BT, Colt, Cable & Wireless and Teleware are among the 12 successful bidders for Guard Band licences
Colt Mobile Communications appears to have paid well over the odds for the wireless telegraphy, or Guard Band, licence it purchased from Ofcom this week, shelling out £1.5m for a slice of spectrum that cost rival operators as little as £50,000.
BT, which purchased its licence for £275,000, will use the Guard Band to offer telemetry and equipment monitoring services like those already offered by subsidiary RedCare. It will also consider applying the spectrum to fixed mobile convergence (FMC) options, much like its current Fusion service, which delivers private mobile calls over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
"The Guard Band is of interest to certain sectors of the market who want a Fusion-type service, but using cheaper mobile phones with less functionality than the Fusion handset," said BT spokesman Mike Jarvis.
The Guard Band is a 6.6MHz strip of spectrum originally put aside to prevent interference between the 1800MHz and 1900MHz wavebands, but which is now not needed for this purpose.
Ofcom's decision to sell off the spectrum means that licensees can build private GSM networks in firms’ buildings and campuses, replacing Dect and Wi-Fi phones with standard GSM handsets. Internal GSM calls can then be routed over company PBX's or IP telephony gateways either for free or at lower cost than similar calls over expensive cellular services from Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile or Orange.
Ofcom's sealed bid process meant that none of the 14 companies that applied for the 12 identical licences knew what the others were bidding; Colt thought the licence worth £1.5m, whereas Cable & Wireless submitted a winning bid of only £51,000 and Spring Mobile spent £50,000.
Teleware also paid a large sum of money, £1m, for its licence, while Orange Personal Communications and Zynetix bid so low that both missed out completely.
"Colt is pleased that it won the licence and is comfortable with the amount it has paid. We did not want to put in a lower bid and risk the chance of losing the licence," said Colt spokeswoman Gill Maclean.
Colt Mobile Communications appears to have paid well over the odds for the wireless telegraphy, or Guard Band, licence it purchased from Ofcom this week, shelling out £1.5m for a slice of spectrum that cost rival operators as little as £50,000.
BT, which purchased its licence for £275,000, will use the Guard Band to offer telemetry and equipment monitoring services like those already offered by subsidiary RedCare. It will also consider applying the spectrum to fixed mobile convergence (FMC) options, much like its current Fusion service, which delivers private mobile calls over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
"The Guard Band is of interest to certain sectors of the market who want a Fusion-type service, but using cheaper mobile phones with less functionality than the Fusion handset," said BT spokesman Mike Jarvis.
The Guard Band is a 6.6MHz strip of spectrum originally put aside to prevent interference between the 1800MHz and 1900MHz wavebands, but which is now not needed for this purpose.
Ofcom's decision to sell off the spectrum means that licensees can build private GSM networks in firms’ buildings and campuses, replacing Dect and Wi-Fi phones with standard GSM handsets. Internal GSM calls can then be routed over company PBX's or IP telephony gateways either for free or at lower cost than similar calls over expensive cellular services from Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile or Orange.
Ofcom's sealed bid process meant that none of the 14 companies that applied for the 12 identical licences knew what the others were bidding; Colt thought the licence worth £1.5m, whereas Cable & Wireless submitted a winning bid of only £51,000 and Spring Mobile spent £50,000.
Teleware also paid a large sum of money, £1m, for its licence, while Orange Personal Communications and Zynetix bid so low that both missed out completely.
"Colt is pleased that it won the licence and is comfortable with the amount it has paid. We did not want to put in a lower bid and risk the chance of losing the licence," said Colt spokeswoman Gill Maclean.
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