Bids, worth more than AU$800 million have been lodged by six companies hoping to claim a stake in Australia's third generation mobile telecommunications spectrum.
With AAPT pulling out before the bidding began this morning, six remaining contenders hammered it out online, to claim a stake in the 3G space.
At close of bidding, Telstra 3G Spectrum Holdings was leading the pack with AU$221 million bids.
Hutchinson Telecommunications was close behind with AU$196 million, and 3G Investments and Optus Mobile were running a close third, with bids worth around AU$185 million.
The total sum of the "high bids" after round two this afternoon was more than AU$804 million.
The bidders are competing for 58 spectrum lots on offer, with an aggregate reserve price of AU$1.08 billion.
Continuing until all the lots are claimed, the bidders include subsidiaries of Telstra, Hutchison Communications and Cable & Wireless Optus will take part in the electronic auction hosted on the Australian Communications Authority (ACA) Web site.
The structure of the auction will allow a bidder to bid for a 'national' licence, an 'all-cities' licence or for spectrum in individual cities or areas, with a single bid, the ACA said.
Licences are for 15 years from October 2002.
The licences to be auctioned are in the 2GHz band and will allow mobile access to voice, data and multimedia-based services.
The 2GHz band spectrum is available throughout most areas of Australia.
In all state and territory capital cities, except Canberra, 60MHz of paired spectrum and 20MHz of unpaired spectrum will be auctioned. In Canberra, 45MHz of paired spectrum and 20MHz of unpaired spectrum is available.
In regional Australia, the Authority says 20MHz of paired spectrum is being auctioned.
Competition limits mean that bidders can acquire no more than 25 percent of the available spectrum (15MHz of paired spectrum and 5MHz of unpaired spectrum) in metropolitan areas, and no more than 50 percent of the available spectrum (10MHz of paired spectrum) in regional Australia.
