A large amount of 2600MHz spectrum was auctioned last time. Vodafone bought as much as they needed, and Three and O2 did not buy any of it. (They each bought some 800MHz spectrum). The bulk of it was then bought by EE and BT at a bargain price, and when they merged this made the situation worse. However, the reason Three are short of spectrum is because they didn't bid enough money last time. It really is as simple as that. They seem to think that they can do better by lobbying the regulator than by putting money up. They may be right, but I am not very sympathetic to them.
Three isn't going to back away from a fight over spectrum
Three’s £250m acquisition of loss-making UK Broadband shows the operator has a large appetite for spectrum, but it will be the forthcoming spectrum auction where the land-grab for frequencies will really take place. Hong Kong owner of Three, CK Hutchison, purchased UK Broadband this week (which also runs the Relish brand in …
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Monday 13th February 2017 10:58 GMT ARGO
Fair point.
But on similar grounds OFCOM should have blocked the BT / EE merger. It's true that BT weren't a mobile operator, but they bought the spectrum to be one back in 2013 - they just hadn't stumped up to build a network using that spectrum.
As OFCOM didn't block that merger, I understand that 3 and O2 would be a bit miffed if BT soak up everything in the new auction.