Spain kicked off the auction of 58 wireless spectrum licenses in the 800 MHz, 900 MHz and 2.6 GHz spectrum bands that published reports indicated could raise nearly $3 billion for the country.
The auction, which is expected to take around two weeks, counts 11 companies looking to acquire the licenses, including Telefonica SA, Vodafone Group plc and France Telecom SA. France Telecom earlier this month picked up 10 megahertz of spectrum in the 900 MHz frequency band that it said it would spend more than $624 million in building out coverage.
A recent report from Nielsen found that nearly 40% of mobile customer in Spain were using smartphones at the end of the first quarter. Those devices typically put additional strain on mobile networks due to their ability to access a broad array of Internet services and their embedded access to application stores.
Spain kicks off spectrum auction
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