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| Ofcom raises £2.34bn from 4G auction | Ofcom raises £2.34bn from 4G auction |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Telecoms regulator Ofcom has raised £2.34bn from its auction of 4G mobile spectrum, less than expected. | Telecoms regulator Ofcom has raised £2.34bn from its auction of 4G mobile spectrum, less than expected. |
| The Office for Budget Responsibility had forecast that the auction would raise £3.5bn for the Treasury. | The Office for Budget Responsibility had forecast that the auction would raise £3.5bn for the Treasury. |
| The winning bidders are Everything Everywhere, Hutchison 3G UK, Niche Spectrum Ventures - a BT subsidiary, Telefonica, and Vodafone. | The winning bidders are Everything Everywhere, Hutchison 3G UK, Niche Spectrum Ventures - a BT subsidiary, Telefonica, and Vodafone. |
| 4G mobile broadband should provide smartphone and tablet computer users with superfast download speeds. | 4G mobile broadband should provide smartphone and tablet computer users with superfast download speeds. |
| The auction netted far less than the £22bn raised from the 3G auction in 2000. | |
| Ed Richards, Ofcom chief executive, told the BBC that the figure was lower because "we are in very, very different times", but he insisted that maximising the size of the auction was not the objective it was set by the government. | |
| "What we were trying to do was ensure that a valuable economic resource was brought into productive commercial use," he said. | |
| Ofcom says 4G will provide £20bn of benefits for UK consumers over the next 10 years. | Ofcom says 4G will provide £20bn of benefits for UK consumers over the next 10 years. |
| The regulator auctioned the spectrum in two bands, 800MHz and 2.6GHz, equivalent to two-thirds of the radio frequencies currently used by tablet computers, smartphones and laptops. | |
| This "will allow 4G networks to achieve widespread coverage as well as offering capacity to cope with significant demand in urban centres", said Mr Richards. | |
| "4G coverage will extend far beyond that of existing 3G services, covering 98% of the UK population indoors - and even more when outdoors - which is good news for parts of the country currently underserved by mobile broadband", he said. | |
| Vodafone bid £791m, the most of all the bidders, for fives chunks of spectrum. | |
| Mobile operator EE, the T-Mobile and Orange joint venture, was the first to launch a 4G service in late 2012, but has struggled to attract users, leading it to cut its prices in January. |