News
Third hopeful airYotta misses out on opportunity to take on Singtel, StarHub, M1.
Singapore’s telco regulator on Wednesday revealed that fibre operator MyRepublic and Australia’s TPG have pre-qualified to take part in the upcoming new entrant spectrum auction (NESA).
A third applicant, airYotta, has not been pre-qualified.
"airYotta did not fully meet these [pre-qualification] requirements and will not be participating in the NESA," said the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), in a report by Singapore’s Business Times.
The IMDA has reserved 60 MHz of spectrum in the 900 MHz and 2.3 GHz bands for a newcomer, setting a reserve price of S$35 million (€22.5 million).
Once the NESA has taken place, the IMDA will auction off a further 175 MHz of spectrum across the 700 MHz, 900 MHz, 2.3 GHz and 2.5 GHz bands. The auction will be open to Singapore’s three existing mobile operators – Singtel, StarHub and M1 – as well as the new entrant.
The 700-MHz and 900-MHz frequencies will be split into lots of 2×5 MHz and will carry a minimum price of S$20 million per lot. 5-MHz lots of 2.3-GHz and 2.5-GHz frequencies will carry a reserve price of S$3 million.
The NESA part of the process is expected to take part next month, while the second stage of the auction is expected to happen before the end of this year.
Licences in the 700 MHz band will start from 1 January 2018 and will have a duration of 15 years. All other bands will become available from 1 April 2017 and licences will last for 16 years.
