Norwegian 5G auction winners : 2 new comers and main 3 operators

The Norway’s National Communications Authority has finally announced the winning bidders of its multi-band spectrum of 5G auction which has started on date of 06 May with total of 4,739 MHz of 5G spectrum.

The frequencies were splitted into 65 blocks in 8 bands, with mainly low 10 GHz, high 10 GHz, 13 GHz, 18 GHz, 23 GHz, 28 GHz, 32 GHz and 38 GHz.

In the event, one of the 6 bidders walked away without any new frequency which is Ceragon Networks.

The auction was conducted for 118 rounds and spectrum was awarded to the current 3 mobile operators Telenor, Telia and Ice, as well as 2 newcomers which are GlobalConnect/Broadnet and Funn, for more than NOK 34 million.

-GlobalConnect/Broadnet is the leading Northern European fiber-based datacom provider and supplier of cloud enabling infrastructure. In fact Broadnet controls over 24,000 km of fiber in Norway through its nationwide back-bone and metro network and GlobalConnectis the leading alternative provider of fiber-based B2B data communication services as well as the largest Danish data center provider

It is for sure that in Norway, this variety of successful bidders will be beneficial for country in terms of expansion, competitiveness, and also resilience.

Nkom said GlobalConnect will pay the amount fo NOK 547,000, Funn amount of NOK 872,077, Ice Communication Norway amout of NOK 1.58 million, Telia Norway amout of NOK 9.28 million and Telenor Norway amount NOK 21.98 million.

Nkom  also added that all of the winning bidders can postpone the payment for their new spectrum up to November 2020  due to the COVID-19 pandemic.