No stopping the Aussies

date: 17 November 2000

The Australian Communications Authority has revealed it will not delay the auction of 3G spectrum licenses and will still go ahead in January 2001. Australian operator One.Tel had appealed for a delay. As a result One.Tel has announced it will not enter the Australian or European auctions. One.Tel executive Stephen Moore has said the company sees that spectrum on offer is "merely as additional bandwidth, and not required for the Next Generation Network."

The Australian Government has set a dangerous target of A$2.6bn being written into the budget from the auction revenue. Having seen the blatant failure in recent weeks by the Italians and the Austrians to get anywhere near as much as predicted, the government would be foolish not to re-assess their strategy. The current three large Australian mobile operators have expressed caution over the amount being spent in the UK and Germany to obtain licenses. It seems they will be pleased that the trend of high-priced auctions has come to an end, for the moment.

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