Public consultation on the conditions for the tender of 700 MHz frequencies, one of the priority bands for the development of 5G technology, begins

Today, the public consultation on the conditions that should govern the auction of 700 MHz frequencies, one of the priority bands for the deployment of 5G and whose tender is scheduled for the first quarter of 2021, has been published.

These frequencies have been freed from their previous use by the DTT channels that occupied them through the process of the Second Digital Dividend, which was completed on October 31.

Similarly, the tender conditions for the 700 MHz band will be subject to peer review in the European Union's Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) on a voluntary basis tomorrow.

This mutual learning instrument is one of the innovations incorporated in Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Code of Electronic Communications. Its objective is for Member States to exchange experiences and good practices on the radio spectrum frequency allocation process.

Aspects of the future tender that are subject to public consultation and will be shared in the peer review include the general rules of the tender, the duration of the licences of each concession, which is proposed to be 20 years, and the eight frequency blocks to be auctioned: one concession of 2x10 MHz; four concessions of 2x5 MHz, in the paired band 703-733 MHz and 758-788 MHz, and three concessions of 5 MHz for communications only downwards in the band 738-753 MHz.

Likewise, the text proposes to establish a two-tier coverage requirement model: a first tier, mandatory for concessionaires of 2x5 MHz blocks, and a second tier of additional requirements for the 2x10 MHz block.

The consultation allows us to move towards the objective of facilitating the availability of priority bands for 5G services, established in the first axis of action of the Technology Promotion Strategy 5G, recently presented in the Council of Ministers and which will have public funding of 2 billion euros until 2025, of which 300 million are already in the General State Budgets for 2021.

5G, the fifth generation of mobile technology, enables hyper-connectivity (permanent, high-capacity, low-latency, high-speed connections between people and machines), enabling innovative applications that will facilitate the digital transformation of the economy and society and boost recovery after the health crisis. For this reason, it is one of the priorities of both the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism of the European Union and the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Spanish economy and one of the axes of the Digital Spain Agenda 2025, the road map of digital transformation in Spain.

The public consultation on the conditions of the auction of the 700 MHz frequencies will remain open until January 17, 2021. The text can be consulted here.