Millions of pounds pour into UK's 3G auction

NEWS The battle for third generation (3G) UMTS mobile phone licences continues to intensify as bids in the seventh round are made. BT, Orange and Vodafone are fighting it out for second largest tranche of the new network, licence B. Here, BT is the current leader with a bid of £219.4m, beating Orange's earlier bid of £208m. Meanwhile Crescent has trumped MCI WorldCom's £99.2m bid for a smaller portion, Licence D, with a £104.2m bid. The only two licences that have been stationary for a couple of rounds are those of Licence A and C. The former holds with Spectrumco, a consortium formed by the Virgin Group, embracing the top bid at £187.5m and the latter, with NTL Mobile holding bids at £110m. So far no operators have pulled out of the auction and final bids for the eighth round are due by 16:10 GMT this afternoon.