Four bids submitted for 4G frequency licenses

Photo: Mihkel Maripuu

Four bids were submitted by the deadline of the public competition for fourth-generation frequency licenses announced by the Estonian Technical Surveillance Authority last month.

How many of the applicants wanted to participate in the beauty contest aimed at providing services in a network covering at least 95 percent of the country's territory will become clear after the opening of the bids on Monday, lead specialist at the authority's frequency administration department Irena Lukas told BNS.

"The winner of the so-called beauty contest will be determined first and thereafter an auction of two more frequency licenses will be held within 30 days at the latest," Lukas said.

EMT bid for frequency licenses in both categories, CEO Valdo Kalm told BNS. "As we all know, this is a multi-stage competition and we filed applications for both," he said.

Tele2 Eesti likewise submitted bids including for the frequency license to be granted by way of beauty contest, manager Mindaugas Ubartas confirmed.

Elisa Eesti on Friday declined comment on the company's participation in the public competition. "Whether or not we took part will become clear on Monday," CEO Sami Seppanen told BNS.

The licenses will be issued for the 790-862 megaherz frequency band and the winners will be able to start developing a fourth-generation universal electronic communications network.

The agency will grant three licenses in all. One of the conditions of the beauty contest is the starting date of service provision in a network covering at least 95 percent of the territory of Estonia with data service with a minimum speed of five Mbps. The license fee is one million euros.

The remaining two licenses will be put on auction with a starting price of 1.6 million euros. The auction guarantee is 200,000 euros and bidders' revenues from electronic communication services must have amounted to at least one million euros in the previous year.