Auction for mobile phone services tops £16bn

NEWS Resuming after a timeout called by Spain's Telefonica last week, the auction of UK's third-generation (3G) mobile phone licences reached new heights on Monday, with total bids topping £16bn. The bidding for licence B - the most valuable, capacity-wise, to existing operators - continued, with BT and Vodafone involved in a two-way battle. After 110 rounds, the licence is now worth £4.27bn - over a billion more than some of the others - and in Vodafone's hands With only eight contenders left, the early favourites for an exit this week remained in the race, Canada's TIW holding on to licence A for long periods until NTL Mobile took over and Telefonica making an as yet unbeaten bid in excess of £2.8bn for licence D. Telefonica last week announced it will float its mobile arm, Telefonica Moviles, and its submarine cable business - moves that could net billions of euros. However, the Spanish incumbent said its media unit - which will integrate the recent Endemol Entertainment Holding NV acquisition - won't debut on the markets this summer. One2One, Orange and WorldCom remain the other bidders in the UK 3G auction, the first two holding licences C and E respectively.