FRANKFURT, May 28 (Reuters) - Bids have reached 1.84 billioneuros ($2.01 billion) in Germany's auction of radio frequenciesfor mobile phone network operators, clearing the mostpessimistic estimate just two days into what will be weeks ofbidding, data showed.
Germany started the auction on Wednesday, setting a floor at1.5 billion euros. Some experts had expected it may raise only20-30 percent above the minimum bids.
After 23 rounds of bidding in two days, the data from theGerman telecoms regulator showed showed Deutsche Telekom had put in the highest bid of 105.74 million eurosfor a block of frequencies in the 900 megahertz (MHz) band.
That range of frequencies will be a hot asset for telecomsoperators because of the strength of the signal it carries aswell as its reach.
The former state monopoly is competing with TelefonicaDeutschland and Vodafone.
The regulator had set a minimum price of 75 million eurosfor blocks in the 900 MHz and 700 MHz bands.
Analysts expect the auction to raise a maximum of 4 to 5billion euros, a far cry from the 50.8 billion euros thegovernment raised in the auction in 2000 for new 3G networklicences, when there were six groups bidding.
Fifteen years later, the number of network operatorscompeting for the mix of 4G frequencies has been reduced fromfour to three after Telefonica Deutschland bought E-Plus fromKPN for 8.6 billion euros last year.
The bidding process follows the principle of the so-calledsimultaneous multiple round auction (SMRA) and is expected totake a few weeks.($1 = 0.9161 euros) (Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; Editing by Alison Williams)
Vodafone (VOD)
