C-band
and for 2.3 GHz (assuming UK population of 65 million).
Source: Ofcom

2. 2
Interesting points to note
The C-band was sold with a sitting tenant (UK Broadband) who has 2 x 20 MHz in the band.
UK Broadband is currently licenced to provide mobile services and uses LTE TDD in one of
the blocks. UK Broadband is owned by one of the bidders Hutchison (AKA Three). This
means that Three has a total of 60 MHz of C-band 5G spectrum. Vodafone has 50 MHz, and
EE and Telefonica have 40 MHz each in the C-band.
UK Broadband can participate in the next stage (assignment stage) to ensure its two blocks
in C-band are converted to a single contiguous license of 40 MHz, as well as ensuring Three’s
blocks are adjacent. This may be attractive for all bidders to help control adjacent band
interference between all the operators.
Telefonica won all the 2.3 GHz spectrum (40 MHz) for about the same price as the C-band
spectrum (per MHz/pop).
Conclusion
The UK auction raised a substantial amount of money for the UK Treasury, and all spectrum
was taken-up. With regards to the C-band, the operators ended up with 40 to 60 MHz of
spectrum. This is short of the 100 MHz per operator that analysts have suggested would
offer the best size of spectrum block to take advantage of the benefits of 5G over 4G.
However, it was made clear to bidders that Ofcom intends to award 3.6-3.8 GHz for
mobile/5G and will shortly publish a statement on how to do this. This is inline with
EU/CEPT identifying 3.4-3.8 GHz as a 5G pioneer band.
This new award above 3.6 GHz would give the current C-band 5G winners the chance to
increase their spectrum holdings for 5G in the band.
The assignment phase (annex 1) raised very little additional revenue (around £14 million).

3. 3
Annex 1 - Final Result after Assignment Phase
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/spectrum-management/spectrum-awards/awards-archive/2-3-and-3-4-ghz-auction

4. 4
Annex 2
2.3 GHz Band Plan
3.4 to 3.6 GHz Band Plan
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/81579/info-memorandum.pdf