# Ofcom announce 4G auction results



## Fingers (Feb 20, 2013)

*Everything Everywhere Ltd *

2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz and
2 x 35 MHz of 2.6 GHz 
£588,876,000 

*Hutchison 3G UK Ltd (Three)*

2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz 
£225,000,000 

*Niche Spectrum Ventures Ltd (a subsidiary of BT Group plc)*

2 x 15 MHz of 2.6 GHz and
1 x 20 MHz of 2.6 GHz (unpaired) 
£186,476,000 

*Telefónica UK Ltd *

2 x 10 MHz of 800 MHz (coverage obligation lot)
£550,000,000 

*Vodafone*
2 x 10 MHz of 800 MHz,
2 x 20 MHz of 2.6 GHz and
1 x 25 MHz of 2.6 GHz (unpaired)
£790,761,000 


Thinking that soon i may well be able to ditch my fixed line broadband


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## editor (Feb 20, 2013)

That's mental amounts of money. Which most of us will end up paying for, one way or another.


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## belboid (Feb 20, 2013)

editor said:


> That's mental amounts of money. Which most of us will end up paying for, one way or another.


in more than one way - as it was meant to raise £3.5 billion, they are a long way shy.  So that's another £1.3bill coming off public spending next year.


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## Sunray (Feb 20, 2013)

I would say those are some of the lowest figures for this type of sale ever.

Clearly burnt from the 3G sale,  paid 20 billion and I don't think will ever truly get back what they put in.  500 million is easily matched by possible profits in a single year.  Telefonica made £4.5 billion last year.


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## bi0boy (Feb 20, 2013)

Fingers said:


> Thinking that soon i may well be able to ditch my fixed line broadband


 
Looking at EEs pricing and monthly bandwidth allowances, I have to say good luck with that.


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## Fez909 (Feb 20, 2013)

I'm not really bothered about 4G. As much as I'm a fan of technology, I've been feeling for a while that certain things are 'good enough'. One of those is mobile broadband speeds. I have a 21mbit connection on my current phone and I don't see why I'd need that to be any faster.

I guess convergence, as hinted at by Fingers last line above, is the only reason. Why have two connections if you can have one that is fast enough for everything?

But otherwise....meh. I'd not trade the battery life and moniez for that extra speed at the minute.

/luddite


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## Fingers (Feb 20, 2013)

bi0boy said:


> Looking at EEs pricing and monthly bandwidth allowances, I have to say good luck with that.


 
I am with Three. They have pledged to upgrade all their customers with no extra charges.


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## Fingers (Feb 20, 2013)

The 1bn shortfall can now be reduced by making Vodafone pay their taxes... oh wait...


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## Hocus Eye. (Feb 20, 2013)

It is worrying that my phone provider Vodaphone has paid out the most for 4g: £790,761,000.. I am not going to go for 4g as I am happy with the Wi Fi links I can pick up in most places I go to courtesy of BT Fon and its variations. I don't want that £790 million odd sum to end up on my monthly bill.


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## ymu (Feb 20, 2013)

We're getting two free upgrades to 4G. And one of those plans is genuinely unlimited data. 

Thank you 3. Your mad business plan not to charge people for it makes up for a lot of shit customer service.


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## Maurice Picarda (Feb 20, 2013)

Interesting to see BT using an SPV. Wonder whether Niche Spectrum Ventures is in some way protected from BT Group's eyewatering pension fund liabilities, and hence able to borrow the cash on better terms.


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## Hocus Eye. (Feb 20, 2013)

ymu said:


> We're getting two free upgrades to 4G. And one of those plans is genuinely unlimited data.
> 
> Thank you 3. Your mad business plan not to charge people for it makes up for a lot of shit customer service.


This doesn't make sense to me from the company's point of view. How will they make a profit from their investment? That they have a reputation for bad customer service suggests to me that you need to read the fine print of any contract they offer.


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## ymu (Feb 20, 2013)

Sunray said:


> I would say those are some of the lowest figures for this type of sale ever.
> 
> Clearly burnt from the 3G sale, paid 20 billion and I don't think will ever truly get back what they put in. 500 million is easily matched by possible profits in a single year. Telefonica made £4.5 billion last year.


3G paid for a load of infrastructure as well, didn't it?


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## ymu (Feb 20, 2013)

Hocus Eye. said:


> This doesn't make sense to me from the company's point of view. How will they make a profit from their investment? That they have a reputation for bad customer service suggests to me that you need to read the fine print of any contract they offer.


Fuck knows. 3G is plenty for us with several devices connected, and we download/stream more than we watch on TV without any hassle.

Their customer service people are sweethearts, but they're based on another continent from all the departments that can actually do anything and have forced sales scripts that make it difficult to get them to do anything else. They get there in the end, especially if you sympathise with their being forced to annoy the crap out of you.

I don't understand how they can offer so much data for a tenner a month (on top of a normal £15 contract), but we get it, with rarely a buffer in sight.


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## Fingers (Feb 21, 2013)

Their customer services are in Taiwan and they all speak excellent English with an American accent.

Currently I am paying £25 month on an 8mb down 1mb up broadband service from the Post Office. I can screw that off and have a much faster up/down connection by turning my phone into a WIFI hotspot and taking my internet where ever I want to go for £15 PAYG a month with a load of voice and text.

I will have to upgrade my phone to a Samsung S3 (4G) mind but it would pay for itself,


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## mauvais (Feb 21, 2013)

Sunray said:


> I would say those are some of the lowest figures for this type of sale ever.
> 
> Clearly burnt from the 3G sale, paid 20 billion and I don't think will ever truly get back what they put in. 500 million is easily matched by possible profits in a single year. Telefonica made £4.5 billion last year.


