Russia’s telecom regulator this week announced that it will open app lications for participating in its upcoming 2.6-GHz spectrum auction on 1 December and outlined its timetable for the multi-stage sale process.
Interested parties will have until 29 December to lodge their applications for the contest, Roskomnadzor said.
The auction, which covers frequencies from 2570 MHz to 2620 MHz, will begin in February.
The regulator has split the available airwaves into 82 lots. The first lot will be auctioned on 9 February.
Lots two to 41 will be sold on 11 February, followed by lots 42-82 on 17 February.
Lot one covers all of Russia, with the exception of Moscow and Sevastopol, in the Crimea. It includes 25 MHz of spectrum and carries a reserve price of 2.94 billion roubles (€42 million).
The other lots are all regional and also come with 25 MHz of spectrum. Starting prices vary from RUB1.1 million for spectrum in Nenets (lot 33) to RUB134.3 million in St Petersburg (lot 12).
Roskomnadzor pointed out that in its recently-completed auction of spectrum in the 1800-MHz band, the final sum raised was six times higher than the aggregate reserve prices of the spectrum lots.
Indeed, the contest, which drew to a close in early October, raised RUB6.28 billion (€90 million), compared with a reserve price of RUB1.03 billion.
All four of the country’s main mobile operators took part and each won in excess of RUB1 billion worth of spectrum.
Vimpelcom was the biggest spender, racking up a bill of RUB2.03 billion, closely followed by MTS, which spent RUB1.91 billion to secure five spectrum lots.
MegaFon and Tele2 committed RUB1.26 billion and RUB1.08 billion respectively.
