Canada Completes Residual Spectrum Auction
In July 2017, the Canadian spectrum regulator – Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, or “ISED” – initiated an auction process to release “residual” licenses. The residual licenses consisted primarily of licenses unsold from previous auction processes. The auction was a single-round sealed-bid process with bids submitted on May 15, [...]
Canada Kicks Off 600 MHz Auction Process
On March 28, 2018, the Canadian spectrum regulator, ISED, initiated a process that will lead to an auction of 600 MHz spectrum licenses in March 2019. Canadian auctions typically have bidding restrictions, in this case there will be a "set aside" of three 10 MHz blocks for non-national carriers. Set-aside [...]
US Auctioning mmWave for 5G
As soon as the FCC's "technical problem involving upfront payments by auction bidders" got fixed, it announced a plan to kick start two mmWave auctions, as part of the agenda for the April 17, 2018 Commission meeting. Notwithstanding that some parties - notably T Mobile - might have preferred that [...]
UK 2.3 and 3.4 GHz Auction Underway
The UK’s long-awaited public sector spectrum release (PSSR) auction got underway on March 20, 2018 and includes a big chunk of the important 3.4 GHz range, one of the “pioneer” bands for 5G. It may not initially have been advertised as a “5G” auction, but as Ofcom understated it: the [...]