Combined BFWA bidding reaches £38m

NEWS During today's first round, Norweb Telecom opened the bidding for one of the licences for the Tyne & Wear, Durham, Northumberland, Cumbria and Lancashire district with a £1m bid. The price closed up £60,000 at £1.06m. The most activity came in the bidding for the three London licences and was evenly shared between Broadnet, Energis Local Access and Faultbasic. Both Energis and Faultbasic have bid £4.54m for a licence, with Broadnet bidding £4.62m for the remaining one. Elsewhere, Chorus Communications (£140,000), Eircom NI (£150,000) and Formus Communications (£140,000) are each bidding for the three Northern Ireland licences. The biggest spender to date is Energis at £13.54m followed by Faultbasic at £10.54m and Norweb Telecom at £9m. Of the 42 available licences, 26 licences have still not been bid for. The spectrum is being offered as three licences across each of 14 regions, many of which are not yet being bid for. Bidding can be seen at: http://www.spectrumauctions.gov.uk/bfwa/bfwa_index.htm