News
Australia-based telco bags fourth licence with 69.7 million bid.
Australia’s TPG Telecom is set to become Singapore’s fourth mobile operator, after winning the country’s new entrant spectrum auction (NESA) on Wednesday.
The company scooped 20 MHz of 900-MHz spectrum and 40 MHz of 2.3-GHz spectrum reserved for new players with a bid of S$105 million (€69.7 million), the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) said.
TPG’s licence becomes effective on 1 April 2017 at the earliest, at which point TPG will have 18 months to roll out nationwide, street-level 4G coverage. It is required to provide coverage in road tunnels and in buildings within 30 months, and within 54 months, its network must also cover Singapore’s underground railway lines and stations.
TPG was up against local fibre operator MyRepublic. A third hopeful, airYotta, did not qualify for the auction.
The IMDA hopes a new entrant will stimulate greater competition for Singapore’s three operators, M1, StarHub, and incumbent Singtel.
Now that the NESA auction has been completed, the IMDA will proceed with auctioning 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 all operators, which now includes TPG Telecom.
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.
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.
