…the UK consumer. Or at least that’s the plan.
After more than 50 bidding rounds new superfast mobile broadband 4G, once only available on EE (which owns T-Mobile and Orange), will be seen on O2, Vodaphone and Three as well. This is hardly a surprise. What the auction was really for was how much of the bandwidth each network would get.
As it turns out, Vodaphone bid the most - £800m for a two 10MHz cuts of the 800MHz band, as well as other bits of bandwidth that will enable it to offer faster mobile data to customers. BT bid the least so get a smaller share, but they could just be testing the water before getting back into mobile phones, which it largely walked away from a while ago.
Surprisingly, EE bid another £600m for more bandwidth, despite owning 1,800Mhz bandwidth from which it offers its 4G service.
All of that is relatively boring to the consumer. All they want to know is what is it, when can they have it and what will it cost?
And this is where they might now start to win. EE was criticised for its pricing structure when they had monopoly and that will now need to be reviewed. Why? Because the other networks will now be competing for your money by offering far better deals on 4G connectivity.
In fact, Three have already said they’ll roll out 4G to their existing coverage without raising prices. Your move, EE.
The auction won’t be viewed as a success by the UK government. They had planned on it raising £3.5 billion for the Treasury. Instead, it was just over £2 billion – £2.34bn to be exact. That leaves a gaping £1 billion hole in the country’s finances as Chancellor George Osborne had included that money in this year’s figures, hoping to reduce the deficit. Oops.
