Five firms have entered initial bids in Italy’s auction of 5G wireless spectrum, offering a total of EUR2.48 billion (USD2.87 billion). Of the seven companies originally approved as bidders, Telecom Italia (TIM), Wind Tre, Vodafone, Iliad and Fastweb all submitted initial financial offers, while Linkem and Open Fiber opted not to take part.
As a recent entrant to the Italian telecoms market, Iliad has made the sole offer for a block of 700MHz spectrum which has been reserved for a new player. The Ministry of Economic Development (Ministero dello Svilluppo Economico, MiSE) says this part of the auction should now be considered to be concluded. Iliad, which launched mobile services in Italy in May this year, has offered EUR676.5 million for the 700MHz band spectrum.
So far no bids have been received for the 3600MHz-3800MHz frequencies, nor for the supplemental downlink spectrum in the 700MHz band. Frequencies in the 26GHz range are also on offer. The competitive phase of the auction will begin later this week when entrants are able to improve their initial offers.