Two primary rounds were held on the first day of Romania’s spectrum auctions, which will allocate frequencies in the 800, 900, 1800 and 2600 MHz bands. The regulator ANCOM has organised a new session of primary rounds considering the request exceeds the offer in at least one of the categories
The primary rounds will end after a round where the frequency block request does no longer exceed the number of frequency blocks available, for all the block categories. After the primary rounds, the auction may continue with additional rounds, if – following the primary rounds – there are unassigned frequency blocks and will end with the assignment round, when the operators may bid for the desired positioning in the band.
The operators participating in the auction are: 2K Telecom, Cosmote Romanian Mobile Telecommunications, Orange Romania, RCS & RDS and Vodafone Romania.
ANCOM auctions out the rights for the use of the frequencies in the 800, 900, 1800 and 2600 MHz bands for the provision of mobile communications services – voice and data – for a 15-year period. It is the first time in Romania that the spectrum licences will be granted by a competitive selection procedure.
As part of the procedure, the bidders may bid for two types of licences: long-term (15 years, valid until April 2029) and short-term (1 year and three months, valid until April 2014). For the long-term licences, ANCOM auctions out 42 paired blocks of 5 MHz each, 6 of which in the 800 MHz band, 7 in the 900 MHz band, 15 in the 1800 MHz band and 14 in the 2600 MHz band, as well as 3 unpaired blocks of 15 MHz each in the 2600 MHz band. These licences will be awarded starting 6 April 2014. With regard to the licences to be awarded for a shorter period, ANCOM will auction out 10 paired blocks of 2.5 MHz in the 900 MHz band and 6 paired blocks of 5 MHz in the 1800 MHz band, most of these resources being currently used by Orange and Vodafone.
The reserve price for each block in the four bands has been set by the government. Thus, the minimum price for each block in the 800 MHz assigned for 15 years will be EUR 35 million, for the 900 MHz band will be EUR 40 million, and respectively EUR 10 million per block in the 1800 MHz band and EUR 4 million per paired block and EUR 3 million per unpaired block in the 2600 MHz band. For those blocks to be assigned for periods of 15 months, the values have been set at EUR 1.7 million in the 900 MHz band and EUR 0.8 million in the 1800 MHz band.
