Four licences awarded in Swiss UMTS auction

The Swiss government restarted and closed bidding for four UMTS licences today, three weeks after suspending its first attempt.

The opening price had been set at SFr50m (£20.4m) per licence and bidding was expected to last until tomorrow. The Swiss Federal Office of Communication (OFCOM) said four rounds of bidding, instead of the predicted eight, took place on the internet. The government raised only SFr5m (£2.04m) above the opening price. Only four telcos - Swisscom, France Telecom's Orange, TeleDanmark's Diax and Spanish Telefonica - tendered bids and each has been awarded a licence. OFCOM had claimed having only four runners would not make bidding a problem as the licences are not identical but offer different spectrums and that they were coveted by several operators.