Finland has just finished their auction for the 2600 MHz frequency spectrum that will be used in deploying future high speed LTE networks. Earlier this year Finland held an auction for the 1800 MHz frequency band to be used for LTE, since a lower frequency would do a better job at penetrating walls and give longer range. This move was viewed as strange, and elicited the same kind of WTF reactions people made when T-Mobile announced that their 3G would be built on the 1700 MHz band.
Anyway, back to 2600 MHz, there were four winners. Three won the FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) spectrum, with all getting 50 MHz chunks, except DNA who got only 40 MHz. Elisa, my operator, also known as the operator with the most 3G coverage, paid 834,700 EUR. TeliaSonera, who is the equivalent of AT&T in Finland, and by that I mean they’re the only people who offer the iPhone in the country and they rape you with their monthly fees, paid 810,200. DNA, who is known as the new kid on the block, I literally know no one who uses them, paid 675,700 EUR. Pirkanmaan Verkko won 50 MHz of TDD (Time Division Duplex) spectrum for 1.47 million EUR.
Total purchase price: surprisingly only 3.8 million EUR (5.7 million USD)! The same frequency auction in Norway brought in 25 million EUR, and in Sweden they made 230 million EUR. Is this Finland’s way of making sure that they are the first to get LTE up and running, and are charging practically nothing so that operators have enough money left over to buy networking equipment? I certainly hope so.
[Via: Cellular News, Rethink Wireless]