Looks like Europe is openning up some new spectrum for FWB soon. This should be good for VARL customers.
What you say about the revenue restatement is true. They should take some extra care and explain it now. I think they could do well to have an interview on Radio Wall Street, or at least make a long statement about what happened and what the future holds.
Regards, Mark
UK fixed wireless auction plans announced
by Tatum Anderson on 16 June 2000 13:45:00 GMT
UK E-Commerce Minister Patricia Hewitt has revealed details of the forthcoming auctioning of radio spectrum for broadband fixed wireless access.
The technology will allow users to access cheap, fast internet and multimedia via radio, rather than through conventional dial-up methods. Data speeds are thought to be equal to, if not faster than, current broadband offerings.
As part of the plans, 28GHz of spectrum will be up for auction, with three licences available in each of the eleven English licence areas as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each of the licences will be allocated 112MHz of spectrum. The licences will be valid for 15 years and bidders will be allowed to hold one licence in each area, but in as many areas as they are successful.
According to Hewitt, draft regulations will soon be published, in addition with a notice, which will contain details about how the auction will be carried out. The period for comments to be received ends July 17. She added that she hopes to present the Regulations before Parliament by the end of July.
Many observers have called for the auction rules to be changed to prevent licence bids reaching the ridiculous proportions as the third generation mobile phone licences, which gave the government a windfall of over œ22bn
and ...
Italy to Get at Least 10 Bln Euros for Mobile Permits (Update1)
By John Glover
Rome, June 16 (Bloomberg) -- The Italian government set a minimum price of 2 billion euros ($1.9 billion) for each of the five high-speed mobile phone licenses it will award later this year, to raise at least 10 billion euros.
They government didn't fix a maximum price for the licenses. Italy originally planned to sell them for about 181 million euros to 284 million euros, but the 22.5 billion pounds ($34 billion) raised by the U.K.'s auction of similar licenses prompted a rethink.
Italy said last month it will use a two-step bidding process to award the licenses. Companies seeking a license will be allowed to bid from the minimum price after they have passed a pre- qualification stage. The U.K. sold its licenses to the highest bidder, while Spain used a ``beauty contest'' method that awarded licenses based on criteria such as experience and job creation.
The so called third-generation mobile services, for which the permits are being sold, will let users access the Web at 40 times existing speeds using wireless devices. Ericsson AB, the third- largest mobile phone maker in the world, said that by 2005 it expects more people will connect to the Web using their mobile phones than by conventional methods.
Italy, which had the most cellular phones in Europe with about 30.2 million subscribers in 1999, is expected to see an 89 percent increase in users to 57.2 million by 2005, according to a report by Chase H&Q.
Analysts expect four of the new mobile licenses will go the four companies that currently offer mobile services. Those companies are Telecom Italia Mobile SpA -- the biggest in Italy with more than 19 million clients -- Omnitel Pronto Italia SpA, Wind SpA and Blu SpA.
Telecommunications company e.Biscom SpA is also preparing a bid as part of group called Dix.it that also includes Milan utility Aem SpA and Banca di Roma SpA. Rome utility ACEA SpA will bid through a joint venture with Spain's Telefonica SA. |
