In spring 2000, the British government auctioned off licences for Third Generation mobile telecommunications services. In the preparation of the auction, two designs involving each a hybrid of an English and a sealed-bid auction were suggested by the government: a discriminatory and a uniform...

Because fourth-generation (4G) mobile communications services are provided over refarmed and heterogeneous bands for the first time, a unified spectrum management regime fails to accommodate the spectral heterogeneity. In Taiwan, we still extend the 2G incumbents’ usage right on the 900MHz and...

Inspired by some spectrum auctions, we consider a stylized license auction with incumbents and one entrant. Whereas the entrant values only the bundle of several units (synergy), incumbents are subject to non-increasing demand. The seller proactively encourages entry and restricts incumbent...

This paper considers bidder behaviour in the United Kingdom s UMTS spectrum auction. Evidence is reviewed which shows that some bidders in this auction did not bid straightforwardly in accordance with fixed valuations of the licenses. We go on to consider more speculative hypotheses about...

We briefly survey several insights about value and revenue maximization in multi-object auctions and apply them to the German (and Austrian) UMTS auction. In particular, we discuss in detail the exposure problem that caused firms in Germany to pay almost Euro 20 billion for nothing.