aware of the penalties that will be imposed for not meeting the various criteria, 

and that criteria are specified in a way that facilitates objective measurement. 

Typical criteria that can be measured through comparative selection include: 

Coverage (typically specified in terms of geographic or population 

coverage at a pre defined field strength level) 

Number of base stations that will be deployed to provide this level 

of coverage 

Grade of service that will be delivered (e.g. percentage of blocked 

or dropped calls) 

Customer service (e.g. time taken to respond to complaints or 

repairs) 

Also other issues can be taken into account such as: 

Financial viability of bidders  

Willingness to accept specific obligations such as: 

- 

Infrastructure sharing 

- 

Provision of national roaming to any new entrants 

- 

Providing network access to mobile virtual network operators 

(MVNOs) 

Other criteria on which the regulator might be able to assess the bids: 

Viability of business plan 

Financial Commitments (e.g. a performance bond may be required 

to guarantee compliance with other criteria such as coverage   if 

the commitment is not met the amount of the performance bond 

must be paid to the REGULATOR) 

Criteria which are difficult to predict over the timescales of the licence: 

Tariffs for the services to be provided 

Types of services that will be provided 

Revenues 

Costs 

Customer base 

5.8.2.2.2 AUCTIONS 

The use of auctions has become increasingly popular recently with many of 

the 3G mobile licences awarded through this process.  Provided there is 

sufficient demand for access to the spectrum a well designed auction is 

considered by some to be the  most likely method to allocate resources to 

those who can use them most valuably  and it will directly set the market 

value of the spectrum without it having to be estimated.  It is certainly the case 

that properly designed auctions provide a transparent and somewhat less 

subjective approach to authorisation than beauty contest. 

Auctions have advantages over other allocation methods in terms of 

transparency and objectivity and have been shown to be an effective method 

for the authorisation of spectrum use.  There does however need to be 

sufficient viable bidders for a positive outcome and where there are 

insufficient bidders it is important that the reserve price set by the 

REGULATOR reflects as closely as possible the economic value of the 

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