It seems the Netherlands is about to get two new operators, following the successful conclusion of a 2.6GHz spectrum auction in the country. In addition to the incumbent players — KPN, Vodafone and T-Mobile — privately-owned cable company Ziggo and Sweden’s Tele2 also won portions of the spectrum.
According to report, the introduction of new market players was made possible due to the government’s policy to limit a maximum of 55MHz of spectrum per operator. KPN and Vodafone successfully bid for 20MHz each, while Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile acquired 10MHz. On the other hand, Ziggo and Tele2 acquired 40MHz of spectrum, each.
Analysts expected Dutch earnings from the auction to be in the tens of millions of Euros, which is considerably less than the 3 billion EUR raised in the 3G auction a decade ago.
According to the Wireless Intelligence figures, KPN is leading the Dutch market with 10.3 million connections (a 52% market share), and is followed by Vodafone and T-Mobile, which have 4.8 and 4.6 million connections, respectively.
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]