Digi Hungary Left Out Of Hungarian 5G Auction

Hungarian telecom authority NMHH approved Magyar Telekom, Telenor Hungary and Vodafone Hungary’s participation in the 5G spectrum auction. However, the watchdog said it didn’t admit Digi Hungary’s application as the operator failed to meet the auction’s eligibility criteria. Digi Hungary’s parent company Digi Communications said it will contest NMHH’s decision in court. Digi deemed NMHH’s move as “unfair and without legal grounds.”

Digi added NMHH’s decision exceeds the provisions of the tender documentation and is based on assumptions and future projections instead of facts and documented analyses.

Candidates will be able to initially bid for the frequency bands 2,600 MHz and 3,600 MHz and then for the 700 MHz and 2,100 MHz bands between 23 September and 11 October. The participants will also take part in a test auction. NMHH said it will only disclose the results of each auction day at the end of the procedure in its decision closing the auction. This is scheduled to take place in late October, early November.

With the 700 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,600 MHz and 3,600 MHz bands sold for 15 years, extendable once by five years, the authority’s main goal is to enable domestic mobile networks, and especially their users, to benefit from technological progress in 5G technology.―Telecompaper