Apples and oranges - you are talking about a Europe-wide group. UK operators seem to be making about £1bn a year profit.

Ordinary infrastructural investment for an operator like O2 is about £1m a day - that's just to keep things ticking over - so this is a reasonably large cost for them, but not enormous. Noone knows what the useful lifespan of this spectrum is going to be, but at least five years would seem like a safe bet.


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## mauvais (Feb 21, 2013)

Fingers said:


> Their customer services are in Taiwan and they all speak excellent English with an American accent.
> 
> Currently I am paying £25 month on an 8mb down 1mb up broadband service from the Post Office. I can screw that off and have a much faster up/down connection by turning my phone into a WIFI hotspot and taking my internet where ever I want to go for £15 PAYG a month with a load of voice and text.
> 
> I will have to upgrade my phone to a Samsung S3 (4G) mind but it would pay for itself,


Wait to see what actual throughput and contractual limitations are before you do anything about this. I doubt you're going to get it for £15 for a long time either.


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## Dan U (Feb 21, 2013)

mauvais said:


> Wait to see what actual throughput and contractual limitations are before you do anything about this. I doubt you're going to get it for £15 for a long time either.


 
yeah. if data charges are anything like they currently are with EE, you'd be skint within a couple of hours of iplayer.


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## sim667 (Feb 22, 2013)

I looked at EE when choosing an upgrade.

Fucking con.


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## Sunray (Feb 22, 2013)

mauvais said:


> Apples and oranges - you are talking about a Europe-wide group. UK operators seem to be making about £1bn a year profit.
> 
> Ordinary infrastructural investment for an operator like O2 is about £1m a day - that's just to keep things ticking over - so this is a reasonably large cost for them, but not enormous. Noone knows what the useful lifespan of this spectrum is going to be, but at least five years would seem like a safe bet.


 
Totally disagree. Telefonica is $50 billion in debt and vodaphone is $37 billion in debt. Communication companies work on large upfront cost model because with no infrastructure you've no customers Its broken down for them somewhat, technology has moved on faster than they were hoping/expecting so they haven't been allowed to amortise their investment. Having to keep upgrading their networks and back end infrastructure to support and get revenue from that upgrade is costly.

4G will be the last time they will invest in this for some considerable time, 10-20 years. Simply because 50Meg to a mobile device isn't really needed and won't be until the defacto video stream is Full HD.


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## mauvais (Feb 22, 2013)

Sunray said:


> Totally disagree. Telefonica is $50 billion in debt and vodaphone is $37 billion in debt. Communication companies work on large upfront cost model because with no infrastructure you've no customers Its broken down for them somewhat, technology has moved on faster than they were hoping/expecting so they haven't been allowed to amortise their investment. Having to keep upgrading their networks and back end infrastructure to support and get revenue from that upgrade is costly.
> 
> 4G will be the last time they will invest in this for some considerable time, 10-20 years. Simply because 50Meg to a mobile device isn't really needed and won't be until the defacto video stream is Full HD.


Disagree with what? I don't understand.

Debt isn't a very good metric, and 4G doesn't have to be superceded by 5G to render the spectrum investment worthless. I don't know what the auctioned licence details are, but for example, in five years time, Ofcom could open up further spectrum to independent operators for very little cost, considering that the original 4G licenses had produced significant opportunity for return.


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## Kid_Eternity (Feb 23, 2013)

belboid said:


> in more than one way - as it was meant to raise £3.5 billion, they are a long way shy. So that's another £1.3bill coming off public spending next year.


 
At least with Three network they aint going to charge insanely higher amounts for 4G speeds...


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## Kid_Eternity (Feb 23, 2013)

sim667 said:


> I looked at EE when choosing an upgrade.
> 
> Fucking con.


 
Three aren't going to charge more, basically all their current deals will have 4G speeds if you have the handset.


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## Ted Striker (Jun 6, 2013)

Interesting point of note...4G doesn't carry voice calls!

Hence loads of people (me included, though I just put it down to shite reception) miss lots of calls as the handset has to downgrade to 3g for each call if you're using 4G (and sometimes if it takes too long they put the call through to VM).

is this common knowledge? I had no idea!

http://community.ee.co.uk/t5/4g-network/LTE-doesn-t-allow-incoming-calls/td-p/1276/highlight/false


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## 19sixtysix (Jun 6, 2013)

So let me get this right 4G is a mobile telephone protocol that doesn't do telephone calls


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 6, 2013)

Never heard that vaguely remember something about it can't do voice and data at the same time like 3G can, not sure if that's a fact though.


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## Maurice Picarda (Jun 6, 2013)

Hasn't voice been just another boring IP service for quite some time?


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## pesh (Jun 7, 2013)

Ted Striker said:


> Interesting point of note...4G doesn't carry voice calls!
> ...
> is this common knowledge? I had no idea!
> 
> http://community.ee.co.uk/t5/4g-network/LTE-doesn-t-allow-incoming-calls/td-p/1276/highlight/false


 
yep

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/02/feature_wtf_is_voice_over_lte_4g/

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/4g-ee-orange-lte-phones-etc-speculation-discussion.300365/


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## mauvais (Jun 7, 2013)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Never heard that vaguely remember something about it can't do voice and data at the same time like 3G can, not sure if that's a fact though.


Voice _is_ data. The trouble is that noone has really decided how it will work.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 7, 2013)

mauvais said:


> Voice _is_ data. The trouble is that noone has really decided how it will work.


 

Lets not split hairs you know what I mean.


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