Bidding farewell: Companies withdraw from spectrum auction

NEWS Formus, who had originally bought the right to bid in all 14 regions today withdrew having bid £150,000 for only one licence in Northern Ireland. On Friday American bidder Winstar withdrew, having bid as high as £4.3m for a London licence The number of interested companies is now down to six from the ten who began bidding a week ago With current bidding only affecting 13 of the 42 licences on offer many regions of the country, such as Wales, the West Country, and even Cambridge and Suffolk have yet to receive bids and aren't expected to interest any of the bidders. Interest in the 28GHz Broadband for Fixed Wireless Access (BFWA) licences has been much lower than expected with prices a fraction of those paid for the 3G phone spectrum auctions earlier in the year. According to Clive Hillier, analyst at Schema, interest has been limited as companies have been put off by the high costs of developing infrastructure. He added that the bandwidth offered is too little for big businesses and too costly for small users. The radio market will come under further pressure following Oftel's statement to the Trade and Industry Select Committee tomorrow that it is looking for price reductions in the leased line market and will enforce them if there is no movement by the end of the year. By Geoffrey Davies