Germany's Federal Network Agency has published its final plan for the 5G spectrum auction scheduled for spring 2019. Following political pressure, the regulator expanded the coverage requirements for licence holders and introduced an obligation for operators to negotiate on roaming and infrastructure and spectrum sharing as a means of improving mobile coverage in rural areas.
The Bundesnetzagentur said it sent the final draft proposal to its Advisory Council, which will issue its opinion on 26 November. After that the decision will be published and become final.
Jochen Homann, President of the Federal Network Agency, said the original auction proposal was revised in a number of areas, while "keeping in mind what is technically, economically and legally possible". This follows calls from politicians, including leading government members, to do more to cover rural areas and 'white spots' in the mobile networks.
The regulator had originally stated that the 2 GHz and 3.6 GHz frequencies did not have the propagation qualities to cover large areas. It's now agreed to add a deadline for covering more roads, waterways and railways, as well as a minimum latency requirement to support autonomous vehicles. In addition, operators will need to build more new base stations in white spots.
The draft proposal required operators to cover at least 98 percent of the population and all federal motoways and highways with speeds of 100 Mbps by the end of 2022. To this was added in the final plan the main federal roads and railways. In addition to the requirement to build 500 base stations by 2022 in white spots, the regulator added a requirement for 1,000 5G base stations by the same date.
Additional targets were added for the end of 2024, to cover all other federal roads with at least 100 Mbps and all national and state roads, ports, main waterways and other rail lines with at least 50 Mbps. Federal highways and roads must all have a maximum latency of 10ms.
The added roaming requirement is also designed to encourage improved coverage in rural areas. In areas where it is not viable for a single operator to provide coverage, operators are obliged to negotiate on cooperation, through a roaming agreement or infrastructure sharing. The Bundesnetzagentur will act as 'referee' in the event of disputes about the commercial terms of access.
To strengthen competition at the service level, the regulator also included a so-called 'service provider' requirement, as called for by alternative operators. This requires licence holders to negotiate with other service providers seeking access to their radio capacity. Again, the regulator will arbitrate in the event of any disputes on access.
The Network Agency said the auction will be open to existing and new operators. In a separate application procedure, additional local licences for the 3.7-3.8 GHz and 26 GHz bands will be made available after the 2019 auction.
