PUBLISHER: BuddeComm | PRODUCT CODE: 1110267
PUBLISHER: BuddeComm | PRODUCT CODE: 1110267
Estonia progresses with 5G services
Estonia's telecom regulator first announced plans to auction three licences in the 3.6GHz range for in February 2019. This spectrum was to be used for 5G services, but the auction was cancelled soon afterwards after wireless ISPs complained that the auction terms favoured the existing MNOs, and that a fourth licence should have been offered to encourage a new market entrant. The regulator responded by asserting that three licenses would have provided for improved network speed and capacity, clearly two important considerations given the growth in mobile data traffic anticipated from subscribers adopting 5G services.
One consideration was that Russia uses the 3.6-3.8GHz range for military communications, and there could be cross-border interference pending Russia's migration to other spectrum bands. Estonia cannot yet use spectrum in the 700MHz for 5G since Russia still uses that spectrum for TV broadcasting.
The auction was eventually started in May 2022. Elisa secured one of the three licenses on offer, having bid €7.206 million (against a reserve price of €1.597 million).
This license has less stringent restrictions placed on it in relation to areas bordering with Russia. The auction for the second available licence has attracted interest from Telia, Tele2, and Bité Lietuva. This licence is for 130MHz (3410-3800MHz), with the same reserve price.
Table 45 International bandwidth 2011 2017
Table 73 Historic - Decline in the number of Telia Estonia's PSTN/ISDN subscribers 2002 2016