WorldCom Wireless became the latest-and most high-profile-company to fall victim to the climbing bids for five Universal Mobile Telecommunications System licenses in the United Kingdom last week.
WorldCom withdrew from the auction Thursday, reducing the number of active bidders to seven. The contest will end if another two companies withdraw.
WorldCom made no reference to the extremely high prices of the UMTS licenses upon its departure from the auction, but said only that it wanted to explore other wireless opportunities in the United Kingdom.
Jake Saunders, regional director of The Strategis Group, London, noted the current cost of the licenses would make the license fee capitalization $522 per person. The average revenue per subscriber in the United Kingdom in 1999 was $991, meaning it will take the operators quite some time just to pay off the license fee, Saunders said.
Round 129 ended Friday with bids totaling approximately $32.4 billion, up more than $10 billion from the week prior. Vodafone AirTouch plc and BT3G engaged in a bidding war for the highly coveted license B all week. The dominant bidder for many rounds, Vodafone lost its grip on the license when BT3G maneuvered past the company Friday with a bid of $8.33 billion. Vodafone was offering $8.13 billion in round 128.
NTL Mobile held onto license A with a bid of $6.78 billion. Canada-based Telesystem International Wireless Inc. was the high bidder several rounds earlier.
License C was at $5.82 billion with an offer from Spain’s Telefonica. It forged ahead of One2One, which was offering $5.68 billion during the previous round.
TIW found temporary victory in license D after being the high bidder for several different licenses at various times during the week. On Friday it pulled ahead in the quest for license D with an offer of $5.69 billion.
Finally, Orange plc moved ahead of TIW earlier in the week and went several rounds unchallenged in the fight for license E, with a top bid of $5.78 billion.
