“In Europe, British Telecom (BT) will be one of the first adopters of mobile WiMax on a big scale,” says Rudy Leser, corporate VP at Alvarion.
BT is pursuing WiMax 2.6GHz licenses as spectrum becomes available in the UK and Norway this year, Germany in early 2008 and Sweden in the spring of 2008, reports Unstrung today.
BT Group PLC has issued a request for information for WiMax and wants to bid for spectrum in the U.K. this year and in other European markets next year, Unstrung has learned. And they aren’t the only ones interested in WiMax in the country as the upcoming spectrum auction stirs up interest.
U.K. regulator Office of Communications (Ofcom) will auction 215 MHz of spectrum in the 2.6GHz range, which is commonly referred to in Europe as the 3G expansion band, at the end of this year or early next year. Ofcom has not finalized the auction and spectrum specifics, but it proposes that of the 215 MHz of spectrum, between 50 MHz and 190 MHz will be suitable for WiMax. (See Spectrum up for Grabs in Europe, below).
Upcoming European Wireless Spectrum Awards
Country Frequency Potential Uses Potential Bidders Date of Auction/Beauty Contest France 2.1 GHz 3G Iliad and Noos July 2007 Germany 2.6 GHz 3G expansion band T-Mobile, E-Plus, Vodafone, O2 Early 2008 Ireland 1785-1805 MHz broadband wireless access March 2007 Italy 3.5 GHz WiMax FastWeb, Tiscali, Telecom Italia June 2007 Norway 2.6 GHz 3G expansion band, technology neutral Telenor, TeliaSonera’s NetCom October 2007 Portugal 3.4 GHz-3.6 GHz WiMax 2007 Sweden 3.6 GHz-3.8 GHz mobile WiMax, technology neutral TeliaSonera, Bredbandsbolaget (B2) October/November 2007 Sweden 2.6 GHz 3G expansion band, technology neutral TeliaSonera, Telenor, Tele2, 3 Spring 2008 United Kingdom 2.6 GHz 3G expansion band, technology neutral Not known End 2007 United Kingdom 479 MHz - 868 MHz currently in consultation Not known Consultation ends in March 2007 “If the auction gets too aggressive we don’t have to play — we have learned from our past experience. If the price is right, then that’s fine. If the price is too high then the MVNO opportunity is the other option,” said BT Wholesale chief technology officer Matt Beal.
Among the usual suspects that BT approached for this RFI are likely to be Motorola, Nokia Siemens Networks, and Alvarion.
Motorola also would not disclose any details about BT’s RFI, or even whether it is participating, but it is already a wireless supplier to the British operator. Motorola operates BT Openzones, a network of WiFi hotspots, and it is building mesh WiFi networks in six of BT’s wireless cities, a nation-wide initiative.
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