Three operators left in 3G auction

Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development (MdSE) has announced that the deadline for the second round of the auction for three blocks of vacant UMTS spectrum has passed. Existing 3G operators Telecom Italia, Wind and Vodafone Italia have all placed bids for the frequencies while 3 Italia declined despite submitting an application in the first round of the auction. The vacant frequencies, which comprise 15MHz of paired and 5MHz of unpaired spectrum, were returned to public ownership by Ipse 2000 (a venture of Spain’s Telefonica) in January 2006. The opening of the three bids will be held in a public session on 9 June at the MdSE headquarters in Rome.