Bids in a crucial German auction for new-generation mobile phone licences neared the key €50 billion mark yesterday as speculation mounted that the six contenders were reaching the endgame.
After 162 rounds and 13 days of bidding, leading bids for UMTS licences in Europe's biggest telecoms market topped 93 billion deutschmarks (€47.7 billion).
"Today was a real working day," German telecoms regulator Mr Klaus-Dieter Scheurle said, "although we didn't really go forward in strategic terms."
Five heavyweights are expected to clinch a licence: Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobil, Vodafone's Mannesmann Mobilfunk, E-Plus-Hutchison, BT-backed Viag Interkom and France Telecom-backed re-seller MobilCom.
All eyes are on Group 3G, the alliance of Spain's Telefonica and Finland's Sonera, which is the only new entrant bidding in Germany. It is expected to quit this week, bringing the end of the 13-day tender within sight. But Group 3G is hanging on. It has bid DM15.3 billion for a licence, and is likely to offer up to DM16 billion before its probable exit.
The auction has topped the £22.5 billion sterling raised by the British government in its own UMTS licence auction in April - which triggered fears the industry may be crippled by high UMTS costs.
It has also dwarfed the DM20 billion of auction proceeds which Germany had budgeted for to pay around €33 billion of government debt.
