Spectrum Awards

Licences to use the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz spectrum for 4G mobile broadband services have now been issued.

The final auction results including the outcome of the assignment stage are available here.

The auction has achieved Ofcom's purpose of promoting strong competition in the 4G mobile market. This is expected to lead to faster mobile broadband speeds, lower prices, greater innovation, new investment and better coverage. Almost the whole UK population will be able to receive 4G mobile services by the end of 2017 at the latest.

A total of 250 MHz of spectrum was auctioned in two separate bands - 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz. This is equivalent to two thirds of the radio frequencies currently used by wireless devices such as tablets, smartphones and laptops.

News release for 4G auction results

The mobile network operators are responsible for ensuring that consumers continue to receive clear Digital Terrestrial Television signals following the roll out of 4G mobile services in the 800 MHz spectrum band. Visit www.at800.tv for more information.

Outcome of the 4G auction assignment stage

Ofcoms approach to specific spectrum awards is assessed case by case. However, our general approach is to prepare an award, including determining spectrum packaging and auction design, in a way that is most likely to secure the optimal use of the spectrum. In doing this, we generally aim to give the market as much flexibility as possible to determine how the spectrum is used, without pre-determining the technologies or applications that may be used, while protecting neighbouring users from harmful interference.

For information on all our awards please see our Awards in Progress, Prospective Awards  and the Awards Archive.

The public sector has around half of the most useful spectrum and it uses it for a variety of services including defence, emergency services, transport and science.

Against a background of increasing demand for spectrum from both the public and private sectors, the Government announced in their March 2011 Enabling UK Growth - Releasing public spectrum that at least 500 MHz of public sector holdings below 5 GHz is planned to be released by 2020.

As part of the Government's plans, the Ministry of Defence  has identified their bands for commercial sharing opportunities under its Defence Spectrum Reform work  new sharing opportunities for public and private sector users. This is in addition to releases at 2300 and 3400 MHz that the MoD is planning to take to market in 2014.

Ofcom is providing technical and regulatory support for the MoDs 2.3 GHz, 3.4 GHz and sharing band releases.