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The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today set out the final regulations for their plan to auction off a large chunk of millimetre wave (mmW) radio spectrum frequency in the 26GHz and 40GHz bands, which will come into force on 30th June 2025. The spectrum will be used by mobile network operators to deliver faster 5G data (broadband) services.
At present EE (BT), O2 (Virgin Media), VodafoneThree (Vodafone and Three UK) already have access to several 5G capable bands between 700MHz and 3.8GHz. Such frequencies reflect the same sort of mid-band radio spectrum that mobile network operators have been using since the advent of the first 3G and 4G networks many years ago.
The move to auction off 26GHz (25.1-27.5GHz) and 40GHz (40.5-43.5GHz) will complement those existing bands by providing lots of additional spectrum frequency to operators, which means more data capacity for extremely fast speeds (e.g. multi-Gigabit). But such signals tend to be very weak, which means they’ll primarily be used for serving busy urban areas (shopping malls, airports etc.) and fixed wireless broadband (FWA) links.
Readers may recall that Ofcom’s plan to auction off these additional bands had been on hold until the VodafoneThree merger had completed, which finally happened at the start of this month (here). As a result, Ofcom has now made the regulations which implement those decisions (here) and these will come into force from 30th June 2025.
Ofcom plans to auction licences to use spectrum in the two bands in certain parts of the country (the major towns and cities in which they expect the highest volume of mmWave deployment). The regulator aims to award several 15-year, fixed term citywide licences (“high density areas”) to use the “new” mmWave bands – reflecting 68 major towns and cities across the UK, as well as some localised licences for “low density areas” within those cities via their Shared Access licensing framework.
The timelines for all this remain unchanged. Ofcom will accept applications to participate in the auction on 16th and 17th September 2025, with the principal stage of the auction itself then getting underway in October 2025. The UK is a long way behind other countries that have already awarded spectrum in the mmW bands, but one advantage of playing catch-up is that supporting mobile kit and device support should be more mature.