Australian 3G auction shifts over reserve price

Bids in Australia's third generation radio spectrum auction totalled A$1.17 billion on Wednesday, shifting over the aggregate reserve price after five days of the auction.

The figure shifted from A$1.078 billion on Tuesday, which was just below the reserve of A$1.08 billion.

The auction continues on Thursday.

3G mobile phone technology is expected to provide high-speed Internet access, data, video and CD-quality music services. All six bidders remain in the auction.

They are Telstra Corp Ltd, Cable & Wireless Optus Ltd, Vodafone Group Plc, Qualcomm Inc's 3G Investments, Hutchison Telecommunications (Australia) Ltd, and ArrayCommInc's CKW Wireless.

A breakdown of the bidding on Wednesday showed Telstra had high bids worth A$302.02 million, Vodafone had A$253.55 million, C&W Optus A$250.18 million, Hutchison A$203.52 million and 3G Investments A$159 million.

CKW Wireless, which had high bids on Monday totalling A$7.95 million, had no high bids on Wednesday or Tuesday.

The Australian government had forecast it would raise around A$2 billion from the 3G auction and A$2.6 billion from total spectrum sales this fiscal year to end-June.

However, the forecast is now considered optimistic as it was made last May before a global downturn in telco stocks amid concern at capital spending.

Successful bidders in the Australian auction will be allocated licences with a 15-year term, starting October 2002.