LONDON-After 14 rounds of bidding in the U.K. auction of 42 broadband fixed wireless access licenses, bids totaled more than $123.7 million last week, with two companies withdrawing.
FirstMark Communications and Unica Communications had withdrawn from the auction at press time.
Of the 14 regions with three licenses each for sale, $31 million was bid for the three licenses up for grabs in the greater London area.
The activity level after 14 rounds was 75 percent, according to the U.K. Radiocommuniations Agency. Bids had been submitted in all the regions after a slow start to the auction, with some regions going without bidders in the early rounds.
Ten companies began in the auction, anticipated to bring in about $1.42 billion. The remaining participants include Broadnet UK, Chorus Communications, Eircom, Energis Local Access, Faultbasic, Formus Communications, Norweb Telecom and Winstar Communications.
The greater Manchester and West Midlands regions drew the second-largest bids amounts at about $20.5 million total each. Bids were the lowest in the Northern Ireland region, totaling $995,000 for the three licenses.
